Bunkerless courses?

[Kalen Braley]

I'm curious with this bunkerless course talk.  

How important are bunkers to a courses perception on one hand and playabilty on the other?  Are there any bunkerless courses in the top 100, or top 500 if there is such a list?

As I've never played a bunkerless course, my experince with courses with only a small handful are that they were not very good.  

Are there any great courses that are bunkerless?  As to  bunkers that appear at non-sandy site golf courses, isn't this as foreign to say having a pond on a links site?  

If the TOC didn't have bunkers, would the 99.99% of courses have bunkers like they do today?

[James Bennett]

Kalen

The course I nominated Waikerie (Riverland, Australia), which I know very few here will ever see, has a great set of greens, and generally has firm approaches and a great putting surface.  It also has a good, interesting routing.

I have seen other courses with no bunkers that are eminently forgettable.

James B

[Kalen Braley]

James,

Perhaps bring a camera with you next time you play it and take a picture of the green complexes.  I've seen plenty fairways without bunkers, no biggie, but have seen few quality holes that are void of bunkers.

On a side note, which part of Austrlia are you in?  I've been to Brisbane and went up the coast to Townsville.  I guess I should have went to the sand belt instead, but that was before I even got into golf....

[Kyle Harris]

I'm curious with this bunkerless course talk.  

How important are bunkers to a courses perception on one hand and playabilty on the other?  Are there any bunkerless courses in the top 100, or top 500 if there is such a list?

As I've never played a bunkerless course, my experince with courses with only a small handful are that they were not very good.  

Are there any great courses that are bunkerless?  As to  bunkers that appear at non-sandy site golf courses, isn't this as foreign to say having a pond on a links site?  

If the TOC didn't have bunkers, would the 99.99% of courses have bunkers like they do today?

Kalen,

I feel that's a non-sequitor. Wasn't the development of TOC based in the fact that the areas that became formalized bunkers were hazards of bare sand?

[Peter Pallotta]

James B, Adrian S

Thanks; but I didn't assume that all of Painswick's greens were flat, or that the current 18th was indicative of the course. I was just wondering how the 18th plays. It looks 'easy'; does it play that way?

Thanks
Peter  

[Forrest Richardson]

El Caro in Phoenix. Not that it is on anyone's radar scope.

[Dan Kelly]

This subject reminds me a very old GCA thread (2001 !) in which the discussion was on the neccessity of bunkers on a course. A very interesting discussion :

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/board/ubbhtml/Forum1/HTML/005418.html

Hope not to play the rally killer   but I think the two threads are well connected.

Sébastien --

It pleases me to know that, at least once, I initiated a discussion worth reviving -- though it pains me to know that I've been around this place long enough to have initiated a "very old" thread!

But both the pleasure and the pain are minuscule compared with the  joy of seeing that, on at least one occasion, Patrick Mucci wasn't certain he disagreed with me!

Thanks for the reminder of days long gone ....

Dan

P.S. I still want to see one of our "minimalists" design a course with minimal sand bunkering.

I was telling my daughter this afternoon, while driving her home from her orchestra rehearsal, that I think the mark of true greatness in writing (and perhaps in other arts -- including golf course architecture?) is that, in his (or, of course, her) writing, the truly great writer never puffs up his chest, points to himself, and says: "See how good I am?" He just does it -- and lets you figure out how good he is.

(We were discussing the introduction and the first essay of Roger Angell's recent memoir "Let Me Finish." I had read it while waiting for her; she read it as we drove home.)

It seems to me that the big, showy bunkers on many of the most admired modern courses might sometimes be shouting: "Hey! Look how good I am!"

[JESII]

Dan,

Haven't you seen the new "real" definition of the term "minimalism"?

I'll see if I can find it and copy it over here...

[Adrian_Stiff]

James B, Adrian S

Thanks; but I didn't assume that all of Painswick's greens were flat, or that the current 18th was indicative of the course. I was just wondering how the 18th plays. It looks 'easy'; does it play that way?

Thanks
Peter  

Peter- Its about a 7 iron, the main threat is a big tree thats about half way that stops you bringing the tee shot in from the left. So fairly easy.

[Agman]

Tom --
      The River Course at Hampton Cove on the northern end of the Robert Trent Jones Trail in Huntsville is so bunkerless even I coudn't find one.  

js

[Paul Payne]

Agman,

That is because there aren't any.

[Kevin Pallier]

Is Windemere (UK) bunkerless ?

[Agman]

Paul Payne --

     Precisely...

js

[Phil McDade]

Spring Valley, near Salem WI (tucked into the SE corner of the state, right across the Illinois border near Antioch IL) is an original Langord/Moreau course that is bunkerless. A very good course, with a terrific set of greens that are kept at a very challenging speed (faster than Lawsonia has been keeping their Langford/Moreau greens in recent years). GCA regular Dan Moore has dug up some research on Spring Valley, and the modest course -- public, and very low-key -- filled in its bunkers, presumably as a cost-saving measure, around the time of WW II (or perhaps near-post-Depression), I believe. It plays @ 5,900 from the whites and @ 6,300 from the tips, and its lack of bunkers takes some of the teeth out of the course. But not a whole lot -- typical of a L/M course, its challenges come from the greens and green surrounds (pushed-up greens, sharp falloffs, both bold and subtle green contours), and those provide some good challenges, bunkers or not.

Interestingly, another intact Langord/Moreau course in Kankakee, Ill., affiliated with a local Elks Lodge there, appears to be bunkerless, or to have very few of them left, based on some aerials I've seen. I have not played the course, although it may be part of a Cheesehead/Flatlander Langford/Moreau tour in '07...

Sean -- those pictures of Kington are just neat as can be. Looks like really enjoyaable stuff.

[Paul Payne]

Phil,

Interesting you bring up Langford and Moreau. Last night I was in the process of setting up a trip over to Lawsonia later this spring and I was thinking about this bunkerless thread at the same time. (I almost blew a gasket)

Anyway, as I thought about the bunkering at the course (which I like very much) I began to think about the fact that most of the bunkers you find there are backed by some sort of steep slope or berm which will almost always be between you and the line of forward progress. This makes recovery from a mistake very tough on that course.

What is interesting to think about is while the bunkers are well placed and present hazards the real obstacle you face is the slope or berm. Without them the bunkers would be tame. Without the bunkers however, the berms and slopes would still present big trouble.

My guess is that the course might be just as good without the actual bunkers if you kept the same contours.

I have only played one other Langford course and that was Harrison Hills in Indiana. What he seemed to like to do is create a lot of contours and berms that become hazards. I think one could take this idea further and create quite a good bunkerless course.