Lesson 3: Sand: The Golf Course’s Special Ingredient
Golf courses use a lot of sand — in bunkers, yes, but also mixed into the soil of greens and tees to help with drainage.
Too much water sitting around grass roots will suffocate them, so the soil in greens is often specially constructed with sand to allow water to drain through quickly.
Sand is actually tiny pieces of rock, broken down over millions of years by wind and water. Every grain of sand in a bunker has been on an incredibly long journey to get there.
In a bunker, sand also has a function in the game — it creates challenge and adds beauty to the course’s visual character.
Why do you think golf courses put sand in bunkers instead of just leaving bare earth? What would happen to a bare earth bunker after heavy rain?
Compare a handful of sand from a bunker with a handful of soil from a nearby fairway. How do they feel different? Which one holds water better? Test it: add a small amount of water to each and watch what happens. Which drains faster? Which holds water longer?
The sand vs. soil water retention experiment is simple, visual, and genuinely scientific — it demonstrates the principle of drainage that governs much of golf course construction. Let your student predict first: ‘Which one do you think will hold water longer?’ and then test. Prediction before experiment is the scientific method at its most basic.