When They Were Hazards...........

[Tommy_Naccarato]

In honor of Craig Disher and Paul Turner's recent efforts on Golf Club Atlas.....

Hazard--\Haz"ard\, v. i. To try the chance; to encounter risk or danger. --Shak.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc


Deal Golf Club, circa 1897 and when pure golf was the challange

(Unless Jeff Bradley was reincarnated, I have no knowledge of him ever being there.)

[Tommy_Naccarato]

The Maiden of Royal St. George
(Yes, I would more then likely lay-up in the bunker just for the fun of it.)

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tommy,

Sadly, your examples have been made extinct due to "fairness"

[ian]

Tommy,
There are few great ones left, they may be cleaned up a little too much for you liking though. My dad's favourite photo is me playing backwards out of the fairway bunker on Turnberry's 8th. It was still a really difficult shot at that.

Love the photos.

Ian

[Slag_Bandoon]

Hmmm, are there any sepia toned cultivars we can plant to bring back that look?

[Paul Richards]

Tommy:

I'd love to take a time machine and get a crack at those
"real hazards!"

[Paul Turner]

Tommy

Where did you get those from!?

I guess the bunkers at Pacific Dunes and Sand Hills are the closest to this today.  Although THE bunker at St Enodoc is the same.

Thanks in particular for The Maiden.  I actually thought it was Prestwick's 5th at first glance.

[Bill_McBride]

Tommy, re: the Maiden.  Is your tee shot supposed to carry those mountains?  What is the carry?  Unbelievable.

[Mike_Cirba]

And we rake and assiduously manicure the things!  

Why?

Fairness?  Aesthetic beautification?  Extra cash?

Anyone care to venture a guess as to why bunkers became just another well-groomed "playing surface", requiring a slightly different technique but little in the way of certain uncertainty?

What the heck is wrong with rugged, raw, and naturally fearsome, not to mention staggeringly beautiful in their purest unkempt form?  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Cirba,

Two possible reasons:

1     Safety.

       If rocks or stones were in evidence in picture # 1, they
       could pose a substantial threat to one's eyesight, or to
       a fellow golfer or caddie.  Thus, I could not take
       exception to having them "purified" of contaminents.

2      Erosion.

       Picture # 1 seems to have a very steep faced bank
       which could erode to the point of undermining the green.
       Thus, I could not take exception to shoring up or
       rectifying that situation.

Golf courses either evolve, remain static or wilt(?), one for the better, the other for the worse.  I'm sure that the bunkers pictured didn't change over night, but over a long time, with the process including nature and man's handiwork, some for the better, some for the worse.

[Eric Pevoto]

Tom, those photos are truly phenomenal.  Thanks.  

The questions Mike is asking are very current to me as I daily show people the work Gil and his guys are doing at French Creek.  

Believe me, there are some beautifully gnarly, scraggly pits going in around here.  

Strangely, I regularly find myself convincing someone "there's plenty of room to play around them" or "conquering those  things makes the game that much more fun."  I really can't understand the fear some have towards a truly challenging hazard like those pictured.  It is just a game. (Ohmigod, I said it!)          

Yesterday, I had the privilege of walking around Pine Valley for several hours.  Can a golf course be any more  exhilerating? Talk about certain uncertainty!

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick;

Surely I'm not suggesting rocks or stones should be part of those hazards, although I'm also not averse to gila monsters, quicksand, or poisonous snakes.  

As far as erosion, some of the greatest pits of doom in the game have lasted for centuries.  Yes, they need some supportive work done periodically, but i'm talking more about the day to day "overconditioning" of most bunkers these days than any long term structural deficiencies.

Eric;

I owe you a phone call.  Really great to hear that you were down to Pine Valley.  

Sand Hills is another place where the bunkers are to be avoided at all costs, and if I saw a kimono dragon in one of them it wouldn't have been the least surprising.  

[Don_Mahaffey]

Mike, I think bunkers evolved from the wild, natural style to the more modern style for two reasons.

First, because through "advances" in equipment and management practices it became easier to keep them clean and neat looking. The natural look became "unkempt" and the clean look came into style. This "arms race" is still going as we see lower heights of cuts on all short grass areas, and less acceptance of any blemishes on our courses. Could you have imagined 20 years ago that we would be sodding areas on our courses simply because they looked off color or were a little thin. Happens all the time now.  

Second, playability. Most players do not enjoy a difficult golf course. They think they do, but what most really want is a course to look difficult but play easy. Those older bunkers were tougher and "unfair", because of the possibility of bad lies or very bad lies.

Certainly is interesting that more and more designers are attempting to build bunkers that look "aged". These bunkers can be a lot of work to keep them looking that way. I still like the old method, dig a hole in the right place, fill it with sand, and leave it alone. Don't think we'll see that method to often.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Paul, You have your sources....I have mine!

(Actually these photos come from the library of a  very special book from the personal library of a very dear late friend--Horace Hutchinson's 1897 classic "British Golf Links" from the library of the late Desmond Muirhead.)

Pat, I find it interesting that you see rocks in the picture. I have never seen it, but I do see a definite ruggedness. This is proof of what you see with your lense and what I see with mine--a definitive difference, much like when we put a glass of excellent cabernet to our taste buds.

I find that the look of these two bunkers to be one of fear, rugged-rough-at-the-edges-scrappy and full of challenge. Has no one every stood above a shot, shaking in their boots in fear of failure to pull that shot off? What was the force that created this fear? To me that is the purpose of the any great hazard of years gone by. Today we call some of them directional eye candy or even worse, "FRAMING, and sometimes they don't even come into play!

On memory, I think the Maiden was a carry of some 161 yards, but back then with reasonable wood-shafted clubs as well as dirt clods for golf balls, it must have been a worthy adversary.

Since this is coming up, let me move on to a different picture. It has taken me a long time to decipher this picture, and I'm still not sure I have it correct. The course or place doesn't have to matter at this moment, but let just give a hint that it is just off the coast of England. (Hehe!:))

What do all of you see with your "lense" in this picture?


This may be one of the best ways to understand or learn Nature, Art, and Golf Architecture if you don't own Geoff Shakelford and Mike Miller's Art of Golf.

[Eric Pevoto]

Yikes!  You're right concerning the fear these induce.  I just can't understand why people wouldn't want that challenge and potential thrill to be any part of the game.  Call it the fear of the fear.  

Apparently the appearance of the Maiden hole has been changed significantly, but Donald Steel's book lists the yardage at 156 yds (might be meters, don't have the book in front of me now).  

As for that last photo, the more I look at what at first glance appears to be a tabletop green down in the "quarry," the less I'm convinced.  The drop wraps around the left side of the table.  Doesn't appear to be a lot of turf.  Is it a construction shot?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tommy Naccarato,

May I suggest some reading glasses for you.

You will note, in my direct response to Mike Cirba's post,
I stated, " IF rocks or stones were in evidence...."

I never stated that I saw rocks, you however my good friend never saw the word "IF", as in whiff.

As the the last photo you posted, I see a man on the far right dancing on one leg, a caddy on the left performing a balancing act as he defies gravity, and another heavyset man watching with sympathy as another man is throwing up at the sight of so many rocks and stones.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tommy,
My first impression of the photo was that the players are putting.

The first two photos show amazing bunkers. I think the fear factor comes more into play when hitting the shot that may or may not land you in one of these pits. Once in there you become somewhat resigned to your fate.

Pat, Don and others mention fairness & maintenance as reasons we don't see stuff like this anymore. I would add stroke play to that list. Those bunkers hold less fear when I know that after a couple of vain attempts to extricate my ball I can pick up, concede, and move on to the next hole.

The ability to remove stones in a bunker is one of the best local rules allowed by the USGA. It might have a side effect of lessening the maintenance pressure of bunkers. If the USGA were to try a local rule, for non-tournament stroke play only, that would allow the same relief from a bunker that it allows from a water hazard it might encourage architects to try building more truly hazardous pits. The stroke and distance penalty for removing a ball from a bunker increases the pressure to make them "fair".

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Pat,

I found that to be a pretty big "IF."

Quite obviously I don't see any rocks or stones, but feel safe to say that is is about as close as one can get to emphasizing nature in the context. But this is the beauty of one's personal lense, and the ability to adjust the focus and clarity of it all.

 I also have to say this kind of bunker is as about as close as one courd get to modern day C&C/Jeff Bradley stuff that maybe, just maybe I'm tricking some of you, and it is actually be a photo of Hidden Creek?)

Here is another, but I have to apologize for the quality of the picture. Still, the image is of one of the Game's best courses that needs to be studied for all of its worth:

[Don_Mahaffey]

Tommy,
Cardinal???

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Don,
The image is of one of Ran;s favorites, Westward Ho! Although images of the bunkers look similar, it is usually because of the sleepers that both bunkers share.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tommy Naccarato,

When I saw Deal Golf Club, I though of the club next to Hollywood at the New Jersey shore, and thought of shell rock and shells.  Perhaps rocks and stones are found on inland courses.