Why did the bunkers at Seminole change?

[Brian_Gracely]

Ross' original bunkers were apparently flashed up to better blend with the landscape of the dunes and surrounding beach.  Why then have the bunkers been rebuilt to have the rolled/grass faces of other Ross courses?  Was this the decision of the Seminole greens-committee, or the style that Brian Silva better understood from Ross rennovations, or some maintenance reasoning of losing sand from flashed faces?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brian Gracely,

Could you be more specific and identify the specific bunkers you make general reference to ?

Thanks.

[TEPaul]

Brian:

Ross's Seminole bunkers were unusual for Ross. They were grass capes and sand flashed up bays. Some apparently thought those were Dick Wilson's redesign but they were Ross. Silva's bunker project bunkers are also capes and bays although the capes may be larger and heavier than Ross's originals. However, I just landed a fairly old photo of the 5th hole from probably around the 1950s from the estate of an old friend of my father's and the capes are larger and heavier than they were in the late 1920s and 1930s. Why? Probably because grass grows pretty fast in Florida!

[Brian_Gracely]

Pat,

I had never seen the original bunkers in any pictures, but had just read that they were "flashed up".  Knowing that this was not Ross' typical style, or at least not frequently used as we know he had many styles, I wondered why the current bunkers appeared to have the rolled faces that are now frequently seen in many rennovations by Silva or Prichard. Maybe I just have an incorrect perception of what "flashed up" meant in the context of those things I read about the original bunkers.

I can't name specific holes or bunkers as I've only saw a couple of the holes as I walked parts of the course the other day.  It got too dark before I could see all of them  

[Michael Dugger]

Brian,

Upon seeing your thread I instantly thought of an article that I believe Mr. Paul posted regarding the Seminole course.  From the article I gathered that the Seminole bunkers have been rebuilt quite a number of times.  From the article and based on what the superintendent had to say, the reasoning behind such was they (the bunkers) had lost their "scary" factor.  People were putting the ball out of many of them, surely not HOPING to splash a sand wedge up over an angry lip.

Maybe Mr. Paul can chime in?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brian Gracely,

I don't think that the bunkers at Seminole repesent/reflect a  monolithic style.

On holes like # 2 and # 11 where the topography presents the opportunity, the bunkers are flashed.  At other holes the bunkers have grass faces, at other holes, one could say a hybrid or combination of the two exists.

With their varying styles, one has to wonder what the effects of 30-50-80 years of maintainance, weather, wind, edging and incredible growth rates had on these bunkers.

Which bunkers held their original configuration the best over time.

With this past hurricane season it will be interesting to see how well they fared, and, if restoring them will need to be an ongoing effort.

Perhaps someone skilled in computerese can repost the picture of Lake Seminole.

[T_MacWood]

Brian
A few years ago Seminole hired Brian Silva to rebuild the bunkers. At the time he admitted there was very little photographic evidence to go by and there had been an old story circulated that Dick Wilson had created the flashed bunkers (a false story probably circulated by Pat Mucci)...based upon the lack of documentation and the rumor, he decided to give the bunkers a more prototypical look (perceived)...additional photgraphic evidence has since come to light which refutes the Wilson story.

[TEPaul]

"Ross used a different style of bunkering at Seminole, with capes and bays and sand flashed in the faces. There has long been a misconception that Dick Wilson was responsible for this look at Seminole, but this photo from the 1920s clearly shows that it was an intended look from the beginning."
Caption under photo of 5th hole
from "The Golden Age of Golf Design"

Brian:

As I said, some thought Dick Wilson redesigned Seminole's bunkers not long after WW2 but that does not appear to be the case. Pete Dye was apparently one of those who thought that. He apparently thought Wilson did a number of other things to Seminole that it does not appear happened. What Wilson did at Seminole was move and redesign the 18th green.

As Geoff Shackelford said in that book a photo was found that dated those cape and bay flashed bunkers far earlier, from around the time the course was built. As I said last night I've come across a photo of the 5th hole from probably the late 1950s that shows the 5th hole to be the same as it was just after it was built. The only difference is one can see about 25-30 years of evolution on the capes in those bunkers. As all capes in bunkers do---THEY GREW---they expanded. That's just the way it is with golf architecture--over time grass grows, the sod areas expand and the capes tend to become much larger than when they were built. In any case that's what happened at Seminole.

Silva redid the bunkers in the last five or so years. One of the primary reasons the bunkers were redone is that many of them had a massive bee problem. I remember that well---it was pretty bizarre and many golfers really didn't feel like even going in some of them!

The most unique hole for that unusual cape and bay bunker style from Ross was always the 13th. It was always said that Ross (or his crew) tried to mimic the look of waves on the front bunker on that hole. That would make some sense as the original backdrop to that hole was the Atlantic Ocean.

[rgkeller]

Many of the bunkers at Seminole are so far below the green surfaces that flashing would be nigh impossible.

Seminole had no lasting effects from the hurricanes. One would be hard pressed to find any season to season changes.

[TEPaul]

"Many of the bunkers at Seminole are so far below the green surfaces that flashing would be nigh impossible."

rg;

You've got a good point there. But the fact is a number of the bunkers surrounding greens at Seminole did have expanses of sand flashed up into the bays and clearly at some pretty steep angles on a few of them! There's no question of this from the early and middle year photographs! This may've been one of the primary reasons Ross used the cape and bay style at Seminole rather than just totally sand-flashed faces. To some degree the capes lend stability to the sand-flashed bays--obviously nowhere near the extent that grassed down or semi-grassed down faces lend stability to bunker faces, but nonetheless grass capes do lend some stability.

We should all be at least aware, though, and perhaps far more knowledgeable about some of the ongoing dangers to the stability and preservation of some of even the best bunker architecture built at some of the best courses in the nation. This would most definitely include PVGC, CPC, PB and perhaps Merion and Seminole to a degree. The fact is some of that original sand flashed bunker architecture was just not destined to withstand the ravages or Mother Nature, primarily in the form of occasionally massive attacks of sheet drainage flowing over and down those sand flashed faces. We all know what that can do to sand flashed faces that are too massive and too veritical. They can be repaired but how many times does a club want to do that? And so, from time to time those faces were generally allowed to have more sod support them, at least in the form of larger and heavier capes!