17th Bunker Rebuild (The Beginning and Middle)

I first walked round the West Links in 2018 after spending the day at Gullane for the one of the practice days of the Scottish Open. For those that remember, 2018 was a particularly dry year with most courses in Scotland looking 40 shades of yellow rather than green. I remember walking down the walkway from the 2nd tee to the fairway and being struck by the long bunker on 17 and thinking "wow, what an amazing feature". From the photo below you will see that it was a bit rough around the edges, but still a great feature.

I came back for a walk around in 2019 and walking past the same bunker that had had turf rolled down the face and thinking that it did not look anywhere near as interesting or dramatic without the revetted wall.

The bunker condition has been deteriorating for a long time now and the decision was made shortly after my appointment that we were going to restore to a former glory and give it a facelift it deserves.

Initially the plan was to do the project in-house, using the 5th and 12th bunkers as training exercise for the team to get an idea of how to revet bunkers and to get a feel of what is expected. Following a conversation with our Agronomic Consultant, Chris Haspell, it was decided that it was a bigger project than we initially thought and with Chris's help, we would bring a digger in to help with the rebuild. Chris was the Course Manager at Castle Stuart during construction and has assisted on other projects for leading Golf Course Architects such as Gil Hanse at Les Bordes in France and was part of the team that "found" Askernish on South Uist.

Chris enlisted the help of Clyde Johnson, who is the owner of Cunnin Golf Design and has worked in the Golf Course Construction industry for over years, working all over the world at course such as Tara Iti in New Zealand, St Patricks Links in the Republic of Ireland and St Enodoc in England to name a few. Between Chris and Clyde, they bring a wealth of knowledge, experience and excavation/shaping skills, it was decided we would start the rebuild in the New Year.

The state of the bunker prior to the excavation works starting, was very poor. The bunker is South-facing which means it is in the sun during the day which will dry the revetted wall out, the prevaling South-Westerly wind would constantly beat against it and blow sand up the face, eroding the turf on the face. The turf that had been added in 2019 had almost eroded entirely with the turf pegs used to keep the turf in place visible throughout the face.. Even the walk-in was in poor condition and not conducive to keeping high-quality turf on the banks which were hard to mow with our fairway mower. I have attached a few photos below showing the poor conditions.

Clyde arrived early morning on Tuesday 9th of January and immediately started the tear down of the old bunker faces. Over the years due to sand blow, grass encroachment and without being properly rebuilt for a number of years, it was decided to take the bunker back out to its original size which has increased the bunker size quite considerably. Clyde excavated a rough shape of the bunker and then did some "fine tuning" to get the right shape, levels and contours. As the walk-in was in such bad condition too, it was decided to take this out and reshape it to fit the new landscape of the revetted wall.

Whilst digging out the left side of the bunker, old railways sleepers which would have been part of the original face were found 4-5 feet back from the existing face. This was an exciting discovery and piece of "Archaeology" for a bunch of Golf Course Architecture enthusiasts.

Chris joined us mid-morning once Clyde had shaped the left hand side and began setting the first line of turf. Chris was also on-hand to train and share his expertise with the team which will be invaluable for the team going forward. Using a laser-level, he made sure each level of turf was laid flat and followed the same angle of the existing wall.

Chris and Clyde have done an incredible job of restoring an iconic bunker on the West Links and the team are excited to finish the work they started. We are lucky that within our team, we have Scott who is from a visual production background and has documented a lot of the work so far.......watch this space!!