DMoriarti,
It doesn’t matter as to the number of 'bunkers' per se, as I tried to explain.
You said “ You keep coming back to the big bunkers like the one located on 14 and seem to be making the case that expensive bunkers like this must mean that they spared no expense. However, your argument cuts against you. If these bunkers were so expensive then it is no wonder there were only 22 of them on opening day! You wouldn't expect them to have built zero bunkers would you? Or for Mackenzie to completely abandon his style or ignore the scale of the property? Building around 1/4 or 1/5 of the usual number of bunkers seems a good way to save money, doesn't it? Especially if they were as expensive as you imply? “
It isn’t clear if you have looked at the photos of the bunkers, as to size and extent of the bunkers. It is a low number but most of the bunkers were very large, requiring quite a bit of excavation in stiff Georgia clay, and a large amount of sand. They used sand from the Atlantic coast rather than any of the sand outcroppings and pits around Aiken.
The size of the bunkers is part of my point, in addition to the size of the fairways and greens. 22 of the style executed at ANGC, dug out of stiff Georgia clay, is 100 or 150 bunkers at other courses.
If I had wanted to save on bunker expense, I would have had small strategic bunkers, perhaps 120 normal size bunkers, placed in fairways and greenside. That would have been a big savings over the design at ANGC. Building 1/4 or 1/5 the number but making the bunkers extremely large isn’t an economical decision.
Look at the photos of the bunkers at the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 18th, etc. Building the 22 very large bunkers at ANGC wasn’t a good way to save money. Might also consider the extravagant mounding at the 8th and elsewhere.
You said........” I don't think that Tom MacWood suggested that the design would be lesser for not having many bunkers. Perhaps Mackenzie and Jones produced a better product precisely because of the economic times and a constrained budget. Necessity is often the mother of invention, isn't it. “
Money was the father of ANGC and Jones’ charisma, records, and fame came before money.
The course desired was designed by the famous architect selected and the desired design was constructed.
Some have implied that costs somehow might have influenced the design including yourself. You said ........” I've often thought that we'd get much better golf courses if designers were forced to work in shoe string budgets. So perhaps that happened here. “ It seems you just implied it again. You implied the same by saying " Perhaps Mackenzie and Jones produced a better product precisely because of the economic times and a constrained budget."
That wasn’t the case for the 18 hole course at ANGC. It wasn’t a shoe string budget. A state of the art sprinkler system was installed. The fairways were twice as large as the normal course. Arguably that might take twice as much preparation and seeding and money. And in the winter, the ‘twice as large as normal’ fairways were over seeded with rye.
The greens were twice as large, again requiring twice as much grading, seeding, labor and therefore money.
Granted they envisioned a second course, a new clubhouse, tennis courts and those items were cut, but ANGC as opened was the design desired.
In the depression men were working for 50 cents. That is 50 cents a day as noted in some discussion of the labor costs at that time. My guess is that laborers didn’t show up late or leave early more than once.