Sod Wall Bunkers

[Paul_Turner]

Some nice examples from Portrush.

Photos: Chris Hunt

From Frank Pont's website: www.golfarchitecturepictures.com  (Frank if you're out there...I'll get you those Morfontaine pics)

I prefer these bunkers to the tendancy to revet the vertical faces on the Open courses:  Carnoustie, TOC and Hoylake.  

The moulded look of the sod-wall is much more attractive and the chances of having an unusual, but still playable, shot is greater.  Small gathering swales are more evident and in many cases the bunker bottom is not dead flat as in the Open courses above.


1st

1st

2nd

7th

10th
Is the true sod wall bunker becoming a lost art?  Are they too easy for the pros (not deep enough)?

[T_MacWood]

Doesn't Gleneagles have sod wall bunkers? When I think of this style of bunker I think Gleneagles.

[Paul_Turner]

Tom

Yes Gleneagles has them.

Muirfield I guess is the best example.

Sean

I think with revetting you often lose those little swales and  instead you have hard edges that demarcate the shot too precisely.

[Bryan Izatt]

Just when I start to think I know a little bit, I get confused again.

I thought revetted and sod-wall bunkers were the same thing.  Sod-wall bunkers were, I thought, formed by stacking pieces of sod on top of each other to create a vertical (or slightly sloping) face for the bunker, with the edges of the sod exposed. This wall of stacked sod thereby forming a revetment.

Here's a picture from North Berwick.

Is it the common understanding that this shows a revetted bunker, while the previous pictures from Portrush are sod-wall bunkers?

[Paul_Turner]

Brian

Sorry for the confusion.  It's just a choice of term really,  of course revetted bunkers are also sod walled.  I was just trying to point out the difference.

The Portrush bunkers may be revetted, in places, underneath the grass?

[Willie_Dow]

After playing Donald Steel's Newport, RI course I can appreciate the difference between the revetted walls of Dornoch, and those of Carnegie Abby, which I might guess are sod wall bunkers.  It is how they are stacked in construction, how they grow in, and how they are maintained.
Perhaps there are some answers out there ?

[Bryan Izatt]

Sean,

That picture was from North Berwick West.  I'm not sure it was in terrible condition.  Just drought stricken at the time.  I don't think they maintain the faces to grow grass.  In fact, Tony Muldoon told me that they use a blowtorch on the faces to keep weeds/grass from growing.  Certainly the faces looked blackened at Dornoch, for instance.

Paul,

I doubt they are revetted underneath the grass.  My understanding of revetted faces at St Andrews is that they use timbers to form the revetment behind the sod wall faces.  But I don't see how that would work behind the grass faced bunkers at Portrush for example.

[Sean_A]

Sean,

That picture was from North Berwick West.  I'm not sure it was in terrible condition.  Just drought stricken at the time.  I don't think they maintain the faces to grow grass.  In fact, Tony Muldoon told me that they use a blowtorch on the faces to keep weeds/grass from growing.  Certainly the faces looked blackened at Dornoch, for instance.

Paul,

I doubt they are revetted underneath the grass.  My understanding of revetted faces at St Andrews is that they use timbers to form the revetment behind the sod wall faces.  But I don't see how that would work behind the grass faced bunkers at Portrush for example.

Btyan

I realize that that grass is not meant to grow on the face of a rivetted bunker.  The one in your photo does have grass and it looks like the lines of "bricks" are uneven which suggests erosion.  

Ciao

Sean

[David_Tepper]

Does anyone know if James Braid was more partial to sod wall bunkers than to revetted (or what might be called "stacked sod") bunkers?

As mentioned above, Braid's Gleneagles is a good example of sod wall bunkers. I have been playing Golspie, a Braid course just north of Dornoch, quite a bit over the last two weeks. While most of the bunkers are revetted, there a several bunkers on the course that are similar in appearance to the pictures from Portrush. The bunkers to the right of the greens on 1st and 15th holes come to mind.      

[TEPaul]

What I just don't understand is why we either can't or don't have more bunkers over here like those at Port Rush that are close mown so the ball just runs off some fairway contours and into them. That kind of golf just requires so much more concentration and imagination, in my opinion.

What has become the new penal aspect of some American bunkers is not the sand areas (which technically is the bunker) but the high grass surround areas, and that area is not even technically part of a bunker (not that that really matters).

[T_MacWood]

David
I believe your correct about Braid and I think it may have been the case with Colt as well.
 
I'm not sure how these sod wall bunkers are constructed but I think Paul may be on to something when he asked if there were rivetted walls behind the sod.

I suspect the history of both bunkers styles could be found at St. Andrews. When did St. Andrews go to the rivetted and were they ever sod walled?

[Paul Payne]

I always thought that the rivetted (revetted?) bunker shown was what was termed a sod walled bunker. Why is it we don't ever see that type of bunker face here in the states? Are there any courses that use these over here?

[ForkaB]

I'm almost sure (I'll have to check my old photos when I get home) that revetting (at least seriously regular revetting) post-dated my first trip to Scotland in 1978.  I remember it starting in the early/mid-80's when faces began to crumble more rapidly due to increased visiting play (as well as a series of hotter/drier summers).  I don't think that the Old Course started their current practices (of revetting each bunker every 5 years ago, in a staggered rotation) until 10-15 years ago.  My memory is that Muirfield had more revetting than other courses in the late 70's.  We should also remember, that prior to 85-90, most Scottish courses had minimal green staff.  I doubt if they could afford to do the process on a regular basis until rising visitor income increased their greenkeeping budgets exponentially.

God, do I feel old......

[Paul_Turner]

Paul

It's "revet".  Rivets are those metal pins usually used to fasten together metal surfaces.  It would be difficult to "rivet" a bunker

I wonder if Tom Doak and Co are using revets in their Scottish project?

I found an interesting article about Pennard.  There they keep the grass off the bunker faces to stop the cows/horses from standing in the bunkers and eating it.

http://www.bigga.org.uk/greenkeeper/viewstory.php?id=278

[Bryan Izatt]

I'm surprised that there isn't more consistency in our use of the terminology.  Can we go with Sean's terminology of grass faced bunkers to describe Paul's pictures and revetted or stacked sod walls to describe bunkers as in my picture.

Can anybody confirm Rich's take that sod wall bunkers are a relatively modern design feature?  I kind of thought they had been around forever.

I would imagine the stacked sod walls would require regular maintenance as the sod would compress over time, and the face would erode from rain and from shots bouncing off the face.  The grass faced bunkers would require regular maintenance because of erosion too, I would guess.  

Paul,  maybe the grass faced bunkers are rivetted to an undelying revetment to keep them in place.

[Paul Payne]

PT,

Thanks for the clarification. I'd seen it both ways in this thread and was not sure which was correct. I had actually imagined that they could have been using iron stakes of some sort to pin the squares of sod in place. Just an overactive imagination I guess.

I still wonder if there are any good examples stateside. I have never come across one.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Sean it was fascinating for me to play Brora only a few months after Pennard, because it still has Cows, Sheep and electric fences round greens. Of course the animals eat the rough so it's not too penal.  

Early one morrning, as Willie Dow and I completed the turn back, we saw what appeared to be a greenkeeper shovelling excess sand from a bunker into the rough.  On closer examination he said he was getting out the sheep faeces!  He added that they did like to sleep in the bunkers but it was the occasional cows that wander in, that do the real damage to the edges and faces as they clamber out.

[ForkaB]

Just checked out my old photos, as well as photos in my 1976 edition of World Atlas of Golf, and they pretty muchconfirm my recollections.  There was far less revetting 25-30 years ago (for example, the Road Hole Bunker was not revetted), and what revetting was done was fairly primitive and poorly maintained.  There was relatively little revetting on the Muirfield bunkers, contrary to my thoughts.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Rich, the photo in the 1992 Classic Golf links by Steel appears to show the Road hole reveted.  There are pictures of a number of reveted bunkers in Scotland that appear to have been there a while.

If we could pin down the year this was first done on St Andrews it would be reasonable to say that wasa a turning point?

[TEPaul]

First of all, grass within a bunker (on a bunker face or within a bunker) is not part of a bunker in a Rules of Golf context and as of a recent Decision (in the last go-around) either is the "revetted" face of a bunker. It's considered to be "Through the Green".

However, in America anyway, where it seems that grass bunker faces and surrounds (the grass area around sand bunkers) are getting longer and more penal every year, it would do golfers well to recognize that they probably need to avoid bunker surrounds more diligently than they need to avoid the sand surfaces of bunkers (which are the only area designated as "bunker" in the Rules of Golf) for the simple reason grass bunker "surrounds" seem to have gotten so much more penal than the sand surfaces of bunkers.

I'm about to explain this to our membership in a report and something distinctly tells me they are not going to like to hear it.  

I have no doubt they will quibble and fuss over this reality but just as the American general responded to the German general when asked to surrender with the single word "NUTS", my reply to the membership will be either the two word response "TOUGH COOKIES" or "EAT GRASS".  

[Paul_Turner]

Early revetting at St Andrews:



But I think in general, as bunkers became deeper in recent years the more prevalent the revetting method because the faces became so steep  (in some cases ridiculously so).  Compare The Spectacles now to 20 years ago.

I do think some of the revetted bunkers at the Open courses have become caricatured "pot" bunkers.  Someoned here likened the new revetted bunkers at Hoylake to the faux ones at courses like Royal Links and I think there's some truth in that.

[ForkaB]

Interesting picture, Paul.

That "Hell" is a lot smaller than today's "Hell" (or even the "Hell" of MacKenzie's map-making days).  It also looks very much as if it has been manufactured than "revetted."

Any clues to why?

[Mark_Fine]

Americans have a tough time dealing with these kind of bunkers  

This situation did occur this summer at The Old Course.  I guess you could call this bunker "well placed"!



My three playing partners trying to identify their golf balls!

[TEPaul]

redanman:

In the spirit of Truth in Advertising we should all admit that those bunkers in those photos of yours may be great in the playability of their architectural "iffiness" but the look of their shapes and lines most certainly is ultra clean and pristine---not exactly the "look" that attempts to mimic or imitate  Nature herself.  

[Willie_Dow]

The mixture of bunker styles Kittleman and Hanse put together with Jim Wagner at Boston Golf Club, and beautifully maintained by Rodney Hine - I might add, brought to mind the message on the left of the screen - here.

It is truly something to behold !