Fleesensee Golf & Country Club remodels 70 bunkers

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Fleesensee Golf & Country Club in Germany is on a fast track to complete the re-styling of all its 70 bunkers by the end of March 2017 on its acclaimed Schloss Course.

The top venue is using the EcoBunker construction method.

Introduced to the club in late 2014, three trial EcoBunkers, installed during the spring of 2015, demonstrated to the owners, managers and greenkeeping team that there was a sustainable, cost effective and aesthetically pleasing alternative to their existing bunkers.

So why the need for change? With extensive experience of preparing courses for European Tour events, course manager Stephen Monk explains: “The Schloss course, which can be described as an ‘inland links’, was always intended as a venue for major tournaments, however the European Tour prefers to host their Qualifying School on the sister Schloss Torgelow course. Following new investment by Kai Richter and Joerg Lindner, and discussions with the new directors of golf and business development, Alex White and Michael Hayes, there is now a clear strategy in place with the aim of re-introducing the Schloss course as a tournament venue. A bunker re-style is one of the most important elements of that strategy.”

The existing bunkers are all very deep, including fairway bunkers (many over two metres deep) with a rolled-in turf design and flat sand surfaces. Over time, three main issues have emerged which triggered recent re-styling decisions: Firstly, many visiting golfers find that recovery is beyond their ability; Secondly, the bunkers are set deep among subtle mounds and are very difficult to discern, especially from the tee; and thirdly the maintenance of the steep grass banks is difficult, unnecessarily hazardous and expensive involving many man hours of fly-mowing.

A change was needed, but why select EcoBunker’s synthetic revetted system? “We looked at many options but two in great detail,” answers Monk, “the revetted option with EcoBunker (for reasons of cost natural turf revetments were impossible), and a sand faced, irregular edged option described to us by the promotor as ‘1920s style’. It was a big decision; we considered our paying customers, European Tour aspirations, short term installation costs and very importantly the longer term maintenance liabilities. We wanted to do the work just once and not have to be coming back every five years or so and reconstruct the bunkers time and time again which is the case when using natural turf. EcoBunker finally became our preferred option after they demonstrated how they could successfully deliver fast track projects of a comparable scale (nine full lorry loads of eco-turf) on time and within budget such as Medalist and Secession in the US and Haningestrand in Sweden. The fact that the three trial bunkers had performed superbly was also an important factor.”

“This is a very special project for me,” added EcoBunker’s owner, Richard Allen. “Bunker styling is of great interest to me. I’m a big fan of both formal revetted and more intricate sand faced designs: there is room in golf for both, but I’ve never been inspired by the rolled-in turf style. In fact the original inspiration behind my synthetic turf layering invention can be traced back to a golf course where sand-faced Colt bunkers were, to my disappointment, replaced with rolled-in turf designs. It’s a great honour to be entrusted with re-styling a course of the stature of The Schloss and I can’t wait to see the finished results next spring.”