The relationship between putting surfaces/footpads and surrounding bunkers

[Mark_Fine]

Pat,
Many of them were purposely made smaller (less sand to rake and maintain).  The grass edges encroach as well over time which helped shrink the bunkers.  Some of the bunkers have gone completely to grass but they are still there which makes bringing them back relatively simple.  If you pull plugs it is interesting to see what you find in the layers of old sand.
Mark

[Niall C]

Sean

Hidden hazards - I would suggest that a hazard isn't truelly hidden if the surrounding contours give some indication of its presence, be it a burn or bunker or whatever. A real hidden hazard is one where your golfing copmmon sense can't detect it, where there are no tell tale signs by way of contours/swales or even the shape of the hole to give an indication. Have you ever noticed that on blind shots on older courses, particularly on blind drives, there are generally no hazards and that the landing area is generally fairly generous.

Now TOC, as you say, plays by its own rules. That might make it interesting but personally I'm in the camp which thinks it an interesting piece of land with some quirky holes, some great golf (17th) but overall good but not great. The blind drives, lack of definition and hidden hazards that go with that does absolutely nothing for me.

Niall 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Niall,

What's the degree of blindness on TOC when the course is played in reverse, its original order ?

There aren't many, if any hidden bunkers at Fenway.

Even though you can't see some from a particular angle, you know they're there from the surrounding terrain and the pattern that the architect has established on the first few holes.