An interesting take on bunkers by Sean Arble

[George Pazin]

Thought this comment by Sean was worth exploring on its own thread:

I can't tell you how often I look at pics shown on this site and imagine the greens with no bunkers or much less.  I am finding bunkers more and more depressing to look at.  The damn things are eating at the soul of the game.

(Sean, I hope you don't mind my starting this thread with your quote, I think it's a pretty interesting statement and might make for some interesting discussion.)

Agree or disagree?

In a theoretical sense, I kind of like it, but practically speaking, who could convince his client a course would be better without bunkers?

[Ted Kramer]

In general I agree with Sean. "No bunkers" is too severe, but fewer, well placed, and more meaningful (read penal) bunkers would be something that I would support.

-Ted

[Garland Bayley]

I agree with Sean. Golf courses tend to to take things to extremes. We have a little money laying around, what can we do to improve the course. Oh! I have an original idea, let's add a bunker (or tree, or bunkers, or trees). Then it gets to the point where some designers think they have to have lots of bunkers to make a "good" course. Because of people's skewed priorities, they know they have to have lots of bunkers to have a high value course.

[Brent Hutto]

There are many courses which would certainly be made poorer by the elimination of all or even nearly all of their bunkers. I've lately developed an appreciation of the way in which some of my home course's bunkering works well with the contours of the ground and especially the green complexes. Lots of other examples I can think of, too.

That said, I've never understood the fascination with bunkers on this forum or among the general public for that matter. Honestly, you'd think that some people have to tax their brains to even recall one visual characteristic of a golf course other than its bunkering (unless of course there's an ocean involved). I appreciate shape, color and texture as much as the next guy but at least for my game all that really matters about a bunker is a) whether my ball is in it, b) what kind of lie I have and c) how high a lip do I have to go over.

I will tell you a type of bunkering that is not uncommon and which could be eliminated at no loss whatsoever. A fairway bunker, well to the side of the short grass, surrounded by rough and offering no particular advantage to the player who can carry over it. It always seems a waste to see half an acre of expensively maintained white sand, whose only purpose is to require a fairway-bunker shot for one specific bad tee shot that travels far offline from any reasonable line to the green. That money could be spent on any number of other things.

[Mark Pearce]

Interesting that this thread should appear on the same page as a thread lauding Whistling Straits over Congressional.  I liked what I saw of WS on TV this weekend but how many bunkers are there on that course and how many are there that should never come into play?

Is it really too many bunkers per se that Sean is objecting too or rather too many pointless, inappropriate bunkers?

[Brent Hutto]

I'll go this far in agreeing with Sean. I think a good design strategy would be to build each hole for maximum utilization of the land and then utilize bunkers whereever they make a better-playing hole possible.

Many courses give the appearance of having been built with the a priori expectation of a certain acreage of sand and the holes designed on the principle of "Hmmm, where's a good spot for the fairway bunker on this hole?" regardless of need.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Does Pine Valley have too many bunkers ?

Sand Hills ?

Pacific Dunes ?

Don't you have to examine the issue in a site specific context ?

[David_Elvins]

I am with Sean on this one.  The less bunkers built, the easier they are to avoid, the more penal they can be built, and the more strategic they can become.

[Ally Mcintosh]

i don't feel qualified to comment here but i'll chirp in anyway seeing as it relates to a recent discussion i had with sean...

whereas i agree with the overall principle of bunkers not being littered around a course with no strategy involved, there are plenty of courses i have played and loved precisely because of the number of bunkers and the position of the bunkering...

...little aston which i played recently has vast expanses of sand and i absolutely loved it... genuinely felt that i was plotting my way around the course... there were fairway bunkers on near every hole and cross or centreline bunkers on many... maybe i just liked the style but without them the course wouldn't have been half as much fun...

...on the flip side of the coin, i felt that the dukes course at st andrews had far too many... i'm not sure why... i will have to think about that...

...anyway, this discussion interests me... i will read on if you keep on writing  

[TEPaul]

I've been saying this for years now (the threads are in the back pages).

It's not that I don't like bunkers or that I have anything against them----not at all---I love really interesting bunkers. It's just that I don't believe they have to be a completely integral part of golf architecture everywhere and all the time.

Unfortunately, it's probably come to that today---eg just too many golfers for whatever reason expect that a decent course must have bunkering or it's not a decent course. Even more unfortunately I think most every architect I know thinks the same thing either artistically or just out of fear that a bunkerless course will be perceived that way.

I think Max Behr said it best that sand bunkering is just that odd vestige in golf from the naturally sandy original linksland that just completely held on in golf and architecture when it went into inland sites (where ironically there may not be any natural sand).

I think there are very appropriate places for sand bunkering and those places are relatively obvious. But to feel that one must do them everywhere on every course----I don't think so. Plenty of other features can be used in their place such as earthen mounds, hollows etc that are far more naturally appropriate for various sites---eg they seem much more of a natural orientation given everything else in and around most sites before a golf course.

In a certain sense sand bunkering can be and has become both an artistic and design crutch, in my opinion!!

[wsmorrison]

I agree with Pat, the concept is interesting but needs to be applied on a course by course basis.  Where there is little topographic interest, the course better have some interesting hazards to create strategy.  Where there is dynamic land movement, there should be some restraint, allowing TEP's so-called "gravity golf."  Shinnecock Hills is a great example of this.  In the flat portions of the property there was a great deal of formal bunkers and undulating sandy waste areas.  In the more topographic areas, there is much less.

I think the bunkering around greens by MacKenzie seems too much, except at Cypress Point where it was more in character with the site.  At Pasatiempo, Augusta, Valley Club, etc. it was taken way too far.

I think the Tillinghast/Jones bunkering at Bethpage Black was/is excessive in terms of the scale and domination of the landscape.  Way too much bunkering on interesting ground.

Pine Valley has among the most acreage of sandy waste areas and it was perfect (now too groomed).  Shinnecock Hills, Boca Raton South, Indian Creek and others had a lot of sandy waste areas but they fit the surroundings.  Sand and undulating sandy waste areas aren't inherently bad, it is how they are used that causes problems.

[Garland Bayley]

Does Pine Valley have too many bunkers ?

Sand Hills ?

Pacific Dunes ?

Don't you have to examine the issue in a site specific context ?

When a course is build in an extremely sandy area, there is no limit to the number of bunkers, IMO. They can be looked upon as simply land that was not improved with turf to create golf. Especially Pine Valley, where there are no rakes!

It is adding large number of bunkers to parkland routings that I object to. Take a hint from AM's original design of ANGC and bunker with restraint.

[TEPaul]

"I agree with Pat, the concept is interesting but needs to be applied on a course by course basis."

Wait a minute Wayno. If you find yourself in a position to actually agree with something Pat Mucci says, I wish you could sort of just imply it, and very subtly, thank you very much, instead of actually saying it.

Actually SAYING or STATING you agree with Pat Mucci on here on anything to do with golf course architecture is basically counter-intuitive, to say the least, and it just plain sounds BAD.

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

Hey, it was the 97th post since I last agreed with him so it is OK  

Will you be around for the Lancaster CC get together on July 19?

[TEPaul]

Another thing that struck me as odd but only if one really thinks about it is the idea that sand bunkering on most all sites should be "in scale" with the general feeling and look of the site.

I most certainly understand the idea and the "principle" which is basically one of the "artistic' principles of LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE---eg features should conform to the LA "art" principles of "balance", "proportion", "harmony" and "Rhythm".

But why, or at least why always??

Is this really the way of Nature herself?

Not at all.

What this kind of "scale" thing is, is nothing much more than an application of an "idealized" form of Nature---eg an "artistic" INTERPRETATION of Nature. It's more of an "aesthetic" concern than one of true strategic playability, including in the ways of true "unidealized" Nature.

The basic precept of the "idealized" LA concept which is frankly one of the precepts of all landscape architecture as an art form, is that what is unattractive looking should be removed or minimized.

I don't really buy that----I say it is NOT always INAPPROPRIATE to throw into golf architecture ALL that Nature is and can be----and that can include WARTS and all.

[Mark_Fine]

George,
I'm not sure what he means by "eating at the soul of the game" as they were there when the soul was formed!  But yes courses can have too many bunkers or bunkers for the sake of bunkers, or poorly placed bunkers, or....come to think of it, I know a good book that covers this topic pretty thoroughly and would save me lots of typing here    

Good to see you out at Fox Chapel.  
Mark

[TEPaul]

Other elements in golf course architecture I would love to see used more in the future are various types of man-made elements which clearly prexisted various golf courses (or that look like they did).

This could include elements such as post and rail fences, stone or earthen walls, apparent ruins or pieces of them.

I just can't tell you how much more attractive the site of Bedford Springs has become since they recently put in a good old fashioned Pennsylvania post and rail fence line all the way along the property line and the country road that runs the length of the golf course.

I'm pretty certain that post and rail fence doubles as the OB line along that side of the property. It looks so much better and certainly more natural looking than about a half a mile of white OB stakes would.

[TEPaul]

"George,
I'm not sure what he means by "eating at the soul of the game" as they were there when the soul was formed!"

Mark:

I know exactly what he means by that.

Of course sand bunkers (natural sand dunes and hollows) were there in original golf when the soul of the game and its original architecture was formed.

But that was in those areas such as the linksland where golf existed solely and singly for many centuries.

Around 1850 the game began to emigrate out of Scotland for the first time to inland sites all over the world that have and had no natural sand and sand dunes and sand hollows and bunkers that the Scottish linksland always had.

So the question is why must sand and sand bunkering AUTOMATICALLY follow golf and architecture into INLAND sites where there may not be any sand for hundreds of miles?

To always to that is clearly unnatural, to say the least!

This really is why the question needs to be asked;

"Why is the SAND bunker that odd vestige that hung onto golf and architecture so completely even in places where sand never existed?"

I think the answer is pretty obvious----eg it's so easy to do, at least in an artistic sense.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I don't understand the problem with bunkers.  Like anything they can be over done.  I have the same problem with water.  At least in a bunker you have the option of hitting a shot.  The most interesting greens complexes are the ones that are undulating, have fall away closely mown chipping or pitching areas, bunkers, some rough.  Probably not on enery hole but throughout the course.  I'd rather see a bunker than waist high rough or a pond.  

The fourth hole at my club is the most bunkered hole on the course.  It is a par five with bunkers down the right side of the tee shot landing area.  The closer to the right side of the fairway you hit the tee shot the better angle you have for the second shot, either to hit it over the second set of bunkers, or hit it left of the bunkers.  If you can hit it over the second set of bunkers the third shot is fairly easy.  Hit it left or short of the second set of bunkers and the shot is more difficult.  The bunkers are pretty deep and a long making for recoveries that require thought and precision.  The hole calls for a well thought out strategy and execution.  It may not be my favorite hole on the course but it is fun.



On the other hand the 16th hole does not have any bunkers.  It is sharp dogle to the right.  Cut the corner and you have a fairly simple pitch to the green.  Keep it well left of the tree and you still only have about 135 yards but to a bling green.  The green itself is about sloped with rough behind the green and closely mown areas that fall off the front and right of the green.  It doesn't need a bunker.  
Tee shot from 16



looking back from 16 green




It seems to me that thoughtful bunkering is almost essential to good architecture.

[David Stamm]

I think the bunkering around greens by MacKenzie seems too much, except at Cypress Point where it was more in character with the site.  At Pasatiempo, Augusta, Valley Club, etc. it was taken way too far.

 

Wow! That surprises me coming from you Wayne. I can understand how some would view some of Mack's greensite bunkers as excessive, but I believe Mack always placed them and shaped them with a reason in mind. Below is the 5th green at Pasatiempo after Mr. Doak's restoration. I feel that this green site really shows how Mack was trying to deceive the player into thinking that there is less green (smaller target) than what appears from the tee.





Much has been talked about Mack's camouflage techniques from his days in the Boer War and how this has translated into his course designs. Below is a good example IMHO of how this was put to use. From this angle, the player really isn't sure how expansive it is. This is from the 10th at Pasatiempo.



I don't have any photo's of Valley Club, but I have walked around the site for a bit. What Doak and Urbina have done there in restoring the bunkers is fantastic. And if I'm not mistaken, Hunter is actually largely responsible for the look of the bunkers in the early photo's. Perhaps Tom and Jim can chime in on that. IMHO, I think Mackenzie/Hunter and Thomas/Bell (sadly, most are lost) created the most beautiful bunkers and well placed that I've ever seen. Now whether they were in character with the perspective sites, that is open for debate. I feel that at both sites, the golfer is made to believe that it "belongs" IMHO.

[Garland Bayley]

Great post Sean!

[Mark Bourgeois]

Sean, what do you think?



Mark

[Garland Bayley]

Mark,

I think pictures of that hole are posted to this website far too often!
 

[Garland Bayley]

I'm not sure Sean, but I think two of the "bunkers" you criticized are really foot paths.

[Kalen Braley]

Sean,

I feel where you are coming from on this one.  I think there are examples of courses where its just plain overdone and its a bit of a turnoff.

However in the case of PasaTiempo #5 green and the picture of the short par 3 at Barnbougle, I think the bunkers do well to intimidate the player, create depth perceptions, and tests the players "instincts".  While you may think its overkill thats fine, but in the case of the hole at Barnbougle, I think the bunkers blend in nicely with the environs and add strategic value.