Fieldstone Golf Club, a Troon Golf managed private club featuring a Hurdzan/Fry course in Wilmington, Del., recently became the first golf course in the world to combine the synthetic sod wall and edge product Durabunker with the Better Billy Bunker liner product.
The old-world bunkering at Fieldstone is a strong feature of the design with a number of sod wall bunkers, the showpiece being the bunker on the 18th, known as "Lisa's Heart" after club founder Lisa Dean Moseley.
“Our sod wall bunkers are central to the design intent of the golf course, none more than ‘Lisa’s Heart.’ However, the cost to maintain this bunker alone was enormous and rebuilding it every two years due to it failing was becoming financially draining to the club,” Fieldstone superintendent Damon DiGiorgio said. “We considered moving away from the sod wall look and converting to standard bunkers with natural grass banks, but Durabunker has given us the option of maintaining the original design intent, while at the same time, dramatically reducing maintenance costs.
“Once pricing was established, I did a financial analysis of Durabunker versus a standard natural grass sloped bunker. While initial costs are higher using Durabunker, cost of maintenance is greatly reduced due to zero mowing, zero fertilizing, pesticide applications, resodding, watering, etc. Our ROI would be met within a matter of years. While only being completed for a short time now, Durabunker has not moved a bit. We had a near 1-inch rain event recently which left Durabunker entirely unaffected. Member and guest comments have been outstanding and we are delighted with the results. The company were a pleasure to deal with.”
David Whelchel, the architect involved on site during the initial stages of the Durabunker project was also a central figure in the original design, working along Mike Hurdzan and Dana Fry.
“This was as classic a case of letting the golf course fit the topography as you will ever see,” Whelchel said. “The bunker in the middle of the 18th fairway is typical of what we were trying to achieve, and that was to make the golfer think and strategize when playing the course. That is one of the reasons the club chose to rebuild “Lisa’s Heart” first, using the Durabunker method, as it is critical to the look and strategy of the hole"
The concept of the “fully sealed bunker” is familiar to Durabunker founder, and co-inventor of all associated design patents Rhydian Lewis.
“We have combined Durabunker with liners such as Capillary Concrete and Blinder Bunker Liner on a number of courses, mainly where design dictates much shallower edges with higher sand faces, the likes of which we have built on many inland courses,” Lewis said. “This type of bunker design offers sealed revetted edges usually between 6 inches and 12 inches, meaning that an inland venue benefits from all the advantages of Durabunker, whilst not necessarily building traditional sod wall bunkers. This type of design is becoming increasingly popular, though at Fieldstone the more traditional sod wall bunker is certainly central to the character of the course and in fact the bunker wall on No. 18 is the largest we have built to date, at 650 square feet. It was also the first time we have collaborated with BBB. And as with other liners, the two products worked together perfectly – BBB being used in the base and for the lower incline of the wall with Durabunker stacked directly on top to build the sod wall itself. This combination addresses pretty much every bunker issue that exists from base through to tip of the bunker wall and results in virtually maintenance-free bunkers that have outstanding longevity and durability.”
