A BUNKER AT THE PRAIRIE CLUB
I have worked with Kyle Franz on a number of projects, most recently at the Prairie Club for Tom Lehman and Chris Brands. Kyle is an immensely talented person, who is almost singularly obsessed with golf course architecture. He has worked on some of the best courses built in the past ten years including Pacific Dunes, Stone Eagle, and Barnbougle Dunes, as well as Kyle Phillips’s renovation of the Cal Club in San Francisco.
Out in Valentine, one of his greatest contributions was introducing the idea of using fence posts to shore up parts of both the natural, blow out bunkers and bunkers that we created. In the video, he refers to them as Snowdonian bunkers after the region in Wales that is home to Porthmadog Golf Club. While traveling in the UK, Kyle visited this obscure course and saw a bunker where a few pieces of wood had been used to prevent a bunker from eroding, triggering the idea of using them here in the U.S. (HD video after jump).
When Kyle expressed this idea to Tom and Chris, they readily got behind it. It was a way to distinguish their course from Sand Hills and Ballyneal. As you can see in the video, Tom was integral to developing the process of creating these bunkers, as well as the look. Kyle and I were a little shocked to see Tom wailing away on these fence posts, trying to break them so that they were a more manageable size, especially considering he was playing in a tournament in four days.
We used the Snowdonian Bunkers (this was our working name in the field, but who knows what other people will call them) sparingly. They are located in a few key spots on the golf course and add another layer of texture to the course. I think they turned out pretty well and am interested to see how they weatherd the winter.
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Really cool video. I think I’ll have to make the roadtrip up to Valentine from KC this summer!
Great video. I’m kicking myself, too, that I missed Porthmadog when I was in Wales a couple of years ago. I walked or played something like 16-18 courses, and that was one I missed. I was even in the village of Porthmadog on my last day in the country and decided I’d played enough golf, so I bought a ticket on the little narrow-gauge Ffestiniog Railway and choo-choo’d up in the mountains for the day. Touristy but fun. And wouldn’t you know it, Porthmadog had bunkers worthy of Kyle Franz sketches! Just proves the point that you can never travel enough or see too many courses..
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