The Great British Bunker Study: key findings

BIGGA teamed up with EcoBunker, the leading developer of synthetic golf bunker technology, to conduct The Great British Bunker Study, a research project with the aim of helping inform future designs and techniques. We caught up with civil engineer and avid golfer Richard Allen, who founded EcoBunker in 2014, to discuss the findings.

Key findings of the survey:

• More than 90% of those surveyed cited sand contamination as a major concern
• An estimated 9% of bunkers are not necessary
• 1 in 6 bunkers add no strategic value for low-handicap (single digit) players

What was the purpose and scope of the study?

The Great British Bunker Study was a research project to inform better design and more efficient maintenance practices. We went out and conducted audits to understand how clubs manage and maintain their bunkers, and we looked to see if there was anything about the design of those bunkers that could be improved to ensure that maintenance process was more efficient.

We carried out 38 audits predominantly across parkland golf courses, though a variety of course types were included.

 What were the key findings?

The most common word that came up was ‘inconsistency’, with pretty much every golf club we went to having some issue with inconsistent bunkers.

The biggest concern we encountered was sand contamination – over 90% of those we spoke to said this was among their top three concerns. There’s a fairly widespread opinion that sand contamination mainly comes from the soil underneath the bunker; in reality it’s very often the stones, silt and clay that ingresses from the eroding edges of the bunker. Although alternative edge construction methods are available, many clubs are still building their edges out of very traditional natural soils and turf that can erode and contaminate the sand.

Every bunker gets a critical analysis, and the first question is, ‘Is it needed?’. Based on the audit, we estimate around 9% of bunkers are not necessary - they don’t come into play or they don’t impact on strategy at all. That’s lower than it would have been 10 years ago, but in recent times many courses have been getting rid of bunkers. We also found that in instances where golf courses had undertaken a review of their bunkers with the help of an architect – and about six to seven of those we audited fell into that category – it was very difficult to find any bunkers that should be taken out, proving the value of professional advice.

 Did any of the findings surprise you?

It did surprise me to learn that the visual style of bunkers was not very high up the priority list for a large number of golf courses. That’s something I thought would have been a bigger concern for more golf courses.

Another thing that we came across was that most golfers prefer a simple bunker in the traditional bean shape. You see a lot of very fancy, frilly bunker designs on some courses, but much of the feedback we got was that golfers would rather see a simple shape that’s well maintained than a badly maintained work of art. Perhaps most surprising of all was that many golf courses didn’t want to remove bunkers as they are desperate to keep their course rating figures. There seems to be a general view that the more difficult a course is, the better it is, even if it means having more bunkers than you need.

 Are bunkers becoming more of a priority?

They’re definitely becoming more prominent on the radar. A lot of golf courses are seeing improved conditions for turf quality on greens, tees and fairways, and as a result the spotlight now is turning to bunkers as an area that requires improvement. The changing climate is impacting golf courses in many ways, and it’s definitely having an impact on bunkers as we see heavier spells of rain and that can lead to damage, so bunker maintenance needs to be a greater priority.

 Are there still improvements that can be made to bunker technology?

There are a lot of very good bunker liners out there but there is no perfect one yet. I don’t know exactly what the perfect bunker liner is, but I think we’ve got the closest to it. The way drainage is designed could be better, and a lot more bunkers could be designed to reduce the amount of water flowing into them by changing their shape or deflecting water around them. GI