A Startling "Convex" Bunker (Pics)

[Mark Bourgeois]

I only have a minute -- and I apologize for the out-of-focus (non-glamour edition) pics -- but what does everyone think of this bunker?

When I saw it I couldn't believe my eyes.  It looked like a "pre-spread" bunker, like they'd just dumped in the sand but hadn't gotten around to leveling it; however, this bunker has been here for some time and the members I played with passed it without comment.

Talk about an elephant in the living room!

This bunker has been here nearly 25 years, and is located in one of the windiest locales in the U.S. to boot.

What might be the function of such a bunker?

I post this now as I was reminded of it by the CPC 13 pic on the Alister MacKenzie thread.

Has anyone seen anything like this anywhere else?
How does one maintain a bunker like this -- particularly in a windy area?

View from the tee -- it's on the right -- on this par 4


Closeup pic


Another closeup pic

[igrowgrass]

Did you walk on it?  Is it softer at the top where everyshot would result in a fried egg?

[Mark Bourgeois]

No! I was on the express train, so unfortunately I didn't have time to walk around it, either.

What really killed me was how the two members walked blithely past. They'd seen it before, and on this course I can see how the feature wouldn't get much notice.

Have you ever seen something like this? How do you maintain it? I suspect there's more of a back to the bunker than is apparent, but still the point is for us to see what the picture shows.

Mark

[Anthony_Nysse]

Quague Field club has several of these dotting the landscape.

Tony Nysse
Sr. Asst. Supt.
Long Cove Club
HHI, SC

[Tim Gavrich]

If I recall correctly, there's one to the right of the 4th green a Toftrees Resort in State College, PA.  It's an interesting concept, albeit a bit difficult to maintain properly, I'd imagine.

[Michael_Stachowicz]

NGLA has them.

[Pat Brockwell]

Maybe Old Tom was talking about maintaining this bunker concept when he said "More sand, Pennyman, more sand."

[TEPaul]

"Has anyone seen anything like this anywhere else?
How does one maintain a bunker like this -- particularly in a windy area?"

Mark:

How convex bunkers like that are maintained is a good question. Apparently the sand in them must be fairly hard-packed to prevent problems.

As mentioned above there are some at NGLA (#9 and most noteably the enormous one fronting and blinding the 17th green).

I'm glad you posted this thread because it allows me to mention a pretty interesting discovery about an old convex bunker or sand mound.

I was involved recently in doing a "design evolution report" for The Creek Club in Long Island (Macdonald/Raynor 1922-24).

During that research an old Town and Country magazine was discovered on eBay from the mid 1920s in which J.H. Whigam described the course. In the article he mentioned that Raynor felt the 10th hole at The Creek was a better rendition of the 17th at NGLA.

None of us could understand the connection because although the 10th at The Creek is a really marvelous short par 4 with its double diagonal fairway formed by the creek (and the enormous Biarritz 11th green) on the right and the beach on the left it just didn't seem to have any similarity to the 17th at NGLA.

We had noticed from available aerials of the late 1920s or early 1930s that the sand bunker just left and in front of the green appeared so much larger than it is now.

But obviously aerials only show length and width and not the veritical dimension so we just assumed it must have been a much bigger version of the concave bunker there now.

And then, out of the blue, this on-ground photo from 1924 and from an old Long Island horse magazine (The Spur) was mailed to The Creek by some very old man from Syracuse, NY who'd apparently had it for decades.

That photo showed a mamouth CONVEX sand mound bunker left and in front of that green back then that appears to have been at least 10-12 feet high!!

And we said---"Well no wonder, Raynor and Whigam said that hole was a rendition of NGLA's #17".

At this point the question of what happened to that huge convex sand mound is an open one as well as the question of how much of a maintenance problem it may've been if close to the green.

Of course the idea of restoring it is pretty exciting but the potential maintenance problem is still a real one.

My suggestion would be to just back it off the green by about 20-25 yards and just leave the formal bunker that's next to the green the way it is----coincidentally just the way the bunker arrangement at the 17th at NLGA is now too.

It seems to me that old convex sand bunkers or mounds back in that early day were sort of a Macdonald/Raynor thing on a couple of their courses.

[Ray Richard]

You can see several convex bunkers at Green Harbor Golf Course, Marshfield, Ma. The course was built on a site with a very high water table and in a few locations the designer could not cut down to construct a conventional bunker. The bunkers are approx 25’ by 15’ and are 3’-4’ feet high in the middle.

 If I were to build these type bunkers on soft ground I would keep them low and slow, with subtle grades. If you add too much sand they will settle and you will have a featureless flat bunker. I would compact the sand after installation every 6 inches and keep a Sand Pro off the feature.

 

[SPDB]

A picture of the 5th at Quogue Field Club (mentioned earlier in thread)(courtesy of Chris Hunt)

[Mark Bourgeois]

"Has anyone seen anything like this anywhere else?
How does one maintain a bunker like this -- particularly in a windy area?"

Mark:

How convex bunkers like that are maintained is a good question. Apparently the sand in them must be fairly hard-packed to prevent problems.

As mentioned above there are some at NGLA (#9 and most noteably the enormous one fronting and blinding the 17th green).

I'm glad you posted this thread because it allows me to mention a pretty interesting discovery about an old convex bunker or sand mound.

I was involved recently in doing a "design evolution report" for The Creek Club in Long Island (Macdonald/Raynor 1922-24).

During that research an old Town and Country magazine was discovered on eBay from the mid 1920s in which J.H. Whigam described the course. In the article he mentioned that Raynor felt the 10th hole at The Creek was a better rendition of the 17th at NGLA.

None of us could understand the connection because although the 10th at The Creek is a really marvelous short par 4 with its double diagonal fairway formed by the creek (and the enormous Biarritz 11th green) on the right and the beach on the left it just didn't seem to have any similarity to the 17th at NGLA.

We had noticed from available aerials of the late 1920s or early 1930s that the sand bunker just left and in front of the green appeared so much larger than it is now.

But obviously aerials only show length and width and not the veritical dimension so we just assumed it must have been a much bigger version of the concave bunker there now.

And then, out of the blue, this on-ground photo from 1924 and from an old Long Island horse magazine (The Spur) was mailed to The Creek by some very old man from Syracuse, NY who'd apparently had it for decades.

That photo showed a mamouth CONVEX sand mound bunker left and in front of that green back then that appears to have been at least 10-12 feet high!!

And we said---"Well no wonder, Raynor and Whigam said that hole was a rendition of NGLA's #17".

At this point the question of what happened to that huge convex sand mound is an open one as well as the question of how much of a maintenance problem it may've been if close to the green.

Of course the idea of restoring it is pretty exciting but the potential maintenance problem is still a real one.

My suggestion would be to just back it off the green by about 20-25 yards and just leave the formal bunker that's next to the green the way it is----coincidentally just the way the bunker arrangement at the 17th at NLGA is now too.

It seems to me that old convex sand bunkers or mounds back in that early day were sort of a Macdonald/Raynor thing on a couple of their courses.

Tom Paul, ask Bill Coore what he thinks of convex bunkers.

I called the club about the convex bunker pic I posted and they said they don't really do much special to maintain it. I asked if they had steel plates underneath or a big wad of sand paper; the answer came back that they don't really pack it down or do much.

It does get blown around and washed out every now and then.  They just go out there and pour more sand on it!

SBerry, neat pic.  Judging by the rake marks, that's a small-scale bunker, yes?

Mark

Oh -- is this bunker an example of good modern quirk?

[TEPaul]

Mark:

I wish I could post the photo of the convex sand mound at The Creek in 1924. I believe it had some vegetation in it and it was pretty rough looking. That photo above just looks like a regular bunker that has way too much sand in it and it looks way too clean to me too.

[Bill Gayne]

I like the convex bunker with some plant growth to stabilize the mound.



(I think I know the answer is "no" but I'll ask the question anyway. Can the club be grounded on this mound?)

[Tony Ristola]

TEPaul: agree with you. The sand hill would look better with gobs of vegetation.

The NGLA mound is a pimple of grass. Why can't you ground your club? It's grass, not sand.

[TEPaul]

"(I think I know the answer is "no" but I'll ask the question anyway. Can the club be grounded on this mound?)"

Bill:

No, you are never allowed to "ground" your club in a bunker. However, under the definition of a bunker grass and such is not considered to be part of a bunker and you are allowed to touch grass and such within a bunker.

However, I guess some players may get confused and think that grass covered ground within a bunker is the same kind of thing as these so-called "waste bunkers" which the Rules of Golf do not recognize as part of the definition of a bunker. In the Rules those kinds of things are considered to be "through the green" where you can ground your club. But ground such as that grass covered convex mound in the photo above is considered to be "ground" "within" that bunker, and so you can only touch the grass and not the ground.

 

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

Here is a photo of the mound (NLE--are you sure that it is a mound and not a raised bunker?) that was short of the green on the 10th at Creek Club:

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

Thanks for posting that. Again, that photo came in out of the blue this summer. I doubt anyone in the club was remotely aware something like that ever existed on the golf course.

I just wish there was a golfer or something somewhere in that photo for scale because that thing looks like it could've been something like ten feet high.

I have a ton of mixed feelings about the idea of restoring that thing and how to do it because of maintenance considerations.

But not just that---eg back in that day there was a ton more exposed sand area out there than there is now and that mound looked and was more appropriate looking because of that.

If I had my way I would restore that thing unless it was deemed to be a real maintenance nightmare and also expose a whole lot more sand out there (and around #10 green, the way it once was) than there is now.

My sense is The Creek should do this to better enhance that whole sandy "seaside" LOOK that once existed between the beach and the ridge that divides the holes #9-#14 from the rest of the golf course.

[George_Bahto]

Wayne great picture

The Macdonald/Raynor architectural “style” of Creek #10 is usually thought of as a Cape style hole but the main concept of the hole is that of a Leven hole (17 NGLA) - original 7th of the old Leven course) where the “hazard” or a portion of the hazard is a sand hill, a high bunker berm or even a hill obfuscates a substantial portion of the green as the player approaches the green.

There is a “better” approach if the player can position his ball on the riskier side of the fairway off the tee. At Creek’s 10th if you placed your tee shot close to the water you had a “better” approach to the green.

The original 3rd hole at CC of Fairfield is/was a very similar situation except that hole was flopped over.

Macdonald and Raynor often built that style greenside bunker (with such a high face) on land with shallow water tables such as Creek and CCF.

These Leven holes were nearly always on shortish par-4s.

[TEPaul]

I'll tell you another interesting aspect of that photo above of The Creek's original #10, and that is it does not appear there's any of the berm that is there now that apparently helps protects the fairway (or perhaps more of the course) from the beach and the water along the shoreline. I guess that feature was included in the phenomenally expensive "Water Hole" fix that was accomplished around 1929-30.

I'm really just poking fun at Macd/Raynor because they certainly were wonderful architects and Raynor was obviously a most accomplished engineer but judging from some of the coastal problems they experienced early on with at least two of their courses (or a few of the coastal hole on them) perhaps they should have hired on a really good hydrologist too.  

This kind of reminds me of one of the slide shows of one of the architects who came to the original Archipalooza at Pacific Dunes.

He proudly showed one slide after another of a course in Japan (that he must have had to do with) where they built a precipitous hole on the coastline that natural forces just wiped out, and so they rebuilt it, it was destroyed again etc, etc over and over again, one rebuild and destruction after another, maybe up to five or six times.

I think he may've even bragged about the fact that this was running into the millions of dollars.

Well, we all sort of scratched our heads wondering what in the hell was the point of this slide show other than to respect the old adage that it's never a great idea to F... with Mother Nature.

As I recall the architect seemed slightly surprised when that adage was even mentioned.  

[Mark Bourgeois]

I guess the idea then is to mimic a dune structure.  The evolution of bunkers can be said to trace two broad branches.  Branch 1: sheep man and wind conspired to create concave bunkers in hollows where balls came to rest and golfers repeatedly played out of that spot, divot after divot giving the wind purchase to do its job.

Branch 2: dune structures, often large in size, were incorporated into the play of holes. Most dunes likely would have had (and have today) vegetation, but it's possible to think of "bare" dunes.  In fact, you could see a bare dune as progenitor of a vegetated dune, the bare dune then serving as an "ur-bunker."

I assume the technologically-savvy amongst you already have clicked on my pics above to locate the course.  For everyone else, this is the 2nd hole at Rockport Country Club, Bill Coore's very first design and featured in the USGA (defunct) Golf Journal's recurrent series, "A Great Golf Hole."

Was Coore reaching back to the example of NLGA, offering his "homage" via the pictured bunker?

Mark