Icame across a good way to monitor sand depth on a USGA Course Consulting Service visit in Canada this week. The course is renovating everything, including bunkers. They chose a porous aggregate liner and manufactured sand to improve playability, maintenance efficiency and aesthetics. Of course, they want to protect their investment to the fullest.
Part of their strategy for doing so is using marking whiskers, sometimes called trail chasers or stake chasers, spaced throughout the bunker floors 1 inch below the desired sand depth. These are a guide for the maintenance team to alert them if sand gets shallow in any area. If a whisker becomes visible in the sand, this tells you to add an inch to maintain a consistent depth. Whiskers are perfect for this because they are soft and pliable so if they were to get struck by a club during a shot or hit with a mechanical rake, they will bend but not break. Fellow USGA agronomist Cory Isom wrote about this strategy being used on the West Coast a few years ago and I’m happy to see it over on the east side of the continent now.
It is still a good idea to physically check sand depth occasionally, but when time is short during the season, whiskers will give you real-time feedback. Bunker renovations are popular right now, and the expectations for playability and presentation are probably as high as we’ve ever seen. Any tool that can help monitor sand depth without adding additional work is valuable.
Northeast Region Agronomists:
Darin Bevard, senior director, Championship Agronomy – dbevard@usga.org
Elliott L. Dowling, regional director, East Region – edowling@usga.org
Brian Gietka, agronomist – bgietka@usga.org
Information on the USGA’s Course Consulting Service
Contact the Green Section Staff