Need help re: a fairway bunker and a tree

[Mike Policano]

I was playing golf this weekend with a friend.  We were commenting on the hundreds of trees that have been taken down over the past three years.  He asked me if I would take down more trees.  I said, yes, especially the big oak at the end of a fairway bunker on seven.

I said it was a double penalty.  If you go into the fairway bunker the oak blocks your shot out which is a mere 220 yards over a cross bunker to an elevated green.

He disagreed and said that's the price for going into the bunker.  We went back and forth until we agreed to disagree.

Today I sent him some a piece from Brad Klein's 'Rough Meditations' which called this exact situation as a double penalty and a mistake.

He replied that Mr. Klein and I were entitled to our opinions.

I could use some other written references to support my case.  Any help would be appreciated.

[A_Clay_Man]

Mike, I can't supply you with what you want, however, perhaps you're both right? The term Big Oak, implies that's an old tree. Could it be pruned to allow for some recovery? How old is the course? Is it in Dallas?

 In the same book, Rough Meditations, I believe, Dr. Klein also opines desiduous trees have no business on a golf course.

[Phil_the_Author]

One of the better parts of the renovation process at Bethpage Black in preparation for the 2002 Open was the removal of trees that had grown next to, and in some cases, actually in some bunkers. Poor maintenance can bring this about.

Still, the tree at the base of the hill on the 8th hole was left as this has now become a great feature to the hole... to the dismay of a number of Open competitors who hit into it. Oh yes, the original bunker on the hillside was never put back.

I agree, one or the other.

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
What was the architect's design intent for the golf hole?  Did he want both a bunker and a tree to be the hazard?  That is one of the key questions to help with your answer.  Have fun arguing with your buddy  

[Craig Sweet]

Deciduous trees have no place on a course?

Holy cow.....conifers I could believe, but oaks, maples,lindens,ash???

Generally, I believe we over do the tree thing...but then I think there's way too many bunkers and water hazards on the golf course....

[Mike Policano]

It is a Tillinghast course.  I am going to look at some old overheads to see what it looked like 70 years ago.  The tree is a nice speciman that doesn't lend itself to pruning to fix the situation.  It seems like one or the other is appropriate.

[Mark_Fine]

We had a tree taken out on #11 at Cherry Hills right before last year's Women's Open.  It had been planted directly in front of the fairway bunker (between the tee and the bunker) on the left.  It provided a "double hazard" but more importantly, it all but eliminated the temptation of the bunker and the strategy of the original design.  It forced all play to the right down the center of the hole.  Many of the great old courses were meant to be played along the edges, not down the middle.  When the tree was removed, it re-opened that old line of play and tempted players to challenge the bunker.  

Having said all this, a "double hazard" is not always a bad thing.  There are many double hazards out there, however, it is generally the tree/bunker combination of a double hazard that is considered a problem.   I hope the above example helps explains in one situation why.  

[Mike Policano]

Mark, I mentioned the strategy issue to my buddy also.  This is a 430 - 460 yard hole, slight dogleg left and gently uphill.  The bunker is on the left side of the fairway.  The tree forces everyone to play the tee shot on the same line regardless of how far one hits the ball.

I commented that if that tree were removed as well as three trees near the tee, then the big hitters could take a different route.  It would be a 230 yard carry from the members tees and 260 from the back.

There would be options.  My buddy says there shouldn't be options.  Hit it where the hole dictates.

[Matt MacIver]

We discussed this same issue last night at our G&G meeting.  

The issue: +500 yard par 5.  Fairway bunker on left edge of fairway, hole is slight dogleg right from that bunker, or you could play away from it but have a longer carry.  Front bunker lip is 2-3 feet high, pretty tough to get a long-iron on the ball.  

And there is a tree about 15 feet past the bunker, leading back into the fairway.  

The longest hitter at the club and a low handicap is peeved at this double penalty and wants the tree, and a few others, removed, citing it's "unfairness" and that he has to "hit a hooded 5 iron just to get it to 120 yards".  

So after this debacle he's sitting 2 in the fairway, 120 yards out?  Doesn't sound penal enough to me (I know that this sceanario is probably best case, but still....).  

I've always envisioned this bunker as being a 1/2 stroke penalty -- since the bunker is sitting 260 yards out, if the best you can do is advance it 60 yards, then your sitting in the fairway in 2, 200 yards out, with a good chance to make par from there for low HCappers and an reasonable chance for average players like me.  

Our group is going to take a look at the situation this weekend.  Since the course is only 17 years old I suspect the tree has been there since inception and that only pruning be in order, if we want to stay true to the architects' vision (Maples).  

[Dunlop_White]

Mark Fine is right. For today's golfers, who are so accustomed to playing down the middle, peeling back trees away from bunkers and fairways will once again reveal the importance of positioning shots on outer perimeters of golf holes in almost "tic-tac-toe" fashion to gain the preferred angles and perspectives into the green. I'm of the opinion that trees in bunkers form double hazards -- and more often than not should be removed -- usually the result of years of overgrowth or neglect or simply planted by well-meaning ornamental tree planting committees, who know little about golf and much less about strategic shotmaking. Otherwise, grab some old aerial photos to determine the architect's intent.

It isn't Brad Klein who is against deciduous trees on golf courses. If you recall, Clifford Roberts removed most all of them at ANGC, because they caused a mess.

Instead Brad Klein has always called for the judicious removal of conifers and evergreens, which never loses their dense foliage and block many hours of sunlight a day, especially to the eastern and southern exposures, that cause severe agronomic problems. Plus, their low extending branches and roots prevent recovery play options. They are great on the exterior of the course in that they can crowd out exterior noise etc.

[BCrosby]

Greg Turner is a recent discovery of mine. The Aussies here will know him well.

His web site has several very thoughtful essays. The topic of double hazards comes up a couple of times. It's worth a look.

Go to: gregturnergolf.com

Bob

[Brent Hutto]

...with most courses developing either by the sea or on the acidic soils of the heathland, the dwarf grasses that proliferated were unable to grow either long or lush. Course designers in those days were forced into that long forgotten tradition of using guile to create difficulty on the course. The idea was to lure the either unskillful or tactically naïve player out of position thereby creating increasingly difficult circumstances for recovery. This requires real tactical appreciation and subtlety, neither of which qualities seem to be present in abundance on many of today’s courses. The long grass flanking the fairway approach, on the other hand, is golf for dunces.

A bit of wisdom and a history lesson from Greg Turner http://www.gregturnergolf.com/long-grass-hazard.htm, great stuff!

So is the problem nowadays that courses are designed under the assumption that players will not be "tactically naive"? By that I mean if not for the strategy thing, there are many ways to punish "unskillful" play. You can use everything from OB to topped-shot bunkers to ploughing furrows in the bunkers to acres of knee-high grass on every hole. Having the less-skilled player "out of position" is just one choice in the arsenal of punishments for a badly executed or ill-advised shot, right? I guess it's simpler to just arrange for those shots to end up in a place where you can't play a normal next shot than to lay things out cunningly to where the next shot looks straightforward but confounds the player in trying to get it close to the hole.

So is the triumph of bunkers, water hazards and long grass over contours and positional play just half-assed design? Or is there some way in which rough or hazards are simply superior to having the ball run off into a spot where the hole is inaccessible?

[Brent Hutto]

Or is there some way in which rough or hazards are simply superior to having the ball run off into a spot where the hole is inaccessible?

And to partially answer my own question, yes I realize that nowadays there are players for whom no green or hole location is "inaccessible" as long as they're withing 200 yards and can get the club on the ball. I'm really asking the question regarding the courses that the other 99.5% of us play.

[PThomas]

Mike - I raised the same question quite awhile ago...I argued I thought it was a double penalty...but the majority of respondents said so what/don't hit it there!

[BCrosby]

Brent -

The passage you quoted and the question you asked go to the very heart of gca. I would go so far as to say that - at least since the time when people started worrying about strategic designs - it is a kind of pivot point around which much of gca turns.

Greg Turner's formulation of it (there are many others) is remarkable because he casts the issue so concretely.

You could almost write a history of gca that would divide architects by how they come down on that issue.  

Bob  

[Mike Hendren]

[Brent Hutto]

Mr. Hendren,

Bravo. When you're right, you're right.

Bob,

I almost wish I hadn't said "half-assed design" there. In reality I think part of the problem is that doing it with contour, position and angles is harder than just growing the grass long or digging a big old hole and filling it with either sand or water. Not only is it harder, on a constrained piece of property it may not be doable.

Imagine one of these housing-development courses on hilly terrain. The golf holes are typically run along the bottom with houses on the higher ground to either side. There's just not much width to work with on most of those holes and without width...implementing strategic golf is beyond hard, it's just about impossible. So I think in the big world of golf there's certainly a place for courses consisting of doglegs protected by trees or bunkers or rough and narrow corridors flanked on one or both side by trouble and on most holes there's just plainly one direction to hit the ball.

So the real standard, IMO, is how well an architect can provide the kind of positional golf that Mr. Turner describes when given a marginal-but-workable site. I think it will always be easier to provide a series of fairways (they can be wide or narrow or a mixture) flanked by long grass, fairway bunkers to squeeze in the landing zone and greenside bunkering short right and long left. You can draw that stuff on a topo map and the only trick is to get the drainage right. So a working defintion of "our kind of architect" might be one who fits in every bit of positional, strategic play the property and maintenance budget will allow and maybe even squeezes in a little bit on holes you wouldn't think it possible. How's that?

[Matt MacIver]

Great call!  Here is the summary to go with it, from the Art & Architecture section (seems those bunkers AREN'T there anymore!)


Daybreak at Cypress Point’s Seventeenth, c. 1929

31 x 48 inches, Oil on Panel, Painted 2001. The seventeenth at Cypress Point maintains Alister MacKenzie’s conviction that 'water holes should tempt, not torture.' Like the sixteenth before it, the carry here can vary depending on the angle the player takes. Much has changed since this hole was built. Some of the bunkers depicted in Miller’s early morning rendition are gone, most notably those surrounding the clump of Cypress trees. Also, some of the fairway to the right of those bunkers has been lost, undermining a bit of the tempting quality created by the architects.

[BCrosby]

So a working defintion of "our kind of architect" might be one who fits in every bit of positional, strategic play the property and maintenance budget will allow and maybe even squeezes in a little bit on holes you wouldn't think it possible. How's that?

Agreed. With two caveats.

My guess is that a surprising number of architects build the kind of features we like for the wrong reasons. That is, they build them purely for the sake of variety or aesthetics or to please an intern or whatever. They don't build them because they understand them to represent a better way to design a course (and, for that matter, a better way to play golf). Very few architects understand the history of their own profession in that way. But heck, I'm not picky. I'll take those features where I can get them.

Second, the "housing development" excuse doesn't work very well when there is no housing development. There are remarkably few Turneresque "positional" courses being built anywhere these days. (We all have pretty much the same short list of architects that are exceptions to that rule.) Which is another way of saying that there are remarkably few people in the profession that grasp what Turner means by "dunce" design.

But bascially I agree with you. There are sometimes physical and boundary line limitations to how much you can use positioning as the ultimate hazard. Sadly, that only explains a minority of the dunce designs out there.

Bob

 

[peter_p]

Mike,
In your friend's mind you have opinions, he has facts. It is a losing battle. Find some non-golf place where you can  prove him wrong on something, then use that as a wedge for this situation.  

[Brent Hutto]

Second, the "housing development" excuse doesn't work very well when there is no housing development. There are remarkably few Turneresque "positional" courses being built anywhere these days...Which is another way of saying that there are remarkably few people in the profession that grasp what Turner means by "dunce" design.

Absolutely agree. And I've seen courses in pretty darned constrained corridors that still have some interest to them which proves that it's the "grasp" that's missing, not really the sites.

[Geoffrey Childs]

Mike

What does your consulting architect say about that individual tree? Has he made recommendations about individual trees to be removed or retained?

If he is still on call to the club then perhaps his opinion and reasoning could influence the outcome.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Policano,

The tree has to go.

In addition to impeding the advancement of the ball, the tree prevents a golfer from working the ball around it to get to a fairway that slopes from high left to low right.

The tree is near the LEFT elbow of the dogleg.

70 years ago it was close to an acorn.
I don't think anyone ever visualized the extent of the intrusion into the lines of play caused by that tree.

Ask your friend if he endorses placing trees in front of greens or tees.

What many who have responded to your thread don't understand is the configuration of the terrain, the features, the hole, and the play of same.

At 470 dogleg left, uphill to a narrow green that drops off precipitously to the right with greenside bunkers left and right, with crossbunkers and fairway bunkers, there are enough hazards and features in play to present a severe challenge WITHOUT the tree.

The tree should go.  It's grown beyond any intended purpose and now impedes play.

[Mike Policano]

Gents,  thanks for all the help.

Bob, I will check out the Greg Turner reference.

Geoffrey, I finally found my copy of the master plan.  Sure enough the architect said the following:

  Remove the large oak.  The removal of the oak is twofold in that it presents a double penalty in attempts at exiting the left bunker and it, along with the other left side trees slated for removal, would be in the way of the proposed fairway expansion.

No work has been started on this recommendation.  I am sure my buddy will say it is just another opinion.

Pat, thanks for the comments.  I couldn't agree more and couldn't write it better.

[Paul Payne]

Mike,

I have not really thought about this enough to form a strong opinion one way or the other. Seems almost like it depends on the situation.

I was suprised however, when looking on the other side of this site, to see that Crystal Downs has a giant clump of birch trees growing out of the edge of one of the bunkers on #7. I had been thinking about this thread and the photo kind of jumped out at me. It looks to be by design or at least maintained that way. Thought you might like to take a look.