A Bunker Called JAWS

[James Bennett]

the "JAWS" bunker...YES!  I like it James!!!

if someone uses it I think you and I should get a free round there..

happy 4th to all

Through shared intellect (happenstance actually), Paul Thomas and I thought of a great name for a bunker - Jaws.  We're talking the shark-type Jaws here. Not the big, tall, steel-teethed man with a metal claw for a hand that used to terrorise James Bond (that 'claw' sounds like another version of Killer Kowalski eh Richard Goodale. )


What would the ideal characteristics of a bunker be to qualify for a title of 'Jaws'?
Would such a bunker have architectural merit?
Is there such a bunker in play today with that name, or worthy of that name? (I am not aware of any).


I would suggest that a Desmond Muirhead 'signature bunker' is more reminisicent of an overgrown fish-finger, or a gummy-shark, than it is of Jaws.


What are possible ideal characteristics for a Jaws bunker, and the architetectural licence that would go with it?  These thoughts focus on the nature of shark-attacks.

1.  Jaws should be generally hidden.  Perhaps you can see the dorsal fin, and regular players will know where Jaws lurks.  But the first-time/infrequent player will not know that Jaws is there.

2.  Jaws will have the capacity to consume a golfer, possibly with one bite.  It will be a deep bunker.  

3.Bunkers may be more like car crashes than aeroplane crashes, but a dalliance with Jaws will leave a mark on the player (mental or physical) more severe than most bunkers.  If the golfer escapes from Jaws without incurring a one-shot penalty, the player will still be mentally fatigued from the encounter.  For the weaker player, the only practical escape from Jaws will be a sideways play (you have to have an option to get away, otherwise it would be a coffin bunker ).  Sometimes, an encounter with Jaws is terminal and no evidence remains, other times significant visible damage occurs whilst occasionally mental scarring is the legacy.

4.  It should be possible for Jaws to have captured one of the players who will be struggling with the encounter, however the other players in the group may initially be unaware of this.  The bunker may well be visually hidden from others nearby.  However, when the fellow-golfers suddenly see the battle with Jaws, they too will have fear instilled for a future encounter.

5.  Jaws is probably found on the back 9, certainly not on the opening hole.  

[Tim Bert]

The closest thing I have encountered to JAWS in my limited experience is the "fanged" bunker lurking on the right side of Pacific Dunes #18 green.  It doesn't qualify for the "players don't notice it until it is too late" category.  The first time I visited the course, it was probably the first design feature I noted since it was sitting there glaring at players near the pro shop.

[PThomas]

absolutely CANT be a Desmond Muirhead type of thing that is actually shaped like a shark

wow James, I agree with all 5 of your points...AWESOME!!

now we just need a Brauer or Doak or George or Richardson, etc., to create such a beast!!...

reminiscient of the generosity of Saturday Night Live's offer for a Beatles reunion for something like $1000 -- an offer which was actually considered! --  I will buy the beverage of choice to the first architect who designs such a beast (please not I only said first, as this is such a great idea I'm sure there will be a rush by all of them to do it )

this scene from JAWS just popped into my head...this is the kind of fear our bunker should create:

Quint:  What's that?

Hooper:  anti-shark cage

Quint:  Anti-shark cage?....you go in the cage, cage goes in the water, shark 's in the water, our shark....

(he begins to sing) Farwell and adieu, to you sweet Spanish ladies, farewell and adieu you ladies of Spain.....

yes, it's been very hot here in CHicago, so maybe I've been out in the sun too long.......

[TEPaul]

Who actually saw the Desmond Muirhead "Jaws" bunker(s) (Stone Harbor's #7) before the hole was redesigned (defanged)?  In a sense it was strategically silly---symbolic over-kill really. Strategically if you were to minimize the score damage on the hole the thing to do was to miss the green more than a little----you had to miss the shot right or left a lot so that you'd be in one of the "Jaws" bunkers (not in the water) that were separated on either side of the green by water. Today the "Jaws" bunkers have been brought in to at least be attached with the green on either side.

[Chris Perry]

The closest thing I have encountered to JAWS in my limited experience is the "fanged" bunker lurking on the right side of Pacific Dunes #18 green.  It doesn't qualify for the "players don't notice it until it is too late" category.  The first time I visited the course, it was probably the first design feature I noted since it was sitting there glaring at players near the pro shop.

Tim means this monstrosity:




And it's true, it's the first thing you notice when you look through the fence. I pity anyone who ends up in that mess, particularly in that section where you have no backswing.

[Lester George]

Paul,

I hope to be announcing a new national club very soon.   It will be all links style and has a couple of places where JAWS could be used.  I will tell you now that I'll build it.  You and James can help design it since it was your idea.  Construction starts this fall if everything goes well.  Stay in touch or e-mail me.  

Lester George

[Marty Bonnar]

Unlike much of Muirhead's work which was unashamedly un-subtle, 'Jaws' is actually one of the works which had some decent symbolic meaning behind the eye-jarringly 'geometric' design.
Okay, some of his stuff is distinctly 'Fishy', but this one is really all about the Argo and those funky Argonauts negotiating the rock walls en route to the golden Fleece. (probably actually about sex - isn't all symbolism? )



FBD.

[James Bennett]

Paul,

I hope to be announcing a new national club very soon.   It will be all links style and has a couple of places where JAWS could be used.  I will tell you now that I'll build it.  You and James can help design it since it was your idea.  Construction starts this fall if everything goes well.  Stay in touch or e-mail me.  

Lester George

Lester

I can guarantee you that I write a lot better than I design, and my writing is not that good!  You design and build it, and the fish will come.

I've got a Penfolds Bin 389 1991 vintage downstairs, and the first Penfolds RWT (red wine trial).  I'll keep them for christening the beast when she be born.

James Bennett

PS Martin Bonnar

would the french call that putting surface 'le green' or 'la green'

[Jim_Bick]

I did play Stone harbor many times with the jaws and Tom is of course correct. In fact, I once yanked the ball left, caught the bunker and got it up and down for par. Given the size of the green, if you were on it, especially from the bunkers, you were close to the hole.

My memory may be off, but even more strategically crazy was that  , as I remember it, the back of the green was marked as a lateral hazard. If you really wanted to take a big number out of play, 3 iron 50 yards over the back with 2 putts after the drop was a reasonable option.

Big numbers were of course part of Stone Harbor, though and jaws was only one of many, many oddities.

[Marty Bonnar]

PS Martin Bonnar

would the french call that putting surface 'le green' or 'la green'

James,
I, for one, cannot help but interpret Muirhead's symbolism as:
1. The Golf Ball as a Spermatozoa.
2. The Golf Shot as an ejaculation.
2. The Bunkers to be - ahem! - 'The Labia majora et minora'.
3. The Green - well, I'll assume you follow my interpretation...

We'll have to assume the ladies tee up on the other side

Of, course, all Golf is really about Sex.

FBD.

[Mike_Cirba]

James,
I, for one, cannot help but interpret Muirhead's symbolism as:
1. The Golf Ball as a Spermatozoa.
2. The Golf Shot as an ejaculation.
2. The Bunkers to be - ahem! - 'The Labia majora et minora'.
3. The Green - well, I'll assume you follow my interpretation...

We'll have to assume the ladies tee up on the other side

Of, course, all Golf is really about Sex.

FBD.

Martin,

As I've opined previously, you're a troubled, twisted man.

Don't ever change.  

[Marty Bonnar]

Mike,
don't even get me started on what the 'Hole' and the 'Pin' might symbolise!!!

 
FBD.

PS I absolutely adore the use of symbolism in all Art. Give me a splendid Poussin anytime before a right load of Pollocks.

[Matt_Ward]

I had the pleasure in playing the original "Jaws" hole at Stone Harbor a few times and will simply say this -- the hole was 20 times more demanding to play than all the whining you hear from the pros concerning the 17th at TPC / Ponte Vedra.

Just hitting the bunkers that flanked the green was a demanding thing to do. And then you had to hit out of a bunker over water to a narrow green with water and a lone bunker on that far side.

If the hole played at 110 yards or less it would be one thing --but the hole maxed out at 190 yards from the tips and the wind was often a majot obstacle.

No doubt it was "over the top" but clearly people are still talking about it long after it has been since changed.

[Andy Levett]

So, when do we think it will be restored?
2010? 2020? 2040? 2080?

I guarantee this website, or its equivalent, will eventually be shaking its collective head and tut-tutting over the  fin de siecle philistines who changed the work of a true original.

Never played the hole and  don't like it from photos (MacK and Brora have it right about lost balls) but, as was said on the GCA Ryder Cup thread about Hoylake's OBs, down with standardisation!