As you might have guessed from the pictures above – I would like to explain a bit more about our bunkers at St. Francis Links. I will never forget when one of my friends from George came to play the course for the first time about 3 years ago and after his 5th or 10th bunker shot turned around and asked me, quite seriously, “the course is great, but when are you going to finish the bunkers?” To be quite honest; I think our bunkers are some of the best, most natural bunkers you will find anywhere and I say that for a couple of reasons:

1. No real earth moving was done to create them
2. No drainage was installed as most other courses
3. No cement/clay base was put in place before adding some sand
4. Our bunkers are only hand raked
5. There are no clean cut edges
6. The sand depths vary in almost each bunker
7. They have now been naturally shaped by Mother Nature

Links style bunkers are very unique in their own way. Some courses believe that you should not even have a rake in the bunker and that you should never prep them in the morning. This is all due to Links golf – play it as it lies. We try to maintain a certain level of quality through our bunker maintenance programs, as we have a certain responsibility to you our valued members.

You will see throughout the golf course that we try to keep the bunkers as natural as possible on the “high sides” and as clean as possible on the lower sides. Take the bunkers at hole #7 that I have attached above – close to the green we aim to have a clean edge and on the higher side we keep it natural. A fine balance between links and parklands style bunkering. Our bunkers are also built on the natural dunes, therefore sand levels may vary. I am sure that on more than one occasion you have had a “fried egg” in a bunker. This is because of our soft, natural dune sand.

We are continuously looking at our bunkers to improve the playability and to ensure that it is fair. Think about how many changes we have made to the aesthetics of the bunkers through the past year or so compared to when the golf course opened. I do encourage all our members to feel free to contact me at any stage to tell me about problem areas on the course, especially our bunkers. In the end it is good to have 100 sets of eyes looking for these areas of improvement, rather than one set.

I am off next week for some annual leave and I am looking forward to go and inspect the coastline of northern Mozambique. I will leave you in the very capable hands of Kevern and Jarryd and maybe they will try their hand at a weekly section of Perfect Greens and Fairways.

All the best,
Andre Gerber
0824514158
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