[Sean Leary]

Has anyone played a Fazio with a centerline bunker or complex? I have not.

[Mark_F]

Adam,

I didn't know you had made it down to St Andrews Beach recdently.  That's a fab picture of the 7th hole. Looks like they've even begun flattening things to make it easier to play, too.

A few photos aren't evidence that centerline bunker complexes populate all or most new courses.

They remain a rare feature as opposed to a common feature.

Patrick,

You're wrong. My home course has five holes like that. Barnbougle Dunes has several.  Andrew Summerall has pointed out that Clayton's work has some.  Peter Thomson courses have several, although that is probably true to a general philosophy of putting them everywhere, especially at Capital.

[Kalen Braley]

Pat,

I wouldn't label centerline bunkers as rare, but certainly would go with the uncommon/not-the-norm moniker.

I've always felt centerline bunkers can add a lot to hole, even if its just a small princples nose type deal where
one tries to avoid it like the plague.

I wouldn't disagree that many weekend warriors deem them unfair, but always thought this as odd because they never seem to mind when you have a shot that must be played over a pond or creek that runs width wise across a fairway or in
front of a green.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Kalen,

As the trend to narrow fairways continues, will existing centerline fairway bunker complexes go the way of the dinosaur ?

Mark Ferguson,

Are you stating that centerline bunker complexes are the norm ?

That every course being built has them ?

Or, are they uncommon, if not rare ?

[Tom Huckaby]

Kalen,

As the trend to narrow fairways continues, will existing centerline fairway bunker complexes go the way of the dinosaur ?

Pat:

I surely don't mean to be difficult.

But is there really a trend to narrow fairways?

All I tend to see are huge wide ones at new courses... and I don't see our old ones growing in the rough...

Perhaps again, this is an old-school east coast thing?

I just go through playing Colorado GC, Ballyneal and Sand Hills, and you could run 6 lane interstate highways through most of those fairways and still have room for shoulders on all of them.

I can't think of any courses here in CA where fairways are being narrowed....

Kalen - do you see narrowing?

[JESII]

I've said this a few times on here, but it's worth repeating becaue the bunker is just that good...there is a little dumpy bunker just right of the center of a 70 yard wide fairway at 130 yards from the green on #16 at Applebrook that is just genius. Have you ever met a real genius? They are really annoying. The thing about the bunker is that it is absolutely dead on the spot that one would want to hit their layup shot on this par 5 if they cannot get over the creek off the tee...which is about 290 to carry...

[David Mulle]

Has anyone played a Fazio with a centerline bunker or complex? I have not.

It might be stretching the definition of centerline bunker complex but the 15th at World Woods jumps to mind.

[Mark_F]

Mark Ferguson,

Are you stating that centerline bunker complexes are the norm ?

That every course being built has them ?

Or, are they uncommon, if not rare ?

Patrick,

No, not every course has them, but that wasn't part of your original question, was it?

I don't believe they are uncommon, but nor are they the norm. 

However, it is interesting that Norman's Moonah course at The National doesn't have them, on a layout designed by the best driver of the last fifty years, on a spacious property. Interested if some of the other Aust. posters who have undoubtedly played a few of his designs can say whether it's something he has avoided. Doak sure doesn't.

[Bill_McBride]

But is there really a trend to narrow fairways?

All I tend to see are huge wide ones at new courses... and I don't see our old ones growing in the rough...

Perhaps again, this is an old-school east coast thing?

I just go through playing Colorado GC, Ballyneal and Sand Hills, and you could run 6 lane interstate highways through most of those fairways and still have room for shoulders on all of them.

I can't think of any courses here in CA where fairways are being narrowed....

America's Guest, on the road, seeking out wider fairways!   You are the man. 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Huckaby,

I have a limited amount of time and I really can't take on more pupils, but, I'll make an exception.

One only has to examine and analyze the impact of automated irrigation systems to see one of the first causes of narrowed fairways.

Maintainance costs are another factor.

Increased distance, TV, the PGA Tour and Majors are another.

Didn't you watch the last few PGA's and U.S. Opens ?

Winged Foot, Baltusrol, Bethpage, Torrey Pines, ANGC, Oakmont and Shinnecock have all narrowed their fairways, as did Merion.

Torrey Pines is still in California isn't it ?
How about Riviera ?

At almost every local course I've played, fairways have been narrowed versus their original configuration.

To NOT SEE AND RECOGNIZE THAT TREND would place you squarely in the Ray Charles school of observation.

The trend is undeniable.

[Tom Huckaby]

Bill, it was a heck of a trip and I remain very lucky.

But hey, you get around.  Do you see this "trend" toward narrowing fairways that Patrick mentions?  Do you see a dearth of centerline bunkers?  Man it seems to me every new course I see has wide fairways and at least a few center bunkers... man the trend seems the OPPOSITE of what Patrick mentions....

But of course I could be wrong, crazy or both.

TH

[Chris Kane]

But of course I could be wrong, crazy or both.

Or you could be right!

[Tom Huckaby]

Patrick:

That's an entirely different question.   Sure fairways get narrowed for some professional or other high-level competitions.  But do those fairways then stay that way when the competition ends?  At some, but not most, I'd say....

And is that really what you are talking about?  I thought you were discussing design.

In any case, our experience differs yet again.  I have yet to play or see a single course that I can recall that had fairways narrowed.

I just played three great new ones with massive width....

So again, I guess you see a trend.  I see competitions being held this way... but not many golf courses I play following suit.

TH

[Bill_McBride]

I'm not sure what fairway irrigation would have to do with it, since the heads are fixed in place and therefore the fairway edge is fixed.  I guess there are courses that are letting the rough grow inside the irrigation line to reduce maintenance costs.

Encroaching tree lines from over assertive green committees would be one explanation.  Who thought those 9" trees would wind up with a 30' canopy?

Comparing USGA Open set ups to everyday course set ups isn't realistic, no one wants a course set up with 22 yard fairways on a daily basis.  However, I agree that far too many courses feature fairway bunkers set off outside the fairway lines and should more accurately be called "rough bunkers."  

I agree that most of the new neo-classical, neo-minimalist courses I see have fairways that average closer to 45 than 25 yards.  As someone commented in another thread today, it's a treat to see a course where driving close to the fairway edge yields an advantage.  You have to have reasonably wide fairways for that to be true.

[Kalen Braley]

Patrick,

I would agree with Toms assessment.  While I do see fairways being tightened on TV and for significant tourneys, I don't see this in the everyday courses where tournaments such as those will  never be played.  So I honestly can't say I've seen with my own eyes these narrow fairways that you speak of.

A few months ago, I did play a course that has its Nationwide wide stop here in Utah, and while there were a few narrow holes on the course, I don't recall unusually narrow fairways.

To me, it seems more like a local setup when the big boys come thru town and they want to avoid thier course being turned into a birdie-fest.  After all, I can take the easist course and I can gurantee I can set it up to be darn near impossible to play with long shaggy grass everywhere.

[SPDB]

Pat:
I tend to agree with what others on here have said about the prevalence
or reemergence of centerline bunkers on courses built recently by modernarchitects
commonly discussed on this board.

I think the disappearance of centerline can be traced to the period dominated by
RTJ and Wilson.  I have in the past started threads about the migration of bunkers
to fairway perimeters and even further into the rough. I've also queried whether
this practice started with Flynn.

Sean,
I have played several Fazio courses with centerline bunkering, and as with other practicing
architects, I have seen his use of such bunkering increase over the past few years.  Here is a
pretty good example of one at Forest Creek (North)

[Andrew Summerell]

Mark Ferguson,

Are you stating that centerline bunker complexes are the norm ?

That every course being built has them ?

Or, are they uncommon, if not rare ?

Pat,

Apart from Mike Clayton utilising a few, Australians have also seen Ross Watson & Tony Cashmore use them in new courses over the last 10 to 15 years. Although these guys design throughout Asia as well, they may not be as influenced by American trends allowing Australia to have its own little microcosm of design. To that extent, centreline bunkers have become reasonably common in Australia. The courses by these architects that do utilise centreline bunkers all have enough room.

Norman, being mentioned by Mark, is an interesting one. Two courses that Bob Harrison designed before he started working with Norman each have one centreline bunker in them. Although many aspects of Bob’s style have remained the same over the years, the centreline bunker seems to have disappeared with his work with Norman.

[John Moore II]

Pat:
I tend to agree with what others on here have said about the prevalence
or reemergence of centerline bunkers on courses built recently by modernarchitects
commonly discussed on this board.

I think the disappearance of centerline can be traced to the period dominated by
RTJ and Wilson.  I have in the past started threads about the migration of bunkers
to fairway perimeters and even further into the rough. I've also queried whether
this practice started with Flynn.

Sean,
I have played several Fazio courses with centerline bunkering, and as with other practicing
architects, I have seen his use of such bunkering increase over the past few years.  Here is a
pretty good example of one at Forest Creek (North)

Not to be picky, but I can't remember thinking either of those two bunkers were centerline. The one on the left is more of a greenside bunker that just extends a long way into the fairway. And the one on the right is somewhat in line from the tee, but it more just guards the right side of the fairway and puts strategy in place since over near that bunker is the preferred line into the green. I would just say they are strategic, not centerline.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Let me clarify what I deem to be centerline bunkers.

They are bunkers that are in the DZ, that force the golfer to choose, left or right, short or long.

I don't consider the bunker in the fairway on # 10 at ANGC to be a centerline bunker complex.

[Andrew Summerell]

Pat,

Is it possible that American architects should be looking at what Australian architects are doing in this regard ?

[Adam Clayman]

Victoria nationals 9th has a center complex. It's rather large but fits Pat's definition. L, R, Long or Short. It's a three shot hole and the complex is interfaced nearer the green. So, it actually interfaces with all players.

[Mike_Clayton]

Andrew,

You have played the new Royal Queensland, I think.
 We used the short, left, right or over option off the tee at the 3rd,6th,9th (at a pinch) 16 and 18.
They are at different ditances and ask for a variety of shots but I can't tell you how many times I have heard 'I hit a perfect drive and it went in the bunker'

The key to making it work at RQ was having fairways 60, and sometimes more, yards wide.

To me they are really fun shots to hit and decisions to ponder but it is difficult to convince someone who thinks golf is a straight driving contest played on clear fairways with white lines down the sides.

[Ken Moum]

At almost every local course I've played, fairways have been narrowed versus their original configuration.

I just paced off the ninth at my home course. It's a 450-yard par four, and the fairway is currently 24 yards wide

Down from nearly 40 yards about 5 years ago.

Ken

[Doug Siebert]

Patrick,

I think you already knew both answers when you asked the question, and I haven't seen anything else anyone suggested worthy to add a third answer.  Fairways today are a bit narrow (newer courses are just built that way) for centerline hazards to work as well as they did in the Golden Age, and many average golfers hate them.  Not all of them, but the same guys who will complain if a green is firm enough to not take a ballmark, or sand that is fluffy enough for a ball to bury, or grass that is otherwise fine but just happens to be a bit brown, will complain loudly about a bunker in the middle of the fairway whining about the unfairness of hitting a drive dead center and having it end up in the bunker.  Any protestations I may make about the fact the bunker didn't materialize while their ball as in the air but was clearly visible when they teed their ball fall on deaf ears.


Tom H,

I don't think the argument is so much courses that have taken wide fairways and narrowed them, but that courses built since 1950 or so have generally had relatively narrow fairways.  I'm not talking crazy stuff like the <20 yarders you might see in a major, but even a fairway that's 35 yards wide is not nearly as wide as fairways used to be, and doesn't leave a whole lot of room on either side for even a small bathtub pot bunker in the center of that fairway.

[Sean_A]

I definitely believe that a significant percentage of golfers think centreline bunkers are hokey.  Somebody stated that middle of the fairway is the goal and many can't see why sand would be there.  I find this attitude interesting because people seem to accept bunkers on line with the green if they are in the rough.  As soon as fairway surrounds the bunker - it becomes hokey. 

Pat - to me centreline bunkers are bunkers anywhere in the fairway where the player has to choose between long, short, right or left and still be in the short grass.  It doesn't matter if its on the drive or not.  It could be fronting a green, or in play for for a recovery after a loose drive - so long as the four choices are prevalent - its a centreline bunker.

Ciao

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