"Tom,
I don't think you will find it. But as I said, any time the word "bunker" is used, it is my understanding that it is a "formal" hazard as defined in the rules of golf. A "waste bunker" is therefore just a certain kind of bunker and deamed a hazard. A "waste area" is not a "formal" hazard. That is what I meant and I hope that is clear."
Mark:
It doesn't exactly work that way, at least not in the modern reality. I don't think it matters to the USGA what anyone calls it, a "waste bunker" or a "waste area", or even whether or not someone claims it's "formal" or not (a word not used in the defiinitons within the Rules, by the way), it's more a matter of what it IS! And this seems to be a reality they aren't willing to deal with now or in the foreseable future, in one sense. That one sense is they will not define what a "waste area" is. In the other sense, they told me you can't designate a bunker a "waste area" just because you want to call it a "waste area".
Look, you know what the definition of a "bunker" is, and if not here's how USGA/R&A defines it;
"A "bunker" is a hazard consisting of a prepared area of ground, often a hollow, from which turf or soil has been removed and replaced with sand or the like."
So what if that original "waste bunker" (as Pete Dye called it) that he built at Harbour Town which is now called a "waste area" had soil or turf removed and replaced with sand or the like?
If it looks like what the USGA defines as a "bunker" and was built basically somewhat like a bunker then why does it now have a new designation in the local rules on golf courses that have them and why is the USGA not willing to acknowledge that it's a bunker?
These are interesting questions, and I spy a potential opportunity in this.
What does that "waste area" at Harbour Town, and others on other courses, look like to you? Do they look more like "through the green" areas or do they look more like great big enormous somewhat unkempt
bunkers???
Are you beginning to see what I spy as a potentially interesting opportunity yet?