Deceptive bunkers

[TEPaul]

There's been a lot of discussion about bunkers on here, particularly the "look" of them.

Another thing that really fascinates me about bunkering is their occassional placement and construction to create real visual deception!

TommyN mentioned a bunker on #8 at Pacific Dunes. I don't remember that one but I do remember a bunker combo on #18 at Pacific Dunes that when looked at from the fairway approach appeared to be "stacked"--one right behind the other but as I recall when you got to the green you saw that one was a greenside bunker but the other was much farther back maybe even up the hillside behind the green. Extremely deceptive from one vantage point to the other! I don't know exactly how functional this particular deceptive example is though to the golfer's shot choices.

I was just reading MacKenzie's theories on camouflage last night in Doak's book and clearly MacKenzie applied to golf architecture the camouflage techniques he observed in the Boer War for visual deception certainly using bunkering as his primary expression. This was all about MacKenzie's theme of making a hole or a shot look more difficult than it might be, I suppose.

If you read MacKenzie's rationale he was applying to golf the Boer's technique of creating "artifical" but "dummy" defenses that the British were sure was where the Boers were. They weren't!! The British constantly directed their fire at these "artifical dummy" defenses but the Boers used "natural cover" elsewhere for their actual defenses and apparently were extraordinarily effective against the British with less manpower and firepower because of it.

However, it didn't occur to me until last night the significance of the idea of "artifical" in the context of Mackenzie's Boer observations. Basically the Boers realized they had to create "artifical" dummy defenses because that's the kind of "actual" defenses the British used and apparently the only kind they understood!! The British apparently never even thought of the idea of visual deception when it came to their own defenses or anyone elses!! The idea of using "natural cover" as a defense did not occur to them either and the fact that MacKenzie could not seem to get the British military to understand that (through three separate wars) was more than a little frustrating to him!!

But Mackenzie obviously used visual deception in his golf architecture (with bunkering and other things) although I don't know enough about his courses to know exactly where or how he did it.

Others used visual deception in bunkering really well though. The one I know best and how he did it was William Flynn. And possibly unlike the "stacked" bunkering on #18 at Pacific Dunes the way Flynn occassionally did is was unbelievably effective in tricking a golfer through visual deception!

MacKenzie's technique might have been to deceive the golfer (through a dummy defense) into thinking he should go a particular way when that really wasn't the way to go at all!!

While Flynn would deceive the golfer not be tricking him as to which way to go but by what club to use most effectively!

As an instance of this a better example could not be found than the simple use of a "carry" bunker on Lehigh's #10!! The bunker from most approach angles looks like it's flush up against the front of the green itself, but because the bunker face is raised and the topography behind the face slopes down significantly it CANNOT be seen that the bunker is  actually 30yds before the front of the green!!

Some might even ask so what?? The so what is brilliant too because on this particular approach shot Flynn has combined a caroming downslope (that cannot be seen by the golfer) behind the bunker with a green that runs significantly away from the golfer too!! So a golfer that's not familiar with this hole or its "playability" would naturally assume because the bunker looks like it's flush up against the front of the green that he must fly his ball at least to the front of the green to carry the bunker!!

WRONG!!! Even the best shot of this choice will hit the green (with the ideal "maintenance meld") and carry right on through the green!!).

The best shot and sometimes the only realistic choice is to land the ball well short (just over the bunker) and use that unseen 30yds to filter the ball onto the green. But this entire area is invisible to the golfer because of the visual deception created by that bunker!!

This example of really effective visual deception using a bunker is the best and also the simplest I've ever seen and the fact that Flynn used a completely natural landform, the downslope, which includes the green and the entire green site makes it even better!!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Very Large bunkers appear to be closer than they really are, tempting the golfer to try to carry them.

The bunkers on holes # 1 and # 8 at ANGC fit into this category, and are a wonderful deception.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I guess your right about really big bunkers seeming to be closer than they are! Super big bunkers like #7 and #16 Pine Valley are quite close if you talk about the front of them. Only trouble is the other end of them is a good 100+yds farther on!

[A_Clay_Man]

The most deceptive I've ever seen was the tarantula bunker at SFGC. I believe it's the third hole.

From the fairway it looked green front, but in actuality it must of been 30-40 yds short of the green with more bunker behind it up to the green.

[Craig Disher]

I swore to myself I wouldn't post any more pictures from Indian Creek but these were too topical. The 6th (445 yds par 4) was my favorite, partly because it's similar to a hole on my home course, but also  it's a great strategic hole with lots of visual confusion.

The view off the tee gives no help on where to aim - unless you want to take the safe route to the right of the nearest bunkers. The left side seems totally blocked.



Standing on the right side of the nearest fairway bunker (about 200 yards from the tee) shows that there really is ample room between the two sets of bunkers - over 100 yards! The fairway slopes gradually away to the right of the bunkers so a "safe" shot will run away to a very awkward approach position.



A string of diagonal bunkers starts at the green's edge and creates a triangle of space behind them which makes the true distance to any part of the green very difficult to estimate. The distance from the left edge of the leftmost bunker to the front edge of the green is about 60 yards.



In my view, just a great hole. Now I swear, no more pictures of Indian Creek.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Craig,
Post the pictures of Indian Creek anytime!

Tom, I haven't been back to that paticular post, and I may have erred, but I was talking of the bunkers at #18 at Pac Dunes.

In truth, all bunkers should be deceptive in some extent to put doubt in the players mind of the actual target. Whether that may me offsetting bunkers or just plainly disguising them by method of tie-in, slight build-up, or even in some cases semi-blindness, the thought of KNOWING that the bunker is out there should be all of the reson in the world to keep it in mind whne making a shot.

MacKenzie at The Valley Club of Montecito created some fo the most amazing set of bunkers--right of the green whereit actually looked as if the bunkers were just right of the green itself. Another bad misstep for the player. Those bunkers are there, some 40 yards short!

[TEPaul]

CDisher:

That's a wonderful example of visually deceptive bunkering--particularly on the tee shot--Flynn really does seem so good at "hiding" the ideal landing area occasionally! On a low profile piece of ground that first photo is a good example of a really well done "stacked" look! Of course I'm only looking a photo but the only thing I might do on a hole like that is remove the first bunker on the left down by the green which you described as about 60yds from the green. The reason is it appears from the photo on the tee that if you did that a player might consider more driving down the left side and thereby having to carry the last (and farthest bunker) on the tee shot.

[DNGoldie]

At my home club Thirteenth Beach Golf Links, Melbourne OZ there is a decpetive bunker like I have never seen one.  A 114m par 3 which appears from the tee there is 3 very deep cavernous bunkers to the left of the green. But the first bunker closest to the tee is not a bunker at all, it's a mere small splash of sand on a vertical wall that has never been seeded. The foreground view is blocked by native grasses. It's surrounded by mown grass and the chances of ever playing a ball from it are very small yet there is an illusion from the tee that it's another massive bunker that will effect your choice of shot.  To me one of the greatest tricks a good golf course architect has is the illusion of difficulty.  Has anyone seen the 9th or 18th (not sure) at Chart Hills, Faldo Design in England. Pictured on there score card.  Par 4 up hill that looks like there are bunkers from the tee to the green without a landing area, all sand! But the landing areas are massive and you would have to mishit to find a bunker.

[TEPaul]

DNGoldie:

There's a hole (#7 Blue Heron West--Stephen Kay) like that one with so much bunkering it looks like there's nowhere to hit the ball although there definitely is when you get to the tee shot area.

I do like that illusion that things look much harder than they are. But I also like the opposite end of that spectrum of a designer like Ross who created the illusion there was no difficulty at all on the tee shot. All the difficulty was placing the ball on a big open fairway for the best second shot.

I love that illusion taken to the extreme sometimes where there seems to be no meaning at all to a tee shot, for instance, like hopefully #12 Rustic Canyon or even the second shot layup on the following hole with its 100 yd wide fairway with only a center bunker shoved up into the front center of the green. A golfer could very easily miss the significance of that bunker because of the openness and width of the fairway and it shouldn't take him long to figure out he got tricked or he fell asleep.

I like the "false sense of security" illusion just as much as I like the illusion of difficulty! Another good example of the differences in very good architecture.