North Berwick Redan Bunker - A Shadow of its Former Glory

[Andy Levett]

Gib,
No, no pic. It's shallow and narrow but a long way down from the green. To be honest, I didn't know it was an issue until your thread.
But I have to say I think our major courses are generally in pretty good hands. They will have spent a lot of time debating the changes to that bunker. All the sand at NB and most other links is down out of the wind nowadays.
You mentioned 'restoration' but for an old links like NB there isn't a Golden Age to restore to. They didn't spring fully formed from the fertile mind of  a Colt or MacKenzie like Pine Valley or Cypress Point.
They were rubbish/rubbish but interesting depending on your point of view. The most authentic links (ie least changed from Hutchinson's British Golf Links) is probably Alnmouth Village. Doak gives it a 2. Hoylake opened the same year and will host The Open in 2006. It evolved, Alnmouth Village did not.

[Gib_Papazian]

Andy,

I compare it to the Road Bunker - another hazard in Fife that has achieved iconic status.

This is not just a normal bunker, but the CENTERPIECE of one of the world's most famous and copied golf holes.

To compare it to some goat track or suggest it did not spring from the mind of a Golden Age genius doth not wash my friend.

I think the gentleman who conjured up the Redan deserves a bit more respect than that. North Berwick *is* The Redan, I see no reason why a shrine - yes, it is a shrine - should not be presented in concert with the original concept of its creator.

Fine, ditch the sleepers, but the cleft looks horrible. And if a little sand blows out, so what? The beach is right below the tee shot carry on #2.

How about if we put a cleft in the Road Bunker? Or grass over 1/2 of Hell? You would scream bloody murder. . . . . . . I love and revere North Berwick as much as the Old Course.

[Andy Levett]

Gib,
Good luck with your campaign. As an occasional visitor, I would like to see the bunker restored.
But if I was a greenkeeper, or a member trying to get my 'name on the board' in a medal comp, I might feel differently.
North Berwick isn't in Fife but otherwise your comparison with the Road Hole bunker is very apt - it has taken several substantially different forms in even the recent past, as documented on this wonderful discussion group