[Jonathan Cummings]

Oakmont.

I've played OCC many times over the years but just played it yesterday for the first time since the redo.  Treeless look - eye popping but the bunker work is even more remarkable.  As a collection the new Oakmont bunkers (every bunker on the course was redone) are simply terrifying.

JC

[Jordan Wall]

Obviously I have not yet played many of the courses some of you have but the bunkers at Kapalua were pretty tough.
I played right after the renovationand loved it, but they were fierce in every way I can think of.

[Tom_Doak]

Jonathan:

I'm not certain I like the concept of 100+ fierce bunkers on a golf course.  It seems like they ought to have a range of difficulty, instead of all just being impossible.

Even some of the great links courses seem to have forgotten that.  They're so concerned with "keeping the challenge" of the course [i.e. protecting par over a 72-hole championship] that they resort to building a straight-up 7-foot sod-wall face on every bunker.  The bunkers at St. Andrews used to each have their own character, but they are getting more and more like Carnoustie's every time they're rebuilt.

[John Kirk]

As a set, the hardest bunkers I have ever played are at Sand Hills GC in Mullen, Nebraska.

I played Astoria GC recently, and though the bunkers aren't all tough, a few were positioned in places (above the high side of a green, for example) where it would be very difficult to get up and down.

[Eric Franzen]

Bethpage Black stands out in that aspect from the selection of American courses that I have played so far.
I haven't seen any pictures of the course pre-restoration but I think the current bunkering is excellent, both from an strategic and esthetical perspective.

[Ryan Farrow]

Jonathan, certainly the aesthetics of the bunkers changed for the better at Oakmont but did you really enjoy playing out of those things? With 210 bunkers I’m sure you found your fair share of them. Since I have yet to play the course did you find yourself pitching out of bunkers into the fairway where you could have taken a shot at the green in previous year?

[Mike_Cirba]

I'm not sure I get this idea of deepening all of the bunkers at Oakmont (wasn't it tough enough before?) any more than I understood the same process at Merion.  

I'm a guy who is all for fearsome bunkers that play like hazards, but shouldn't the playability and fear factor of each bunker be somthing that was decided by the original designer of each?  

Yes, I'm sure Fownes wanted each to play unevenly, hence, the furrowed rakes, but I'm not sure that presents the same shot values and challenge as just deepening them.  I think in the spirit of historical integrity, I'd rather have seen them just comply with Fownes original intent and furrowed them, similar to Nicklaus at the memorial this year.  It seems to me that once you dig up the whole thing and start over, essentially destroying the original surrounds, you are then tinkering with something more than cosmetic surgery but instead undertaking invasive actions that forever alter what has existed for many decades.

At Merion, Hugh Wilson evidently wrote in some detail about how he'd like his bunkers to play, but in fairness to the club, I believe Wayne and Tom unearthed that information sometime after the bunker project was already completed.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

John that was a good point. Often the location is as important as the severity of the face. We have a well placed benign looking bunker in the left corner of the short par 4 6th. You are lucky to get down in 3 from there. It is downhill and downgrain to all pin placements.

[Bill Gayne]

Bunkers behind #12 or #13 green at ANGC. Really deep bunkers don't concern me as much as bunkers that face a hazard and a green that runs toward the hazard.

The front right bunker on #1 at Royal New Kent (deep).

The Ocean Course had some fierce bunkers.

The cross bunkers on #4 Bethpage Black.

[Jonathan Cummings]

Mike - I was surprised to find that Oakmont is back to regular rakes.  The bunkers are now, fierce, but quite smooth surfaced.  

The USGA doesn't seem wild about putting the deep tined rakes back in those bunkers.  In their current state with deep furrows in them a player would simply play out sideways and proceed.  

J

[Jonathan Cummings]

Bill - when I posted this I was also thinking of New Kent.  As a collection Kent may not be as bad as Oakmont but you are right, it aint far behind!

JC

[Tim Gavrich]

For what it's worth, the scariest bunker I've ever seen is the one to the right of the 8th green at Yale.  It's about 20 feet below the side of the green, playing straight down a buried-baby-elephant mound on the green.  The one to the left of that green is pretty mean too.  If/when properly restored, will the Road bunker on #4 at Yale qualify, even though it's patterned after the one at TOC?

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