Bunker Migration - When Did it Start?

[SPDB]

When did bunkers start migrating out to the periphery of fairways, and cease being a central hazard? I would imagine the cultivation of a "fairway" probably had something to do with it.

A NGLA there are hundreds of bunkers, but I would say a good many of them bisect the line of play. As a general observation, I dislike bunkers that are well into the rough, and really only in play on the fly. I'm just trying to figure out the movement (pun intended) that led to this state of affairs.  

[TEPaul]

"When did bunkers start migrating out to the periphery of fairways, and cease being a central hazard? I would the cultivation of a "fairway" probably had something to do with it.


It had to happen well, well, well after the cultivaiton of the "fairway" otherwise how could architecture have had it's era of the prevalence of so-called "penal" architecture with cross bunkers and such stretching clear across fairways? Even the great PVGC has a prevalence of that old "cross" feature bunker hazard! It seems to me bunkers on the peripheries of fairways was a reaction to the penal era of architecture. But have you ever noticed how the best architects never went all the way to the peripheries of fairways? The best of them always had bunkers "eating" well into their fairways, even at the height of the so-called "strategic" era.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Sean,
Maybe the best architectural question on GCA of all-time.

Personally, I think much of it started when golfer's felt the need to extroll themselves to fair-play--the dumbing down of great golf architecture.

It has reached an pinnacle with set-ups like Oak Hill for their last PGA. Where the bunkers were actually safe havens instead of being in 6 inch or thicker rough.

I'm sure Donald Ross would have regurgitated if he saw it all.

[Patrick_Mucci]

SPDB,

I wonder how much influence center, single line irrigation systems had on the migration.

Can anyone cite instances where a club filled in all of their centerline bunkers ?

[tonyt]

Good thread.

Once upon a time, there is a teeing ground (assuming we are going after the days of playing from beside the former hole) and a putting green. To prevent boringly easy passage, obstacles are placed in the way.

Now, we have corridors of safety, lined or bordered with the obstacles. We seem to have a clear formula for these corridors or channels that we can't shrug off.

[SPDB]

Sean,
Maybe the best architectural question on GCA of all-time.

Personally, I think much of it started when golfer's felt the need to extroll themselves to fair-play--the dumbing down of great golf architecture.

It has reached an pinnacle with set-ups like Oak Hill for their last PGA. Where the bunkers were actually safe havens instead of being in 6 inch or thicker rough.

I'm sure Donald Ross would have regurgitated if he saw it all.

Perhaps he would have for OH, but how about other Ross works

If you look at PH #2, there's a bit of migration going on there. Now that may be attributable to a variety of reasons, not the least of which is PH's reputation as the best second shot course in the world, meaning the greens were the focus.

What's the early evidence, what do the architect's writings say regarding placement? Certainly I think maintenance practices had a huge impact with the advent of a more closely mown fairway. Also, as you alluded to, RTJ had a big impact on bunker migratory patterns. Was he the largest catalyst?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Sean, I think that Pat has hit it pretty much hard on the head here too about the irrigation. It had a huge affect on how fairways were maintained as well as how lines of rough were incorporated. Many of these courses didn't have these roughs at all. It was all too costly to maintain as they are today.

There are way too many courses today that are having to design irrigation systems that have to irrigate three or four different types of grassed areas. I still don't understand the band of rough grass that protects the entrance to a bunker--both fairway and green-side. All too much emphasis on maintanence.

I have been on countless courses here in SOCal where I have found bunkers that once existed in the middle of fairways if not just on them. Great huge massive Billy Bell pits that are all grassed in for both speed and fairness.

It gets pretty depressing to see it in an aerial photo. EVen more depressing to see it in person knowing what existed there!

[TEPaul]

I'm a little confused what it is you're asking here. Is it why bunkers on existing courses from say the teens and 20s now have those bunkers in the rough or are you asking when  design philosophy changed to start building courses that use bunkering only along the flanks of designed fairway corridors? It seems to me we've discussed both subjects a lot of times on here. I'm not sure I want to go find them in the back pages though.

I'm not sure what you mean by central hazards either. If you mean bunkers and such that are inside fairway lines and surrounded on all sides by fairway, I'm afraid we should all recognize that architecture like that even in the best of the "Golden Age" or before or after it seemed to be the rare exception rather than the rule. It's rare to find bunkering like NGLA's bottle hole that's flanked on both sides by fairway and it's rarer still in most any architectural era to find bunkering that's surrounded on all sides by fairway. Examples exist but they've never been common in architecture. I wish they were but they aren't. A well place bunker in the middle of a fairway, for instance, and surrounded on all sides by fairway is, theoretically at least, the most strategic and multi-optional of all because there are up to four ways to handle it---and it's impossible to have more choices than four----unless you're some kind of Left Coast weirdo like TommyN who actually made some elaborate strategic plan from the tee to y hit his tee shot into PV's DA bunker. IF that DA had been in the middle of a fairway and TommyN actually planned to play into it I guess one could say that was technically five available options but no one in their right mind actually plays into a fairway bunker off the tee on purpose!  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Anybody that would be certainly be a loon, thats for sure.