A great architectural combination

[Patrick_Mucci_Jr]

Crowned greens with adjacent bowl (gathering) bunkers.

Crowned greens make the greens play smaller than their actual size and the slopes of the crowned greens, when they're tied into adjacent bowl (gathering) bunkers makes the errant or marginal  shot pay a price.

Several things happen with this configuration.

Near misses end up much further away from the intended target, making the recovery more difficult.

It also makes the golfer disappointed or discouraged, because, from the approach position, the errant or marginal shot doesn't appear to be that far off target, yet, when the golfer approaches the green, and sees how far away they are from the hole, it has to affect their disposition and shatter their confidence.

Seminole probably employs this combination most effectively, especially with the addition of wind.

Where else is this combination a theme throughout the golf course ?

The other thing I noticed is that this combination makes the bunkers play much larger than their actual size.

It would also seem to reduce bunker maintainance, but, probably increase the maintainance of the surrounds.

Was this strictly a Ross feature ?

While other architects have employed bowl shaped, or gathering (feeding) bunkers, how many of them combined that feature with crowned greens ?

And, where ?

[Patrick_Mucci_Jr]

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[Padraig Dooley]

Pat

Of the courses I've seen the one with the most noticable crowned greens was Humewood in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. There wasn't too many gathering bunkers around the greens, however the banks were shaved nice and tightly leading to some interesting recovery shots.

Normally the wind blows quite a bit there and most of the holes seem to play crosswind leading to some testing approach shots.

It was designed by Hotchkin of Woodhall Spa fame, I haven't played there and wonder if it has some of the same traits.

I'm a big fan of crowned greens, the sixth in Ballybunion always comes to mind. It's a truly great approach shot.

The gathering bunker seems to be a dying breed especially a fairway one which sucks in any ball within ten yards of it.

[Bill_McBride]

NGLA #1 certainly comes to mind!  

[Geoffrey Childs]

Pat

I think you're going to have to find your passport and board a plane to the UK to play some links golf if you want many examples of play as you described.  There are probably 100 good examples over there but I strain to find much of it on this side of the atlantic. Ross most likely adapted some of the features he learned from his youth at Dornoch.

[Patrick_Mucci]

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[David_Madison]

Patrick,

Only played the course once, about four years ago, but doesn't Mayacoo have some of that feature? I remember a number of narrow/smallish, elevated greens with deep (for South Florida, at least) bunkers squeezing in from the sides. More than once my friend's or my shots barely missed the putting surfaces and ended up in the bunkers.