Sykes Goes Hybrid at PGA Golf Club
"When you oversee a property owned and operated by the PGA of America, expectations are high. Chris Sykes is meeting those expectations with experience, creativity and a little help from the technology behind Bunker Solution.
By Pat Jones
Chris Sykes is mighty proud of his family. He has a very patient wife back in Knoxville and three adult kids. One daughter is an ICU Nurse and the other daughter is playing college Golf at Tennessee Tech.
Sykes (right) and Tyler Thies, the Head Superintendent on the Wanamaker Course
Oh, he has a son too. “My son, Lucas, is the superintendent at the Honors Course,” says Sykes. “I tried to discourage him (laughs) but he came by it naturally. When he was 12, he’d get up at 5 a.m. to go to work with me. He caught the bug.” There’s one more pretty cool twist: Chris Sykes started his career working for the great David Stone and now Lucas oversees Stone’s former course.
He’s also mighty proud of the progress he’s made at PGA Golf Club in his relatively short time there. “My two-year anniversary is coming up and we’ve been making strides,” says Sykes.
He works at the only club still owned and operated by the PGA of America. “Great job, great facility, great environment, and great bosses at the PGA,” he says. Sykes is delighted to be there because of the quality of the golf and the commitment the club has to improving and offering great conditions on all 60 holes. The first 18 months were pretty tough but now we’ve done the heavy lifting and got great people in place.
When he arrived, his assessment was that the turf was pretty good and relatively weed-free but he had some bermuda encroachment and problems on greens, so that became a priority.
But he also realized the bunkers were also a big problem. “They were broken,” he says. Sykes has a history of taking on broken bunkers and fixing them. Or at least trying. “I’ve probably rebuilt well over a thousand bunkers,” he says. “But the first 900 or so I rebuilt incorrectly because we just didn’t know better. I tried lots of different methods and nothing was effective. I came to the conclusion that nothing works if you don’t divert water.”
When he first got to PGA Golf Club and realized how problematic the bunkers were, he automatically thought about using one of the “hard-shelled” systems. “But our contractor pointed out the problems with those in south Florida. He took us over to The Floridian and we saw what Eric Swenson and his team had done there with Bunker Solution and we were sold pretty quickly. We needed to make the best decision for PGA Golf Club both from a performance standpoint and a financial standpoint.”
They settled on a combination of Bunker Solution around the walls and edges and a standard liner on the floor. They also included Durabunker around the edges to protect them and make sure they last. Between that approach and using local sand, they were able to keep the renovations within budget.
The priority was the Wanamaker Course, a Fazio design which is hosting the PGA Professional Championship at the end of April. “We will look really great considering we just renovated it last year, but in another year we will look even better,” he says.
Why was Bunker Solution the right choice for PGA Golf Club? “It’s a sandy environment and you just don’t have stability with the edges. Inevitably, someone’s going to take a machine where they’re not supposed to or it doesn’t get edged properly and it collapses and it’s really difficult to rebuilt. The Durabunker secures the longevity of the bunker. Without it, bunkers will always move toward the green. This combo design ensures that it will hold its integrity for a long time.”
He adds: “The flash-faced Fazio bunkers used to be harder to maintain. Now they’re actually easier because you control the sand and it eliminates fly-mowing.”
The ROI is clear to Sykes and he points to Hurricane Milton as proof: “We had 6” of rain in a few hours. The Ryder Course – also Fazio – has 58 bunkers and took 300 manhours to repair the bunkers. The Wanamaker course with 61 Bunker Solution bunkers took us less than 30 manhours to repair .” He estimates about $10,000 in labor saved per washout event. Fortunately, they’ll begin doing the Ryder course bunkers with the same hybrid Bunker Solution system this summer.
Sykes tips his hat to the installer Classic Golf and Ellis Brown and Jerame Miller. “They did a great job and they really ‘get’ what our priorities are,” says Sykes.
Final thoughts about Bunker Solution? “It is the solution. It’s what they claim it is. It’s a very clean process. If you have any concern about fines and sand, it is for sure a better alternative than the hard systems because you don’t have to worry about clogging of the drain tiles. That’s what made me a believer.”