Bunkers from an architect's principles and a membership's opinion

[TEPaul]

From the long and interesting Tillinghast selling out his principles thread and a number of other related threads on the general subject of bunker removal over time what are the feelings of the contributors on here regarding the removal of bunkering over the ages by various architects and clubs. I'd just as soon except from discussion the so-called penal crossbunker of geometric look commonly known as the "cop bunker" from consideration as that bunker seemed to have been considered roundly unpopular by all early on.

The plight of the Ross "top shot" bunkers on my course was recommended removal in 1940 by Wayne Stiles. I'm sorry that happened and I'm sorry that my club refused to let Gil Hanse restore them in the last year. The reasons the committee refused to restore them in 2001 were basically the very same reasons they were removed in the first place 60 years before!

But the point is they were not popular with the membership over a period of more than twenty years. They were considered too penal by and for our duffers and the rest of the membership apparently didn't see the need to maintain them as they weren't relevant for the rest of the membership. I have no idea what Ross might have thought about the removal of these bunkers of his.

So the question is what should determine the plight of various bunkers? If the architect insists they should remain but the membership over time doesn't want them what should be done?

I believe that all architecture eventually must pass the all important test of time and that really does involve the feelings and opinions of the membership of clubs over time. If bunkers  passes that test they remain, if they don't pass that test of time they probably won't remain.

Does anyone have a problem with that? How about you Tom MacWood and Mike Cirba? Again, I'm sorry my club removed all Ross's "top shot" bunkers from my course but that's what the membership wanted 60 years ago. And I'm sorry they wouldn't agree 60 years later to restore them but that's what they wanted. I can't fight city hall. Who can, or should they even try?

What should determine the plight of something like some bunkering--the architectural principles of the architect or the test of time of the membership?

[jefffraim]

Mr. Paul,

All I can say is the famous quote from Seth Raynor that the Superintendent at Yeamans Hall uses quite abit here it goes:

"The poor golfer should learn to play the ideal links; the ideal links should not be brought down to the playing ability of the poor golfer."

Unfortunately over the years this quote has not been followed by Golf Committees at most clubs. Hopefully those now will learn from past mistakes.

Jeff

[paul cowley]

tom....along with the demise of the top shot bunker ,i feel that the forward greens bunker will be the next to go as a prefered design option ....i feel most were designed in the past to challenge the ground game of the day [as were top shots ]......i've never bought the theory that  they were designed to be distance deceptive......too much effort to just fool one once.
  its a different techno game now and unfortunately both devices are viewed as anacronistic and punishing to the less able.... although for some designers they may be useful for framing purposes [if thats really important].....

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tom,
I wonder about bunkers and why they haven't become more threacherous over time. There has been a countermeasure for every technological marvel that found its way to golfing grounds, i.e., metal drivers hit the ball farther, lengthen the hole; cavity back irons hit it straighter, narrow the playing field; high tech putters roll it more purely, raise the speed limit on the green; but introduce the sand wedge and bunkers get pushed to the sides, shallowed out, manicured to perfection or removed altogether. What's up with that?

I think the answer's found not only in the test of time of  member play but also play in general. That, along with improving equipment, dictate change or elimination of features with borderline values, such as top-shot bunkering.
Were the ones at your club disliked because they mainly trapped the better drives of the shorter players while only occasionally catching the longer players, who would have already received a penalty by foozling their tee shots?

[tonyt]

Severe bunkers (through depth or a high general percentage of penalty) often get seen as being controversial. Because they are of course difficult, and scold the golfer who lacked the wisdom or talent to avoid them.

And yet as stated above, we are narrowing fairways and adding 1000 yards to the golf course length of yesteryear. The funny thing about a classic old course is, leave in your old bunkers, leave alone the repelling internal green contours etc and then you won't have to mickey mouse as much added length to maintain a course's difficulty.

[ForkaB]

I play with more than my share of "duffers" (including, on far too many days, myself....), and I have yet to meet one who says:

"Oooooohhh!  I really wish there was a 150 yard carry bunker in my driving zone!  This game is just far too easy for me."

I think too many people on this site have a romantic notion of the "duffer" as a "Mini-me" who would like to play the "same" sort of course as we do, but is just horizontally challenged, and furthermore denied satisfaction by the lack of hazards commensurate with his (or her) limited abilities.

What a bunch of codswallop!

Regardless of what you put in their driving zone, the duffer is going to be seriously challenged on any serious golf hole on any serious golf course.  Take the 2nd at Cypress Point.

There is on that hole a bail-out area with a carry of about 150 yards or so to the right which allows the duffer to complete the hole, if he or she can get the ball airborne.  After that, there is still 450 yards or so of hazardous terrain to be negotiated.  "Par" for that hole for the horizontally challenged is 6 or 7 strokes.  For the stronger player, the main tee shot challenges are:  1.  the array of bunkers at 200-220 or so and 2.  the "cape" aspect, which gives you a "bite off as much as you can chew" sort of dilemma, to the left of those bunkers.

Does anybody on this site really believe that the hole would be "better" if there were a mirroring set of "Duffer's Hazards" bunkers at 140-150 guarding the bail out area?  Does anybody know a "duffer" who would welcome that additional challenge (Tommy Naccarato excluded.... )?

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:

I've always felt those "forward greens bunkers" had a strategic purpose on any hole over 400 yards.  They don't come into play JUST for the ground game; they come in for short hitters all the time, or for better players when they drive into the rough.  They make a player in either case decide whether he should go straight for the green [when he probbaly can't reach it], or play to the side, possibly giving him a worse angle for the pitch to the green.

(So don't fill all of them in, please!)

As for those 150-yard carry bunkers, my question is more about the assumption that it costs much of anything to maintain those bunkers.  If they aren't really fancy around the edges, and they don't get much play, do they really cost anything significant to maintain?  

I really think the cost factor is irrelevant; it's just an excuse on the part of the membership to fill them in.  And in my experience it's not the older players who complain about them; it's the average golfers who are telling everyone they're better than that.  Especially the ones who really aren't.

[TEPaul]

TomD:

That's an interesting post there and surely true. In a last ditch effort to persuade our committee to allow Gil Hanse to restore our old Ross "Top shot" bunkers we even asked if we could just strip the sod out of those that remain (they ran out of fill in the 1960s to grade them all over!) and just throw some sand in them. Obviously that would mean no drainage and they probably would end up looking pretty ratty but they didn't even want to hear that super low maintenace idea. They just didn't want them--they thought they were useless for most and too penal for the rest!

Whata you gonna do?

Maybe one of these days if our restoration hits complete approval which it actually seems to have done we can throw some sand in the base of the quarry on that short little par 3 4th hole. Hanse thought that was one of the coolest and oddest things he'd ever seen and it killed him the committee wouldn't agree to restore it. The reason was they figured the little old ladies and gentlemen who were the only ones who'd ever get in there couldn't possibly hit a bunker shot out of there. In a way they surely are right about that!

[A_Clay_Man]

as they weren't relevant for the rest of the membership.

TomP, This is the subjective that people can't get beyond. And just because it was a colective subjective, doesn't make it any more accurate, correct or the right thing to do. The fact that some form of nastiness, was placed, essentially center-line, inorder to break-up, what evolved into bowling alleys. Is key to what I have unsuccesfully tried to convey about "golf's filter". Thanks, to "jeffraim" for providing a quote which sums-up this theory, and even more appreciation (on my part) that it came from Seth Raynor.

"The poor golfer should learn to play the ideal links; the ideal links should not be brought down to the playing ability of the poor golfer."

While there aren't enough "pure links" for everyone, the principles behind Seth's words, appear to have been lost to the subjective. What you say?

Plus, Since the discussion was predicated on "memeberships" I have a tough time knowing any of the politics involved, but at the Public venues that I have seen de-faced in this manner, the same "subjective" removed many bunkers (mostly centerline cross-carries) and from areas where many misses would land. Even on some of the par 3's at Pacific Grove, bunkers were removed because of the duffer and no doubt, his/her pension for complaining to management.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom;

Great question.  I'm glad my thread stimulated some thinking.  

I'll start by quoting your club's primary architect...

There is no such thing as a misplaced bunker.  It is the job of the golfer to avoid them.

Ok..that's pretty dogmatic, but it serves a point.  

To keep things to whether members should overrule the architect, I am definitely old-school.  That is, I believe the architect and golfers should have mostly an adversarial relationship (in a FUN way) and probably come more from the stern Fownesian school than any other.  

Most architecture I love today is stuff that dares to piss off the golfer (members).  Stuff like the crossing stone wall in front of the 11th green at French Creek...

But, I think the best way to describe my feelings on the matter is to recount the story of playing with two older members at Aronimink.

As you know, there was some debate as to whether it should be a "true" restoration, with bunkers put back in the exact same positions, or whether some of the "duffer's headache" bunkers put in by Ross should be removed.

(For those of you following along at home, pull out your copy of Geoff Shack's "Golden Age" for an overhead of the bunkering at Aronimink).  

Thankfully, Ron Prichard was pretty adamant that a restoration should be exactly that (let's PLEASE not get into the whole "split bunker" discussion here) and essentially placed bunkers exactly where they were originally located, often in areas that ONLY affect the lesser player.  He also removed a whole bunch if RTJ Sr. bunkering in the area where only expert players could reach.

Anyway, I was playing with these two fellows and we got to talking about the restoration.  We were walking up the 18th fairway (we played the back nine first) and one of them said, "It's a much harder golf course for us now".

"Yes", the other agreed, "and a helluva lot more fun!"

[TEPaul]

MikeC:

I like that thought of yours that the architect and the golfer or membership should be adverserial to a degree! Sort of the old chess game analogy of golfer against architect or golfer against course.

I agree with that completely--and you know I never thought Stiles ripping out all our Ross "top shot" bunkers was a good idea. And I was real disappointed when we couldn't convince the club to restore them last year.

I'm certain you know exactly where I'm coming from and trying to get to with a thread like this though. I don't own my golf course and I don' control it either. I can only do my best to get done what I think the best is. I can't run roughshod over the other members with my opinions either--I can't blame them for their opinions and the things they say I might not agree with or I won't even be where I am in the process.

I want more people on here to understand how that all goes, particularly when they get critical and blame memberships or architects or somebody else.

I don't mean to be catty about what I'm about to say at all but it appears after years on here that the ones who are most critical of some of the things that go on with certain courses are those that don't even belong to a golf club or course and who certainly aren't involved with one. I just want them to truly understand what it's like and how things happen. It's a tough process sometimes and it's the thing that's probably taught me the most about one area of course preservation and restoration architecture.

And those're the kind of things most all architects who do that work have to go through every day. There's just no other way.

[paul cowley]

tom d......we are in total agreement concerning forward greens bunkering ....my post was more of a lament that they are not as prevalent a design strategy as in years past.
...far from filling them ,we are building them [four on the last course],along with an occasional top shot.
   i don't feel thats the most vogue thing today ,but there is change in the air.

hey...are you home more recently or just travelling with a laptop buddy?

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Membership whims change.

The design integrity of the golf course should be permanent.

But, we both know what happens when the two clash.

[DMoriarty]

......i've never bought the theory that  they were designed to be distance deceptive......too much effort to just fool one once.

Paul,  do you really think they only "fool one once?"  Even if the golfer knows the bunkers are set well back from green, they still mess with the golfer's visual perception of the hole, thus potentially creating between what the golfer sees and what he knows.   Sometimes, this might be enough to keep a few golfers slightly off balance.  Now with all the technology and skill you mention,  I prefer hazards that are aimed at creating a little mental discomfort.  

[paul cowley]

dm....i think the vast majority of golden age forward green bunkers were designed as 'carry' bunkers when it was more of a ground game ,not for visual deception [although that was a beneficial consequence].

[DMoriarty]

Paul,

Perhaps my experience with golden age architects is just too limited, but it seems to me that at least some of the golden age architects were well aware of their features' visual effects.  

What makes you think that golden age architects were not considering visual deception when designing forward green bunkers?  

[TEPaul]

DavidM & PaulC;

Regarding the original function of the so-called forward bunkers and what we think of their use today one probably needs to look at how courses were played when they were built.

We have a bunch of them on our 1916 Ross course--five in the first six holes and all about 30-40 yards before the front of each green. Each generaly needs to be carried by the shorter hitter but there is a way around each.

We tend to think they've become irrelevent or somewhat obsolete today because the ground game doesn't function as well. It seems to me assuming that is assuming their purpose and function was only as another option to carry them and filter the ball onto the green as a GIR option.

That may have been true but I can tell you that those bunkers are probably the primary strategic consideration today for the ladies and older men. It's not a matter for them of carrying them and filtering the ball onto the green, it's simply a matter of deciding to carry them or not, period. Those fore bunkers are something they deal with every time they play the course even in the best of circumstances. And one should also not forget that in the early days on some Ross courses everyone played the course from the same tee MARKERS!

Ross basically designed something for everyone!

[paul cowley]

dm....for the purpose of this thread i was not trying to discuss deceptive bunkering , but forward bunkering strategies of old and their value today.
   when the topography of the hole permits,yes,these bunkers can decieve but i don't feel that was their primary intent strategically.
....at least in the ones i'm thinking about, or the ones tomd and tep have previously referenced.

[TEPaul]

As to visual deception or not with those types of fore bunkers I feel there was a technique to make them far more visually deceptive that was used by some architects and not by others.

Probably the best comparative examples of both are those by Ross and those by Flynn. Ross generally used them on upslopes to somewhat raised greens where you could see from the approach shot most of the fairway behind and past them while Flynn generally put them on downslopes or flat ground with level greens and built up the faces so you couldn't see the ground behind them and between them and the green.

The best example of the latter I've ever seen is Flynn's fore bunker on the 10th at Lehigh. It's 30 yards short of the green and if you've never been there before you'd swear it's right up against the front of the green.

[paul cowley]

...especially on long par fours ,where we don't want a bunker hard against the green front as this substancially reduces the play choices for alot of players, we will move a bunker well out in front.
aligning the top of the bunker with the immediate horizonline of the green can create a great deceptive illusion [although it's hard to achieve from all angles of play]....combining this with a swale inbetween or a subtle ramp in with falloffs, provides for an interesting  greens complex ......at least in front.

but now i'm way off topic  

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom;

I understand that it's not easy pleasing the entire membership of any club.  It's why it seems that the best, most well-maintained courses from an architectural perspective often are setup as dictatorships, although that's not always true either (i.e. Clifford Roberts).  

However, I know very few courses that have been effectively designed by membership or committee.  

Yes, I can sit here without being an active member of a club and perhaps appear above the fray and make academic or dogmatic arguments, but it doesn't mean that I can't empathize.  I know that architecture doesn't exist in a vacuum and that often, at a club, there is always some element who believe they know as much or more than an architect and press for changes to the course.  

Perhaps, though, it also gives me some latitude to express strong opinions that others wish they could.    

[TEPaul]

"Perhaps, though, it also gives me some latitude to express strong opinions that others wish they could."

MikeC:

Perhaps it does give you that latitude. But if you're expressing a strong opinion about a particular club, course, situation etc such as that whole Merion bunker thing I see what happens just about everytime if and when someone from the club sees it. The first and generally only thing they say is;

"What does that guy know, he doesn't belong here, he doesn't play this course, or pay the bills or have the responsibility for maintaining the course or dealing with a diverse membership?"    

[DMoriarty]

...especially on long par fours ,where we don't want a bunker hard against the green front as this substancially reduces the play choices for alot of players, we will move a bunker well out in front.
aligning the top of the bunker with the immediate horizonline of the green can create a great deceptive illusion [although it's hard to achieve from all angles of play]....combining this with a swale inbetween or a subtle ramp in with falloffs, provides for an interesting  greens complex ......at least in front.

but now i'm way off topic  

I am not so sure that we are far off topic . . .

One of the problems (perhaps the largest problem) with members tinkering with an architect's design is that the members very likely do not understand the overall scheme of the design, or the multiple purposes that any feature might serve.  This is especially true with features that have more of a subliminal effect, rather than those that require a conscious choice of action on the golfer.  

For example, MacKenzie had a definite grasp that bunkers often served multiple purposes-- giving all levels of golfers the thrill of a forced carry; presenting vision which looked more difficult than it played;  fitting the hole into the surrounding terrain.  It is doubtful that any committee would ever fully grasp his purposes regarding feature placement.
______________________

Tom Paul,  

So I guess it is a pretty tenuous relationship between the intent of the architect and the clubs likes and dislikes.  One would hope that any committee would ask themselves at least a couple of questions before altering a golf hole. . . First, they should ask themselves whether there is any possible alternative way to negotiate the features in question-- if there is another possible route, they should leave the feature alone (an example of a 'no-alternative' feature would be a true forced carry over which some of the golfers could not make.)  Second they should carefully consider whether the proposed changes fit into the architect's design and style scheme.  Third, they should seek advice from a true expert on that architect so as to make sure they understand all the consequences of their proposed change.  

[Mike_Cirba]

"What does that guy know, he doesn't belong here, he doesn't play this course, or pay the bills or have the responsibility for maintaining the course or dealing with a diverse membership?"    

Tom;

All true, and I'd never suggest otherwise.    

If my opinions are worth crap because of it, then so be it.

I'd just suggest that by that reasoning, the only course any of us might comment on is their own.  

Hmmm...does Geoff Shackelford belong to a club?  

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom Paul;

In a perfect world (or the real one), how much latitude do you believe a club's membership should have in altering an architect's design, particularly of a world-renowned, historic course?

I know they "can" by virtue of the right that they "own" it..  The question is, "should they?"

What do you think?