"I know there is no real answer to any of this, but I guess I like to think about things in not so much what they are, but how in essence a "norm" became a "norm". Is this making any sense?"
Kalen:
Of course it makes sense!
Furthermore, I don't think any of us should say or even assume that there is no answer to why sand bunkering became an almost automatic expectation on any golf course no matter its type of natural setting and certainly including those with virtually no natural sand such as a "parkland" setting.
If we simply look back through the entire evolution of golf course architecture I think the reasons why sand bunkering has virtually always been included becomes quite clear.
You said:
“I will certainly agree its an automatic expectation. But I was hoping to look beyond that and ask, should it be an automatic expectation? Is this a case of we accept it this way, only because this is what we always get? Or is there something on a very fundamental basis to have bunkering on a course even when it flies in the face of a naturally occuring phenomen.”
If we look at original golf in linksland Scotland before the game and golf course architecture first began to emigrate out of Scotland we see virtually only sites that had natural sand and also natural formations that we call bunkers (the word “bunker” first appeared in the Rules of Golf in 1812, by the way). For that reason we can essentially conclude that sand bunkers and such were part of the game simply because they were always actually naturally existing, and for that reason were basically inevitable.
But then when golf and architecture began to emigrate out of Scotland it seems that some representation or interpretation of them were almost always done and even on sites that had no natural sand. At first they seemed to appear, particularly inland, in a shape and form closer to the look of some steeplechase jumps than to a natural linksland bunker look in golf. But the fact is they seem to have always appeared on golf courses.
Max Behr referred to them as that ‘odd vestige of linksland golf’ that was not natural to inland sites with no natural sand but hung on in architecture nonetheless. It would not surprise me if a lot of that had to do with that old Linksland jibe on and criticism of the first inland courses outside Scotland of “Nae links, nae golf”. It would not surprise me if those early inland golfers took that slight somewhat seriously and did something about it such as the inclusion of man-made sand bunkers (or some of the odd formations with sand in them that passed for sand bunkers back then
).
There may be another interesting reason sand bunkers were always an expectation in golf and architecture even on sites that had no natural sand and that is the fact that around 1850 the first real prohibition in the Rules of Golf against actually touching sand with a golf club began to be developed (the first prohibition was not against touching sand but against making ‘an impression’ in it). For that reason the challenge or demand of hitting a shot from sand probably became something that was basically standardized and institutionalized in golf and its architecture via the game’s Rules! If that were the case, even somewhat, most all golfers and architects of almost any time or era probably felt that particular challenge in golf must be maintained! And obviously the only way to do that would be to continue to include sand in bunkers on any golf course anywhere despite its natural setting---eg natural sand or no natural sand.