The first Sod Wall bunker

[JC Urbina]

Does anyone have information on when the first Sod Wall bunker was constructed and where?

[Willie_Dow]

My guess would be Dornach.  Why ?

The terrain, drainage.  Sustainability of the surrounds.

[Bill_McBride]

I don't know where the first was built, but it was very cool to be at Muirfield two years ago and see the crew rebuilding sod walled bunkers!  I guess the techniques haven't changed for decades.

[TEPaul]

"Does anyone have information on when the first Sod Wall bunker was constructed and where?"

JimU:

There is a thread on the second or third page now entitled "The evolution of the bunker." I suggest you get in touch with Niall Carlton (Scotland) as I did. He has some really interesting material from Scottish newspapers and articles (including photos) from the late 19th century and early 20th century that seem to track and explain this very thing----eg the first examples of sand used in bunkers INLAND (with above ground sod support).

If you can't reach him via that thread get in touch with me and I'll supply you with his email.

[Neil_Crafter]

Jim
My guess would be St Andrews, there is an old photo of Hell Bunker in Hutchinson's "British Golf Links" that shows a very crude sod revetting in the primary face of Hell Bunker. The book is from 1897. I've looked through the rest of the book and the only other course that appears to have sod wall in a bunker is Prestwick, where a photo of the 4th hole shows this. I built my first sod wall bunker back in 1998 when we first started reconstructing the Glenelg course here in Adelaide, and I'v had a lot of fun using that technique there.
cheers Neil

[Mark Bourgeois]

I, too, don't know but am happy to pile on the speculation.

Maybe it was an innovation borrowed from the military, which in the mid 1800s began building sod revetments.  Not sure if it was done in the Crimean War, but definitely was in the US Civil War and the techniques advanced to a level of sophistication where they were named.  "Pisa" I think was one such technique.

I defy anyone to say the first sod wall bunker was created by sheep!

[Rich Goodale]

I don't know, Jim, but I'd guess that it was later than most people would guess.  When I first golfed in Scotland in the late 1970's I don't remember too many revetted bunkers, and my photographs of those trips confirm this.  If you look at the orogial World Atlas of Golf you can see that the Road Hole bunker was not revetted in the mid-70's.

My understanding is the revetment came about as the result of increased volume of play, resultant sand build up and then breakdown of the forward walls.  I'd be surprised if the new build first sod-revetted bunker was any earlier than in the last 50 years (of course there were numerous wooden revetted bunkers going back to the 19th century).

As to the first course on which sod-revetting was used, I'd be surprised if it was Dornoch (or Dornach, or Dornock, or whatever other similarly mutant courses are out there in people's minds....).  Probably Muirfield or the Old Course, but that's just a guess.

Rich

PS--don't discount the sheep, Mark.  They are cleverer than you might think....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkw2DdoskPY

j-p p

[Mark Bourgeois]

Forget the orogial World Atlas of Golf -- you've inspired me to reread the ovine (ovogial) World Atlas of Sheep.

[JC Urbina]

Tom P
I will try to get a hold of you. 

I have looked in a few of the books I thought would have info including the Bunkers, Pit and Hazards book.  No luck so far.

I will keep looking. 

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:

As reported above, looking through Hutchinson's 1897 book, only the Hell bunker at St. Andrews shows a clear stacked-sod face (for its right half).  The fairway bunker on the fourth at Prestwick may also be a sod-wall bunker ... hard to tell with the lighting, but it's a vertical face of some kind.

However, most of the other bunkers have rugged natural faces ... the bunker to the left of the 11th at St. Andrews is not a sod-wall bunker, for one famous example.  There are a few sleepered bunkers among the big and famous ones.

I also looked through Darwin's 1910 book and its famous water-colors ... there is only one painting per course and many times they don't depict a bunker at all, but there aren't any sod-wall bunkers in there.  The Postage Stamp at Troon is shown with shallower, sandy-faced bunkers.

So, the answer to your question is that Hell bunker was sod-walled before 1900, but it wasn't common at all back in those days.

[Michael Whitaker]

So, someone draw a line in the sand (pun intended)... at what point were revetted bunkers the norm rather than the exception. And, were they brought to the forefront for primarily strategic or maintenance reasons?

Another question: with revetted bunkers being the accepted throughout the UK... and, with many Americans having a fascination with this type of bunker... why is it that revetted bunkers are rarely found in this country?

With every architect looking to create his niche one would think the uniqueness of the feature would cause it to be incorporated into more courses over here. Cherokee Plantation (a Donald Steele design in Yemassee, SC) originally had revetted bunkers but grassed over the faces long ago.

[Rich Goodale]

Mike

Having seen a number of bunkers going through the re-revetting process (primarily at Dornoch and St. Andrews) I would say that one of the reasons it is not done in the US is that it is a highly skilled and labor-intensive process that could be very costly in the US environment.  Also, I'd guess that they would be hard to sustain in non-linksy (i.e. non sand-based) environments.

Rich

[JC Urbina]

TomP/ Rich

Thank you for the link to Niall.

Niall and I have talked and I found out some very interesting info.  According to the article Niall sent me,  Murfield may have a vertical bunkers prior to 1892.  They talked about changes prior to the Open Championship to be held in July and the modifications to the bunkers. 

 I also read that Muirfield had a different routing then what is currently used.

Thanks for the info I will keep searching. 

I learn something new everyday.

[RJ_Daley]

IN looking at "the Scrapbook of Old Tom Morris" on page 135, an 1882 photo of Prestwick, the "bridge" hole 4th seems to indicate sod wall, revetted bunkering on the horizontal.  But, other photos in that series show verticle RR ties.

Earlier, on page 19 - upper right corner, a pen and ink drawing of an old course in 1780s-1820 shows what might be a depiction of revetted sod bunkering.

Page 175 clearly shows "Hell" revetted, but is not specifically dated, but is in a batch from 1895-6.

[Sean_A]

I wonder if there is any connection between rabbits and sod wall bunkers.  It is clear that this sort of bunker has existed for over 100 years and from what I can tell its for erosion purposes - and rabbits greatly accelerate erosion.  I think Rich has hit on something a bit different - when did this sort of bunker start to be fashionable?  I know that in the 1950s myxomatosis was rife in the UK and great numbers of rabbits died.  Could it have been then that clubs started to "formalize" their bunkers to control the spread of sand - when the rabbit problem had eased off considerably?  I only ask because it seems to me that sod wall pot bunkers seemed to be much more in favour about the 1950s onwards.  Clubs were able to make bunkers far smaller but just as effective by creating gathering areas toward the bunkers.  Its all just a thought - maybe the lowly rabbit is more influential then we ever suspected.

Ciao

[TEPaul]

Jim Urbina:

I need to reread those articles Niall Carlton sent out but I seem to recall (perhaps at Muirfield) that they were looking to recreate the faces of some of the bunkers at a less severe or vertical angle. I'm not sure if the first revetting was used for that reason or not but perhaps.

I also think Mark Bourgeois may be on to something with early golf bunker construction emanating out of some military trench construction or process. That would certainly seem like a logical evolution in early golf architecture in GB given the British Empire's reach and militarism.

The other thing I would really like to know JC, is when golf and golf architecture first began to use material in the floors of bunkers that was not naturally existing at the very spot they were building them (like imported sand).

I think it would be very interesting if we could figure that out and after that we could start to investigate why sand first began to be imported onto various sites, particularly INLAND courses that had no indigenous sand.

If I were to hazard a guess as to why sand first began to be imported on to those inland courses that did not have indigenous sand I would give two potential reasons:

1. They were trying to better emulate the look of linksland natural sand floor bunkering.

2. They were trying to slow balls down that were hit into the bases of early dirt floored bunkering.


Max Behr actually touched on that second reason (balls would far too easily just truck right on through hard packed dirt floored bunkering or just crash into the vertical wall at the far end of the bunker (sometimes wooden sleepers) and come to rest pretty much against it) and once they began to accomplish that-----eg to slow the ball down by using imported sand, I could see both how and why they might've started to think about also easing the verticality of some of the old faces of pre-sand floored bunkering.

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:

Muirfield only existed from the late 1880's ... before that the club was at Musselburgh.  So I doubt they were the first, although they may have been the first to have a LOT of bunkers with sod wall faces.

Rich also correctly points out what you and I already know ... sod wall faces are pretty labor-intensive to rebuild, and have to be rebuilt every few years.  So that makes it unlikely that they were widely used in the old days when no one spent much money maintaining the links.  They would only have been used out of necessity when blowouts were doing damage to the playability of the golf course.  They would have become prevalent only when the features of golf courses were considered important to preserve as-is ... in other words, after "golf course design" was established in the early 1900's.

[TEPaul]

"... in other words, after "golf course design" was established in the early 1900's."


TomD:

Some my pass right by that remark without giving it much thought but apparently not me. I think there are plenty of people both on here and elsewhere who might claim, and vociferously so, that golf course design was established well before the early 1900s, and as you know they give all kinds of reasons for that as well as a number of 19th century architects who established it well.

Personally, however, I completely agree that golf course architecture, or certainly the burgeoning philosophies behind it were not well established until the early 1900s at least, perhaps even well into the teens.

And I think that very much included sand floored bunkering on INLAND courses where the sand was not indigenous and had to be imported.
 

[Bryan Izatt]

Below is the article on Muirfield that Niall found.  My interpretation of the description of the bunkers near the beginning of the first paragraph (ooops, they seem to only have one paragraph) is that they were essentially trench bunkers with steep cops behind them.  The "doctoring" of the bunkers included widening the trench, softening the slopes of the cops on both the bunker and green sides of the cop, making them "a fairer test" in the process.  It doesn't sound to me like they were sod-wall; it would be hard to contemplate the rounding of a sod wall.

Following is the picture of the Hell bunker from 1897.  Clearly a sod wall.

[Niall C]

Lets just think for a second. How exactly would you build a bunker on a sandy soil course in the 1890's or any other time ?

Bearing in mind that the amount of earth being shifted to create these early courses would be minimal. Digging a hole would be one way but if the bunker were beside the green then there would be risk of soil erosion and also the problem of sand being blown onto the green.

Would it not make sense to stabalise the perimeter of the bunker ?Obviously pure sand is as unstable a component to build with as you can get so you would want something that would hold it together and what better than the turf that had just been lifted. That seems pretty obvious to me and can't help but think that is what they did well before the 1890's however proving it is another matter.

Niall

[Tom_Doak]

Tom Paul:

To escape further controversy, I was using the word "established" to mean when golf course design was recognized by golfers generally as a part of the process, and therefore recognized as something to be preserved.

We both know there were plenty of people who were involved in golf course design long before it was taken seriously by golfers generally, and I'd just as soon stay out of any arguments about who was first.


Niall:

That is a very straightforward and, may I say, Scottish perspective on how the sod-wall bunker would have started.  Never thought of it quite that way.

[Bryan Izatt]

Tom,

The following from the November 1909 American Golfer is correspondence from the R&A to Charles B Macdonald giving an interpretation of what constitutes a bunker and what constitutes a hazard.  Even at that relatively late date it seems that a bunker didn't necessarily have to have sand in it.  Perhaps the early inland bunkers just had earthen floors.

[Niall C]

Bryan,

I would interpret the article differently. The turf walls or dykes I took to be the face of the bunkers and the "hazards" the sand itself. The straightness referred to would probably have been the line of the face on plan and the "turf dyke being rounded on the side of the green" being the back of the bunker.

Bearing in mind the terrain at muirfield which is pretty flat, they were probably trying to imitate St Andrews (the photo of Hells bunker suggests to me that the revetting had been around a good bit before).

Its just a shame there isn't a photo to acompany the article.


Niall

[Bryan Izatt]

Niall,

It could be interpreted either way.  As you say, too bad there's not a picture.  What I had envisioned is something like the bunker in the picture below, but, without the sand area being dug down so deep, and with the cop part toward the green.  Seems to me that that is what a turf wall or dyke would look like.

[Tim Nugent]

I built 3 sod wall bunkers on my old chipping green in clay-based soils, in Chicago (cool-season grasses) as an experiment.  they were different heights, 2', 4', 6' deep, walk-in fronts. Here's what I learned.

1) boy they take alot of sod.  Used a whole truckload just on the 6 footer. That's a grand per bunker just for the sod.  If you got 80 bunkers, you're looking at 160- 200 grand just for the sod.

2) commercial sod is cut too thin.  I would cut my own as thich as I coould set my sod cutter.

3) you have to batten back about 2:12 to prevent it from falling over. Plus you need some grass to stick out below the next layer.

4) I would try a drainage system behind the sod.  Perhaps heavy-duty SandTrapper vertically.

5) spray irrigation is a must.

6) I used Bluegrass.  it got droughty, might look at blending with tall and fine fescues. Zoysia, Bermuda andPaspalum (sp?)  would be interesting further south.

7) I would also try big roll sod to limit the horzontal seams. Plus it's a little wider at 20-22" (although some sod cutter are now cutting 2'x5'-more so to be able to charge bt the sf rather than sy - it's easier to raise the sf price 1 penny than it is the sy price by 9).

I thnk the sandier the soil, the better the water infiltration/retention would be.

Mike Hurdzen did an experiment at his office where he took a long slope that started at 0 degrees and progressed to 90 degrees at the other end and grassed it.  He reported that after about 45 degrees the grass started to deline.  He surmised it was due to lack of water inflitration and the roots growing verticle.