[Tommy Williamsen]

It has been almost ten years since I played Troon.  I was impressed with the fairway bunkering.  There is a lot of talk about angles on this site and fairway bunkering might dictate where one should hit the ball, therby eliminatating some angles.    I, however, like a fairway with bunkers.  It makes the tee shot exciting.  Bunkers on the inside of a dogleg asks, "Can you hit it over me?"  bunkers that are ten or twenty yards short of the green allows run up shots.  What are your thoughts?

[James Edwards]

Tommy,

"bunkers that are ten or twenty yards short of the green allows run up shots"

Im interested in your reasoning behind this one?

[Tommy Williamsen]

First let me correct my grammar.  Bunkers that are ten or twenty yards shor of the green allow run up shots.  Of course it depends on the firmness of the ground and the lay of the land.  For instance, number three at my home club.  The bunkers are fifteen yards short of the green but if you land the ball just over them the ball will run onto the green, because the sloope of the ground.  In Britain and on many old Ross courses the same is true.

[A_Clay_Man]

Your post makes me think of the first at Wild Horse (and Sand Hills)  Having ones virgin look, into a 40 mph gale, must be as exhilerating as it gets, to challenge the inside leg bunker that jutts out perpendicularly into the line of instinct. At WH, As someone who would rather use their eyes for yardages, getting to the 150 was a test. A full three wood from there to five feet only to have the wind blow it to 35', was about as much fun as I can handle on my first hole of the day.

Of course the next day, it was driver wedge. Such versatility.

Now, I think of the second and third holes which share a field of dreams with but one massive center bunker complex. Truly versatile.

[TEPaul]

"bunkers that are ten or twenty yards short of the green allows run up shots.  What are your thoughts?"

Maybe they do allow run-up shots but certainly they don't allow run-up shots as much as an approach that has no bunkers 10-20 yards in short of greens!

So what do bunkers 10-20 yards short of greens such as Troon's do?

They combine excellently with the arrangement of most of the fairway bunkering at Troon which is strategic mostly in a distance context to create unity and a certain amount of intensity stategically throughout the entire hole.

#18 is perhaps the best example. We saw that very few if any players in the Open wished to challenge distance-wise those bunkers in the fairway that squeezed in the effective landing area at around 300 (particularly the bunker on the right).

But if the ground is very firm and fast we could see that those players off the tee wanted to try to come as close to those fairway bunkers distance-wise as possible so they might have as little club as possible on 457 yard hole to just carry those bunkers 10-20 yards in front of that green and run the ball up to the pin!

Angle on that inline hole is nowhere near as important strategically as the interesting combination of fairway and green-end bunkering is distance-wise in a strategic sense.

Obviously if the ground is not hard and the wind is not so strong this strategic ramification from tee to green is not so great!

[A_Clay_Man]

What are people's thoughts of this?



Shivas- Is this how you propose the 15th at PB should look, bunker placementwise?

[Shaun Carney]

My first thought is overkill. I think in most situations, 1 bunker does a better job of provoking thought than 7. Also, I'm unfamiliar with this hole. Is it a par 4 or 5? Either way, it's a bit too much. It may work a little better if it's a par 5, but still too much, IMO.

[LKoonce]

Adam Clayman:

Several posts from you recently of pictures from Heather Glen...

The yardage book says the 7 bunkers on the above hole are meant to resemble the Beardies at TOC, but I'm not sure I see it...I played the course last Friday (event was going on at my home-away-from-home course, the Surf Club, and HG was the only course close with tee times), and am man enough to admit that after my tee shot was wild to the right on this hole, I punched out neatly into one of those bunkers (#3 clockwise from the top), ended up against the lip, and floundered my way into another (#2) en route to an ugly score.  My father, who plays golf twice a year, was on in two.  So I can't be objective in commenting I'm afraid....

[A_Clay_Man]

Lkoonce- I have not been to HG in 14 years. This hole has matured quite a bit. The lines were starighter and those trees on the right were but wedge fodder for me.  I'm not crazy about the "look" and as I recall, my play mimicked yours, yesterday.
I personally don't think adding a pot bunker (or series) to the 15th at PB would improve the hole one IOTA. But hey, if they don't like them, they can bury'em.
Shaun Patrick has the right idea, in that less is more. But, in the case of Heather Glen, It tires to be what it wants to be, A scottish replica course, and the package was obviously memorable. Especially for someone who's never seen the Beardies, in person. And with my international travel planning skills, likely never will.

[TEPaul]

Adam:

I feel that bunkering arrrangement on that hole in that photo looks contrived. It looks more like what one should see on a pin-ball machine than a golf hole to me!

[A_Clay_Man]

That Desmond Muirhead hole, with a similar contrivence, was humorous because he clearly went over the top.

In studying this above photo, I could see the same effect with just two of those bunkers.

Maybe just the one on the far left, and the one dead center closest to the green? I think that might even look elegant.

[TEPaul]

Desmond Muirhead may have been a very talented architect. It seems much of his earlier work would indicate so, including much of what he initially wrote.

However, Muirhead's dedicated foray into ultra "symbolism" in architecture probably best evidenced with Stone Harbor was perhaps the greatest purposeful "contrivance" ever to grace golf architecture's evolution, in my opinion.

My feeling about Stone Harbor is it should stand as the best example of that---and even be restored to what it once really was as the best example of that. There's no danger at all in that, I don't think, as Stone Harbor might then stand as the best example of the outside edge of the envelope in the entire spectrum of the differences golf architecture can have or ever did have.

In that way it might be a little bit like the Edsel. The only danger of Stone Harbor, or the Edsel, is someone might think to copy it for some reason. If both remainded in full display as they once were the chances of that happening would hopefully be much more limited---a very good thing!

[Gerry B]

The alternating fairway bunkers on the 12th hole (Punchbowl) at the Chicago Golf Club are fantastic IMHO as is the trench locate approx 40-50 yards in front of the 18th green at Walton Heath Old.

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