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[Tom MacWood]

"Bradley
I think you are taking after TEP with your speculation and exaggerations."



Bradley:

And this is coming from the same man who concluded that HH Barker must have designed Merion East because he found something that mentioned Barker took a train from New York to Georgia in Dec. of 1910??  

Speculation and exaggeration doesn't get much better than THAT!

There you go again. Exhibit E....E as in exaggeration. 

[TEPaul]

"There you go again. Exhibit E....E as in exaggeration."


Tom MacWood:


Well that sure is a relief to know. So you mean you were completely exaggerating when you speculated on here that HH Barker stopped off in Philadelphia and designed Merion East in Dec. 1910 while on his way from New York to Georgia on a train?  
 
 

[Tom MacWood]

Tom:


I think we have shown throughout all the years of you labelling us that way and suggesting such a thing that there is absolutely no factual or historically accurate reason or evidence that we have ever done such a thing. In your attempts to suggest other architects were largely responsible for the things attributed to the likes of Wilson, Crump and Leeds, the best you have done is to imply there is some article in Boston, that you constantly refused to produce that says Willie Campbell designed Myopia or that HH Barker must have stopped at Merion and designed the East course in a day in early Dec, 1912 simply because you found he took a train trip from New York to Georgia at that time.

I told you what I found on Campbell and Myopia, and I told you where you could find the articles. If you are too lazy or incompetent to follow up whose fault is that? I have no idea if Barker stopped at Merion in the winter of 1910. I simply made the point he would have travelled through Philadelphia (twice) during the time in question. And combined with the fact he had just been annouced as the designer of Merion and the other report about him laying out new courses its worth considering.

tEp
The search engine on GCA works pretty well...with your memory failing you might want to give it a try.

[TEPaul]

"I simply made the point he would have travelled through Philadelphia (twice) during the time in question. And combined with the fact he had just been annouced as the designer of Merion and the other report about him laying out new courses its worth considering."



Tom MacWood:

And if you'd use the search engine on here you would see that we pointed out just how wrong that newspaper article was given all the information from the administrative records of the club itself to the contrary about HH Barker designing Merion East. So if you thought or still think it's worth considering that HH Barker designed Merion East, again, you should do what we have always told you to do----eg go to Merion, as any good researcher on it does, and carefully analyze the club's own administrative records about who designed Merion East. It definitely wasn't HH Barker.  

A lot of people traveled by train from New York to Georgia and back even in Dec, 1910 but it does not necessarily follow that they designed Merion East because the train stopped in Philadelphia!  
 

[DMoriarty]

In David's photos you can see that the intent was to grass the face of the Redan bunkers. But you can see signs of erosion between the grass clumps that are on that slope. I submit that those faces took a lot of time to grass in. They appear to be planted with fescue. Fescue is very slow to move laterally to fill in voids. It requires more seed and time to fill in the voids. I'm sure the adage would have been, if at first you don't succeed, seed seed again. They may have even used plugs of fescue plants to fill in the voids on those bunker slopes. And this was on bunkering that was being irrigated with the greens watering. Whereas all the bunkering, through the green, benefited from no irrigation before 1913, unless if they hauled water wagons to those sites during grow-in.   

Bradley,

Are you really saying that you can tell by my photos that they were having problems growing in the Redan bunkers, and that you can see "signs of erosion?"   That would be pretty impressive, given the photo, posted here again . . .



Surely you agree that despite what you see as "signs of erosion between the clumps" the grass face is pretty much grown in?  In fact, in all the photos I have posted, do you see any bunkers that look like they were supposed to be grass faces, but were not because of the grow in porblems?    I don't.   

As for the date NGLA began watering its fairways, see the quote by Hutchinson above. 

With TEPaul's ranting you may have missed my question above.  What do you think of the bunkers a few posts above, on the cape hole.  We seem to have a sand faced bunker with a sharp edge, a grass faced bunker (in the foreground) and a couple bunker where the sand goes close to the lip but not quite.   Would you agree with me that all of these bunkers appear to have the look that was intended?  In other words, they do not look like that because of grow in issues, do they?   I don't see any signs of erosion or serious grow in issues, do you?   

_______________________________________________________________

Brad:
Go back and check out Moriarty's post #153 and take note of the two bottom photos on that post (the golfers in the Sahara bunker of NGLA). It is very interesting to me that Moriarty failed to include the photo in that 1926 article just below those two photos that shows the fronting bunker on the "Bottle" hole with its distinctly grassed down face to a flat sand floor. Talk about selective evidence and argumentation!

Bradley, TEPaul apparently has forgotten or ignored most of the early posts, or he is intentionally trying to muddy the record.   So let me again clarify a few points:

1.  I have written repeatedly and from the beginning that not ALL of the bunkers had the wilder, flashed faced style as seen in some of the photos.  See a few posts above, where I wrote this in response to a question from Anthony:   "But it was not all flashed-face rugged bunkers then, so I assume that it wasn't intended to be.  There were obviously some of these, but there were also some flashed face bunkers with a more defined edge, and also some grass faced bunkers.  All three of these types can be seen photo immediately above.  CBM emphasized variety in almost every aspect of golf course design."    So TEPaul's insinuation is nonsense.  Again. 

2.  Each of the photos from 1926 shows a different bunker.  The first is the diagonal bunker on the Alps hole, the second on the Sahara.   

___________________________________________

At this point, Bradley, I am not sure what you are arguing.   It is well documented that NGLA had grow-in troubles in 1907-1908, and also that it is difficult to grow grass in pure sand.  No one is arguing this.

But your problems in grow-in theory does not support your conclusions with regard to the look of any of the photos shown, does it?     
1.  The roughest and wildesy bunkers shown in the photos were still rough and wild in 1926. 
2. The rest of the bunkers appear to look pretty much as intended, don't they? 

[TEPaul]

The point is there were a number of grassed down bunkers with flat-sand floors at NGLA under Macdonald's reign and tenure there so he must have intended them to be that way. There were a number of different types of bunkers at NGLA under Macdonald and there still are at NLGA. The suggestion was made on this thread by Moriarty apparently seriously and then when he was corrected he claimed he was half joking or whatever that the look of the grassed down fairly vertical faces to flat sand floors must have been the look of Raynor or something Raynor did to mess up the look of the bunkers of NLGA.

THAT is what the nonsense was!

And it might be pretty indicative that Moriarty did not post the photograph in the same article right below the two he did post that shows a grassed down face to a fairly flat floor. It was in the same Oct 1926 American Golfer article by Thomas Uzell. Did he leave it out because the look of that grassed down bunker to a fairly flat floor on the "Bottle" hole (and others like it at NGLA) did not exactly support the point he was apparently trying to make that Macdonald may not have been responsible for that well known NLGA bunker look?  

[TEPaul]

For the fact Macdonald obviously wanted that really vertical and engineered looking grassed down bunker face to flat sand floors and to confirm that look was not Raynor's idea or him messing up the look of the bunkers at NGLA check out the October, 1925 Golf Illustrated article by Dorothy Campbell Hurd and the photos of NGLA bunkers in that article. The green-side bunker on #15 (The Narrows) is about as engineered looking as NGLA gets, and so is the elongated bunker surround the front of #6 (the Short)-----not that there is anything wrong with that but there they are in 1925 under Macdonald's reign so he clearly must have intended them to look that way.

[DMoriarty]

TomPaul,

If you were at all willing or able to follow this thread you'd know that I have repeatedly noted that there were different bunker styles at NGLA from the beginning, and even posted multiple photos showing grass faced bunkers at NGLA, including the photo above of the Redan and the one above that of the Cape.  It has come up again and again, yet you continue to try to twist my position into something it never was.   Same goes for your bizarre commentary on what you claim was a serious statement from me about Raynor.  How the hell would you know?  You don't even know the context in which it was made.  For a guy who thinks he is so funny, you sure cannot take a joke.

The questions from the beginning have been: What happened to those bunkers which were once sand faced and wild looking and to the bunkers which were once sand faced but with a more defined top edge?   Your rantings and ravings are not getting us any closer to that answer.   Neither are your paranoid delusions about why you think might not have posted a certain photo (even though I posted othes showing the same thing.)

Isn't it about time you grew up, sobered up, or at least pulled yourself together enough to be able (or willing) to follow and participate in a reasonable conversation?   Or will you continue to make a fool of yourself and a mockery of the website?

[Bradley Anderson]

David,

I probably won't post on this thread again because I am getting too busy to spend sooooo much time on here. Anyways.....

When I first posted on this thread I thought that we were discussing why there is less of the natural looking bunkering at NGLA today than there was in the beginning.

So I thought I could contribute to the dialogue by suggesting that: in their earliest stage, the bunkers at NGLA would have appeared to be more natural because there were forces of nature, beyond their control, at this early stage, that had a hand in the more natural look that the bunkers had back then.

I hesitate to call these proof texts, because I am really not trying to prove anything. But here they are:

In 1914 Horace Hutchinson wrote of his golf trip to America in 1910. Macdonald motored him from Myopia to his house at Rosslyn whereafter they played a round at Garden City Golf Club. Hutchinson’s diary of that round stated “course very brown and baked.”

In January 1915 Max Behr writes:

“It is just two and a half years ago that the Boston Sprinkler was introduced to the notice of the Green Committee of the National Golf Links. Summer golf up to that time had been almost the despair of the two clubs on the Shinnecock Hills. About the middle of May the drought begins in that region and it lasts with the exception of a rare thunderstorm until the middle of August. The ground is baked by incessant sunshine so that the fair-green becomes as hard as a barren road.”

This would date the installation of the, much needed, fair green irrigation system at NGLA in 1913.

In Hutchinson’s 1914 article he does indeed say that “The National Golf Links has not only every green watered; it is watered all through the green by sprinklers going all night in dry weather.” But this statement was written in 1914. If you read the whole article, you will see that in it’s context the statement speaks of what the American businessman golfer expected of their golf courses at the time that the author wrote the article. It is not in the context of the 1910 golf narrative.

Behr continues:

“Along came the man from Boston and showed how the big sprinkler worked in the public parks, and very soon convinced the National that it was perfectly possible to keep the whole course soft and green throughout the entire three months of dry scorching weather.....”

Now I may be reading my own bias into this David, but all these text’s speak of a harsh environment that scorched unirrigated golf turf in the summer months. On bunker lips and hummocks, and on bunker edges, you just wouldn’t have the defined grass edges or grass faces that you have at NGLA today - certainly not without irrigation.

Behr now speaks of the cost savings associated with watering the fair green:

Now the saving in the way of seeding and top dressing and fertilizing is certainly more than $1,000 a year. On nearly every American course a considerable amount of turf is ruined every year by drought, and the damage has to be repaired by seeding and topdressing. All this is saved by the new watering system. Garden City and the National are two examples of the inestimable advantages of laying down a four-inch pipe and adopting the Boston sprinkler for the fair green.”

[DMoriarty]

Bradley,  I am disappointed if that was your last post on this thread.  For one, I am interested in your take on this.  For two, you did not answer any of my questions.

I too thought  "we were discussing why there is less of the natural looking bunkering at NGLA today than there was in the beginning."   And I think I understood and understand the basis for your suggestion that "the bunkers at NGLA would have appeared to be more natural because there were forces of nature, beyond their control, at this early stage, that had a hand in the more natural look that the bunkers had back then."

It isn't an unreasonable suggestion, but when we look closely at the photos and at the dates they were taken, I don't think your theory explains the early look at all.  Which of the pictured bunkers do not look as intended because of grow-in issues? 


If there were bunkers like the ones you seem to be describing, I don't think we've seen photos of them.    Agree?   

As for the irrigation timing, it is beside the point.   But since you brought it up, note that Hutchinson wrote that Garden City was hard and brown, not NGLA (he saw both.)  In the same article he wrote that NGLA was irrigating through the green.  And I disagree with your conclusion that HH was NOT discussing his trip in this section.   In fact, after briefly describing the rest of his itinerary he wrote "Their witness suffices.  It suffices to show the zeal and kindness . . . "  and then goes on to describe how crazy they were about the game and how much money they spend.   He is writing about his trip which was in 1910.   Now maybe he broke away when discussing NGLA and watering, but if so it is out of context from the rest of the discussion.   

But like I said, when it doesnt matter, because the photos do not show what you thought might have existed.

As for Behr, perhaps he had the date wrong, or perhaps they were irrigating by some other less efficient method before Boston sprinkler.  They did have a water tower.  Or maybe Hutchinson is misleading on the issue.  Like I said, it doesn't matter, because at least the photographed bunkers don't support your suggestion. 

[TEPaul]

"TomPaul,
If you were at all willing or able to follow this thread you'd know that I have repeatedly noted that there were different bunker styles at NGLA from the beginning, and even posted multiple photos showing grass faced bunkers at NGLA, including the photo above of the Redan and the one above that of the Cape.  It has come up again and again, yet you continue to try to twist my position into something it never was.   Same goes for your bizarre commentary on what you claim was a serious statement from me about Raynor.  How the hell would you know?  You don't even know the context in which it was made.  For a guy who thinks he is so funny, you sure cannot take a joke."



Moriarty:


Is that right?

Then why don't you try to sum up what point exactly you're trying to make on here regarding NGLA's bunkers and/or Macdonald's intention for them at any particular point in time? 

For starters, let me point you to what you said in posts #1 and #38. After that and after you were corrected on what you said on those posts it seems the rest of what you've said or are trying to say on here is an excercise in obfuscation which is pretty typical of your modus operandi on every thread you have ever participated on during your time on this website!

What exactly is your point on the bunkers of NGLA since you've pretty much been all over the place on that subject in these last seven pages?

If your point that Raynor messed up the look of them really was a joke what exactly was the point of saying it was a joke other than to weasle your way out of a point that you realized was untenable because the untenability of it was pointed out to you loud and clear?



 

[DMoriarty]

Is that right?

Then why don't you try to sum up what point exactly you're trying to make on here regarding NGLA's bunkers and/or Macdonald's intention for them at any particular point in time?

Did you black out while reading the second half of my post?  Or while reading my post to Bradley?

My point is that the aesthetic style of many of the bunkers at NGLA has significantly changed over the years.  Particularly, the bunkers with the splashed sand faces and rugged edges have changed.  Also the bunkers with the splashed sand faces and the more defined edges have changed.

My question is:  When and why did these changes take place?

Bradley's answer (and various of your answers) have failed to explain the change.   Most particularly, there is no photographic support for the suggestion that the wild look resulted from the grow in conditions rather than an intentional stylistic choice on the part of CBM.

What is your point, Tom?  

[TEPaul]

"What is your point, Tom?"


It's that on this thread and on this thread's subject the look of NGLA's bunkers, the reason for the look of NGLA's bunkers and who was responsible for it, at any point in time, is pretty definable and explainable if one knows NGLA and its history over an extended period of time.

[DMoriarty]

Really?  Well if you know, you sure as hell aren't saying.  At least not in any COHERENT, FACT BASED manner.

[TEPaul]

Sure I have if you weren't so incapable of listening and understanding. I've known that course for fifty years and I know its architectural history, its evolution and nuances better than you do by a factor of about 100! But that reality is something an argumentative light-weight like you just doesn't want to hear or ever will. Don't worry about it, I've known a few people over the years who act something like you and particularly after the phenomenon of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com let people on it like you!  

It's too bad some people are so resistant and adverse to learning about some golf architecture from others who have been around it long before them. In your case your resistance is petty jealousy, plain and simple. Get hysterical again about that fact----it doesn't matter---it's the unvarnished truth!

Watch his reply amigos----something like----"That's the most PATHETIC......"   

[DMoriarty]

Sure I have if you weren't so incapable of listening and understanding that I've known that course for fifty years and I know its architectural history, its evolution and nuances better than you do by a factor of about 100! But that reality is something an argumentative light-weight like you just doesn't want to hear or ever will. Don't worry about it, I've known a few people over the years who act something like you and particularly after the phenomenon of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com let people on it like you! 

[DMoriarty]

Sure I have if you weren't so incapable of listening and understanding. I've known that course for fifty years and I know its architectural history, its evolution and nuances better than you do by a factor of about 100! But that reality is something an argumentative light-weight like you just doesn't want to hear or ever will. Don't worry about it, I've known a few people over the years who act something like you and particularly after the phenomenon of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com let people on it like you!  

It's too bad some people are so resistant and adverse to learning about some golf architecture from others who have been around it long before them. In your case your resistance is petty jealousy, plain and simple. Get hysterical again about that fact----it doesn't matter---it's the unvarnished truth!

Watch his reply amigos----something like----"That's the most PATHETIC......"   

[TEPaul]

Hmmmm! If I knew it was that interesting I would've said it twice. 

Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

[Bradley Anderson]

To answer your question, which of the pictured bunkers do not look as intended because of grow-in issues? Here goes....

This photo weighs heaviest against my theory. The mound in the middle of the bunker is looking pretty healthy, and the grades on that mound are steep enough to dry out. There is an eyebrow of healthy turf at the top of the sand sweep, and it too appears to be growing well on an area that would be inclined to dry out.


Here again we see healthy mounds inside of the bunker, but there is a lot of are you in the hazard or out of the hazard confusion going on in there. Now I'll grant you that that may be by design, but it can't be ruled out as a grow-in issue. As with the photo above, I find it curious that so much plant material is left to grow inside of the hazard. I would suggest that the volunteer grasses, and the seeds that feel inside the hazard may have been left to grow for stability.


Clearly the wind is having it's way with this bunker and the grass is struggling. I might want to rebuild this one so that it doesn't bury my green with sand on some windy winter day. Yikes.


This bunker looks remarkably like the bunker that is there today. Except that now it has a grass face on it rather than a flashed sand face. The face may have originally been seeded to have grass on it but the grass didn't fill in, and subsequent seedings where made. Or the face was originally intended to be sand flashed but was grassed later for aesthetic or practical reason reasons.


Not much to see on this one.


What is this a Van Gogh?


This photo supports my theory. There is a wind swept face to the left of the grass face, with tufts of grass inside of the sand indicating that it may have been seeded along with the grass face to the right, but the seed didn't take. I'm not saying that I know that is what happened, I am only saying that it could have happened.


This looks like intentional sand flashing to me. The foreground bunker has a grass face, and behind it there is a bunnker with flashed sand. This picture shows that there were different styles of bunkering at NGLA. And there still are. Let's think about that for a moment. Is it possible that there has been some allowance for grass movement in to bunkers, and some edging of grass out of bunkers for the sake of uniformity?


Hard to see what is going on here, but these have the shape of the bunkering at NGLA today.


This looks like a grass faced flat sand bunker to me. Here again there is a lot of stuff growing inside the bunker, and it does not appear to be turfgrass. Was this vegetation planted or was it volunteer? Is it there to make the hazard more hazardous? Is it there to help stabilize the sand? Is it there because the rules that touch on am I in the hazard or out of the hazard are not clearly defined at this time in the game?


The Redan bunkers. I think there would have been a focused effort on stabilizing this grass face because the entire concept of the hole depends on the fall away angle of the green that is so closely tied in with that bunker. So we shouldn't be surprised to find that this grass face is in pretty good shape. You were right to call me on this one David. There is some clumping that looks like it could be erosion, but now I think a better explanation is it hasn't been cut in a while and some tufts of fescue are growing higher than others.   


The Short Hole. One can say that the timbers are there to protect the putting surface from falling in to an eroding bunker problem. But one could also say that CBM wanted that timber look, and that there were no grow-in issues or banks stabilization problems here. I am more inclined to favor the former, because CBM doesn't seem to have been big on artificiality.


Bermuda grass - if you fertilize it and water it it will grow.


Sahara bunker. Clearly wind swept and blown out with weak edges. But I think that's what they wanted here. However, even this bunker would need to be contained at some point. You can not rule out that there is more wind erosion here than what is wanted. Nor can you rule out that this is exactly what they wanted.

The water tower to the left would have provided all the water for the whole course. The elevation of the tower provided pressure to the sprinklers so the water would throw some distance, but it wouldn't have been very much water that's for sure.


[/quote]

[Bradley Anderson]

David,

This photo shows some interesting aspects of bunker evolution that we don't see on the surface.

This bunker had white sand installed in it 10 years ago, to replace the original brown sand. In only 10 years there has been a 6 inch layer of sand tossed up on the the bunker bank from golf shots and wind erosion.

The next layer of brown sand is 3 inches thick. That layer was tossed and blown up over a 10 year period. We know this because there is a black soil sod layer beneath it from when this bunker hummock was sodded with bluegrass sod in 1989 or thereabouts. This illustrates that the white sand, which is all the rage right now, seems to accumulate twice as fast on bunker hummocks as the old brown sands did formerly.

Below that 1989 sod layer we have two feet of sand before we hit the original grass perimeter of the bunker, circa 1926.

Now this bunker does not by any means illustrate what happens on all bunkers. But it does illustrate how difficult it is to understand what happens to a bunker over time, when we are only looking at the surface or at photos. The fact is, bunkers evolve very fast. Much faster than we realize. And you don't really know what has happened to a bunker until you get in there with a shovel and start peeling the layers back.  

[Tom MacWood]

Bradley
Where was that picture taken?

[TEPaul]

"The Short Hole. One can say that the timbers are there to protect the putting surface from falling in to an eroding bunker problem. But one could also say that CBM wanted that timber look, and that there were no grow-in issues or banks stabilization problems here. I am more inclined to favor the former, because CBM doesn't seem to have been big on artificiality."



Brad:

As to why Macdonald originally put boards ("sleepers") into that fronting bunker face at the Short at NGLA we will probably never know for sure unless and until we find something in which he wrote about that specifically.

But we need to remember that Macdonald was pulling the look of his architecture from actual famous holes abroad and some of those famous holes abroad had that kind of feature (boards into bunker faces or sleepers) in the early days. A good example of it is the photo of the massive board sleepers supporting the big redan bunker on the original redan----#15 at North Berwick.

Some people seem to think of all linksland courses and holes as wholly natural looking but the point is back in that early day when Macdonald was studying those famous courses and holes abroad many of those holes had a lot of real artificialty to particular parts of them.

I doubt that kind of thing had much of anything to do with aesthetics to those people back then. It was likely more of what you've said----eg they were just trying to maintain some architectural features in such a way as to prevent them from collapsing and falling apart. 

[Patrick_Mucci]

David Moriarty,

I've only got a minute and hope to respond in depth later this evening.

But, if one examines the 1938 aerial, an aerial taken while CBM was alive, one could conclude that whatever existed in 1938 probably had CBM's blessings.

Now it's possible that there are exceptions to that premise.
CBM was in the waning stages of both his life and his influence at NGLA.
However, I don't see an architectural "palace coup" taking place at NGLA prior to his death.

I think the points I made earlier may have accounted for any bunker "morphing"

Experience, affects on playability, the weather and the aging process may have all combined to alter some of the features.

What would interest me is an analysis of the architecture from 1909 to 1938 and from 1938 to current date.

If the photo you posted is of # 2, the position of the green is a substantive distance from the green in the 1938 aerial.
The location was changed, dramatically.
So the question remains, when and why ?

Certainly, the terrain fronting the 1938 green is dramatically different from the terrain fronting your photo, hence, that difference in terrain would automatically change the bunker design to the degree that the bunker immediately fronting the green gets eliminated.

I don't view that as a change in style.
I think CBM's bunkers mostly fit the terrain and the downslope leading to # 2 green doesn't lend itself to the insertion of a bunker, for a number of reasons.

Yet, on the following hole, he did just the opposite, a total contradiction of the conclusion I drew above.

That leads me to believe that his bunker placement wasn't solely determined by the terrain, but rather, by the aspect of playability.

I'll continue later.

I'm still in doubt with respect to the location of the bunker in your picture.
The terrain surrounding that green does NOT lend itself to that bunker being below the level of the current fairway plateau

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bradley Anderson,

I know why CBM placed sleepers to shore up the 6th green.

He did it because sleepers were used on several holes, in a similar fashion, at Garden City GC, a club at which he was a member.

[TEPaul]

"One thing that I have not mentioned is I still don't entirely agree with those who call the look we associate with Mac/Raynor bunkering as "engineered". I have always observed that nature is loaded full of things that are strait and square. Bodies of water lay flat. Trees grow strait. What makes those Mac/Raynor courses so pleasing to look at is the ease with which the eye connects all the lines. You are aware that these features are block like, and yet they feel natural and so comfortable to look at."



Bradley:

I have been thinking about the above remark of yours for a few days.

In a real way what you said there basically goes directly to the nub of what so much of golf course architecture is about----eg essentially aesthetics, what does it look like to any golfer and observer? Of course that is certainly not all there is to golf course architecture because golfers must be able to play a relatively structured game on golf course architecture. Nevertheless, aesthetics, what a course "LOOKS LIKE" to golfers is obviously extremely important to golf architects, perhaps more than half the entire deal of what they do and what they create and what they think about!

Obviously the next question that does and perhaps should follow from that first question is what SHOULD the aesthetics and look of a golf course be like?

Well now, after taking into consideration what Behr referred to as those "4-5 necessities" of the game of golf we are pretty much into the world of "ART" aren't we when we consider that next question?

The specific reason your remark above caught my attention is we have covered this fascinating question about golf architecture and even about the aesthetics of NGLA's architecture on here before. (One thread was entitled something like "The NGLA Dichotomy" or enigma or dilemma or some such word. I think Tom MacWood started the thread and it was some years ago).

The point and question came up that even if some of the man-made features of some of the architecture of NGLA may look glaringly "engineered" (perhaps the meaning of that being the prevalence of straight lines) to some golfers and observers can we not still say that those types of lines are or can be found in nature and made by NATURE too? (you of course noted that they could and you also said they (straight lines) somehow make you feel comfortable!).

Ah, of course we can find a prevalence of straight lines somewhere in Nature but the point is can they be found on the site (actual ground) of NGLA naturally (pre-construction)? (For the moment I'm basically talking about lines that are formed at NGLA basically by earth (what Behr called the "medium" of the golf course architect) and not the flat and straight lines that are formed by the bodies of water and such somewhat surrounding NGLA.

To me that is the rub or one of them. Personally, I think I prefer man-made golf course architecture that somehow matches the types of lines any particular site has naturally (preconstruction). I guess I came to that particular preference because it was sort of explained to me that way once by the man I still consider my primary mentor in all things to do with golf architecture, and particularly my mentor with a type of aesthetics in architecture----when I asked him, half out of frustration, what in the hell he was doing or looking at or looking for when we walked around a raw site one time for about half a day without him saying hardly a single word to me.

What he said to me in answer to my question was undeniably the biggest revelation and eye-opener in all my years studying golf course architecture. I think it only took him ten minutes to explain it to me but he just kept using the words "twists and turns" over and over again!  

That wasn't all he said in that important and seminal ten minutes to my understanding but it surely was what hit me the most!

[TEPaul]

Brad:

I think I may've discovered with your remark quoted above in the last post that you just may be a sort of "straight line" type of guy. I think I'm a sort of "curvilinear line" type of guy ("twists and turns" ).

What was Raynor? Being the professional engineer he was that's probably pretty obvious.

What was Macdonald?

AND, what were the people who actually made some of the man-made architecture on those famous holes abroad that he essentially used as his "models" for NGLA and perhaps his entire career long "aesthetic?"

What is anybody?

In my opinion, it is only for them to decide, each and every one of them, and each ON HIS OWN!

[TEPaul]

Let me ask you something Bradley. Which do you prefer in interior design or interior decorating-----a room that combines a lot of different types and styles of things such as furniture or art etc (such as a combination of antiques AND modern art or furniture) or do you like it with something that is pretty consistent one way or the other?

[TEPaul]

 Should a man who makes a tennis court be considered an artist? Perhaps he should in the quality of the work he does given the formulaics and standardization necessary with the structure of a tennis court but it would be hard to say that the man who makes a tennis court has much if any ability or latitude to get into what Behr called "the freedom to fancy" (the freedom to really "interpret" his ideas given his particular "medium" and the structure of the game with which he has to do).

But a golf architecture sure does have the latitude and freedom to fancy (to interpret) given he understands some of the natural realities of what can and cannot happen to or be done with his particular "medium"-----eg EARTH!

Behr said the medium of the paint artist is paint, and he can be its master, but the medium of the golf course architect is earth, and he can never be its master; that only the forces of Nature (particularly wind and water) can be its master.

[Bradley Anderson]

Mr. Paul,

As far as home decor goes, I'm pretty much ok with a tv and a couch. No actually we have 7 kids, and my wife and I joke about how we won't even bother getting new furniture till they're all grown up and out of the house one day. But then we'll have grandchildren to mess it all up again.

You look at those pictures of Sleepy Hollow and there are not too many curvilinear lines out there. But it is just as beautiful and natural looking to my eyes as anything that nature has ever presented. Actually I think it was Brad Klein who first suggested to me that rectilinear golf course architecture is pleasing to look at because the lines are easy for the eye to connect and tie in with the surroundings.

The idea here is that if you want to build something that looks natural, you begin by connecting it to it's surroundings, and that means simplicity.


 

[DMoriarty]

Bradley,

Thanks for going through the photos . . .

To answer your question, which of the pictured bunkers do not look as intended because of grow-in issues? Here goes....

This photo weighs heaviest against my theory. The mound in the middle of the bunker is looking pretty healthy, and the grades on that mound are steep enough to dry out. There is an eyebrow of healthy turf at the top of the sand sweep, and it too appears to be growing well on an area that would be inclined to dry out.

This photo was published in 1926 and is identified as yet another photo of the Sahara bunker.   I think it is safe to say from this and the older photos of the Sahara that it was originally intended to be a wild looking sand faced bunker.


Here again we see healthy mounds inside of the bunker, but there is a lot of are you in the hazard or out of the hazard confusion going on in there. Now I'll grant you that that may be by design, but it can't be ruled out as a grow-in issue. As with the photo above, I find it curious that so much plant material is left to grow inside of the hazard. I would suggest that the volunteer grasses, and the seeds that feel inside the hazard may have been left to grow for stability.

CBM wrote that in larger bunkers he planted/allowed tufts of grass to grow to stabilize the bunker.   So one should expect the larger bunkers to have tufts of grass going in them.  For example, see the photo of the Sahara above from 1926.



Clearly the wind is having it's way with this bunker and the grass is struggling. I might want to rebuild this one so that it doesn't bury my green with sand on some windy winter day. Yikes.

This is again the Sahara bunker (at least labeled as such) this time from 1910.  I don't think that was the green . . . if it was it was moved shortly thereafter.   See photo above (and below) for indication that a wilder look for this bunker was intentional. 


This bunker looks remarkably like the bunker that is there today. Except that now it has a grass face on it rather than a flashed sand face. The face may have originally been seeded to have grass on it but the grass didn't fill in, and subsequent seedings where made. Or the face was originally intended to be sand flashed but was grassed later for aesthetic or practical reason reasons.

We have a 1926 photograph of this bunker posted above (in the dual photo with the Sahara) that shows a sand face, thus answering your question about the intent. 



Not much to see on this one.

I disagree.   Those are NOT grass faced bunkers.


What is this a Van Gogh?

Franklyn Booth.

This photo supports my theory. There is a wind swept face to the left of the grass face, with tufts of grass inside of the sand indicating that it may have been seeded along with the grass face to the right, but the seed didn't take. I'm not saying that I know that is what happened, I am only saying that it could have happened.

This bunker is Mid Ocean, from the mid 1920's.  There is grass on the flashed part, but again, this was Macdonald's preference.   Also, there are other photos of early Macdonald bunkers that appear to have had faces that are partially flashed and partially grass.  For example, in the Levick photo of the the Redan, one can see this style on one of the fronting bunker.  Also in one of the bunkers below the clubhouse you can see a similar style.  So again I think this may have been intentional on the part of Macdonald.   It is reminiscent of some of what I have seen in early photos of links courses. 


This looks like intentional sand flashing to me. The foreground bunker has a grass face, and behind it there is a bunnker with flashed sand. This picture shows that there were different styles of bunkering at NGLA. And there still are. Let's think about that for a moment. Is it possible that there has been some allowance for grass movement in to bunkers, and some edging of grass out of bunkers for the sake of uniformity?

I agree that this bunker shows different aesthetic styles present, and would emphasize that this was obviously intentional, and not just a product of erosion or grow-in.    But while I agree that there are still different styles of bunkering at NGLA, this old look is not represented, at least not to the degree it once was.   This goes for both the rough edged sand face look and sand faced bunkers like the one highlighted in this photo. 

THE SAND SPLASHED-FACE BUNKER STYLE VISIBLE IN MOST OF THESE PHOTOS IS NO LONGER PREVALENT AT NGLA.


Hard to see what is going on here, but these have the shape of the bunkering at NGLA today.

They may be the shape, but again at least one or two of these are sand faced or partially sand faced..


This looks like a grass faced flat sand bunker to me. Here again there is a lot of stuff growing inside the bunker, and it does not appear to be turfgrass. Was this vegetation planted or was it volunteer? Is it there to make the hazard more hazardous? Is it there to help stabilize the sand? Is it there because the rules that touch on am I in the hazard or out of the hazard are not clearly defined at this time in the game?

This is a strange one and very early; 1909 I think.  It could be a bunker representing the Eden River behind Macdonald's Eden Hole, but I can't remember the details.  To be honest with you, now that I look at it again, I am not even sure if it is a bunker or just the turf as it existed off the course at this time.


The Redan bunkers. I think there would have been a focused effort on stabilizing this grass face because the entire concept of the hole depends on the fall away angle of the green that is so closely tied in with that bunker. So we shouldn't be surprised to find that this grass face is in pretty good shape. You were right to call me on this one David. There is some clumping that looks like it could be erosion, but now I think a better explanation is it hasn't been cut in a while and some tufts of fescue are growing higher than others.   


The Short Hole. One can say that the timbers are there to protect the putting surface from falling in to an eroding bunker problem. But one could also say that CBM wanted that timber look, and that there were no grow-in issues or banks stabilization problems here. I am more inclined to favor the former, because CBM doesn't seem to have been big on artificiality.

It was apparently important in CBM's scheme for his short holes that they sat up abruptly around the surrounding terrain.   This is a situation where I tend to agree with your explanation.   He may have been building up here, instead of cutting into, so it makes sense to be that these ties might have been to stabilize the edge.   I believe the timbers were gone by the mid-1920's further indicating that he did not intended the look to be permanent.    TomP wants to give Garden City credit for inspiring this look but the reality is that there were RR ties used on many of the links courses at this time to stabilize bunkers and ground.


Bermuda grass - if you fertilize it and water it it will grow.

Yep.   Mid Ocean from the mid 20s.


Sahara bunker. Clearly wind swept and blown out with weak edges. But I think that's what they wanted here. However, even this bunker would need to be contained at some point. You can not rule out that there is more wind erosion here than what is wanted. Nor can you rule out that this is exactly what they wanted.
Whether this was the exact amount of eroded look they wanted is debatable, but we agree that generally this is what they wanted here.

The water tower to the left would have provided all the water for the whole course. The elevation of the tower provided pressure to the sprinklers so the water would throw some distance, but it wouldn't have been very much water that's for sure.

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 Thanks again for taking a closer look at the bunkers.   I think we are in agreement that there were a number of sand faced bunkers that were intended to be so, and that CBM was going for a natural look.   

Will respond to your other posts soon . . . 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick,

Here again in the photo in question, from the August 1910 AG article on the early tournament:



Here is a photograph of the hole from the 1914 Article on the hole by M&W, from short and right of the bunker:



Dave,

These are NOT the same bunker.

Just look at the topography.

Look at the size of the two bunkers

Look at the configuration and ask yourself, if you were standing at the tee, would the bunker in the top photo look anything like the bunker in the bottom photo ?  The answer is NO.

Look at the fronting turf in the top photo.

There is NONE in the bottom photo.

These aren't the same bunker.

[Sean Arble]

"NGLA's early bunkering looks very much like the bunkers in Scotland in the early 20th century. Pick up a copy of British Golf Links and it becomes obvious."

So it would seem you lot have come full circle.  The bunkers do have an altered aesthetic today in both Scotland (call it all of GB&I) and at NGLA.  I am curious why folks would not accept the idea that for cheaper and easier maintenance, it better to contain sand within the designated area for a bunker - regardless of original architectural intent for playablity or aesthetics?  Haven't we seen the "natural lines" of bunkering which are ill-defined become more regimented at course after course?  I don't believe this epidemic is coincidental.  I think most courses which maintain the "ill-defined" look either don't get regular strong winds, are willing to pay for regular serious maintenance work on bunkers and/or they have enough property that the blowing sand essentially doesn't cause much of a problem.  

I look at a course like Sand Hills and notice that many of the bunkers are the frilly style which imitate nature fairly well, but compromise in that there is an attempt to contain the sand.  I also see free flowing sand from areas that look to have much less intervention.  Some of these are in areas that aren't an immediate threat to the quality of the greens and fairway turf, but some look to be right next to the turf.  My question is, do archies who want this sort of natural blowout look as part of the bunkering scheme take into account the prevailing winds or is it just accepted that eventually these areas will have to be dealt with?  

BTW Pat, I have asked two supers, neither seemed keen on using nature to top dress their courses.  Have you had any luck finding supers who do advocate top dressing au naturel?  

Ciao

[TEPaul]

"These are NOT the same bunker.

Just look at the topography.

"Look at the size of the two bunkers

Look at the configuration and ask yourself, if you were standing at the tee, would the bunker in the top photo look anything like the bunker in the bottom photo ?  The answer is NO.

Look at the fronting turf in the top photo.

There is NONE in the bottom photo.

These aren't the same bunker."



Pat:

It is definitely the same bunker; it's just really huge, and we're just looking at it from two completely different angles and places. There is no other bunker on that hole that big and there never has been.

If you'd like you can enroll in my GCA photographic analysis class----I'll teach you how to do it just like I've taught you everything else you know about golf course architecture.

[TEPaul]

Bradley:


Regarding your post #238, there you go----eg you really are a straight line or rectilinear line guy with architecture. Nothing at all wrong with that; that's what pleases your eye obviously!

Others just don't have an appreciation for rectilinear lines in architecture, obviously preferring curvilinear lines and perhaps because those kinds of lines generally match the lines of big and small natural landforms on most sites. Frankly, it just may be that most golfers and observers don't even really notice these kinds of things-----eg it may be more subliminal than actually concsious.

Apparently to some golfers and observers the straight or rectilinear lines of some architecture makes them view it as "engineered" and man-made looking and therefore not particularly natural looking on some sites. Apparently Wayne Morrison feels that way and plenty of others do as well. I guess I fall into that camp because of my own eye but the straightish and rectilinear lines of the National School of Architecture do fascinate me anyway. I look at it as a sort of odd and gutsy juxtaposition of man-made lines against the curvilinear natural lines of various sites and their natural landforms.

It's all about "art" and art can certainly take many many forms and expressions!

But the thing that really interests me about Macdonald and some of his straight-line architecture is that he may not have even been thinking of this kind of thing much at all other than he knew he was imitating some of the engineered straight lines of the early man-made architecture from even the famous linksland holes abroad.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bradley,

Thanks for going through the photos . . .

To answer your question, which of the pictured bunkers do not look as intended because of grow-in issues? Here goes....

This photo weighs heaviest against my theory. The mound in the middle of the bunker is looking pretty healthy, and the grades on that mound are steep enough to dry out. There is an eyebrow of healthy turf at the top of the sand sweep, and it too appears to be growing well on an area that would be inclined to dry out.

This photo was published in 1926 and is identified as yet another photo of the Sahara bunker.   I think it is safe to say from this and the older photos of the Sahara that it was originally intended to be a wild looking sand faced bunker.


Dave, I would disagree with you with respect to the Sahara bunker.  
The Sahara bunker is different from other bunkers in that it occupies a huge expanse, one without sharply defined boundaries at every border.
The Sahara bunker also occupies a unique portion of the terrain, a fairly steep hill.
In light of the early difficulty with grassing NGLA, I wonder if the Sahara Bunker wasn't the product of a grassing default.
It would seem difficult to grow in and maintain a grass faced "Sahara Bunker" in 1909.


Here again we see healthy mounds inside of the bunker, but there is a lot of are you in the hazard or out of the hazard confusion going on in there. Now I'll grant you that that may be by design, but it can't be ruled out as a grow-in issue. As with the photo above, I find it curious that so much plant material is left to grow inside of the hazard. I would suggest that the volunteer grasses, and the seeds that feel inside the hazard may have been left to grow for stability.

Bradley, stability for what purpose ?  These are mounds, sections of earth in the middle of the bunker, not at the perimeter where the bunker meets the turf.  If those interior sections of earth/grass were removed and the entire bunker was an expanse of sand, why would you need interior stabiilty ?

CBM wrote that in larger bunkers he planted/allowed tufts of grass to grow to stabilize the bunker.   So one should expect the larger bunkers to have tufts of grass going in them.  For example, see the photo of the Sahara above from 1926.

Dave, I think you have to be careful in interpreting what CBM meant.
How does growing tufts of grass in the interior of the bunker, stabilize the bunker ?



Clearly the wind is having it's way with this bunker and the grass is struggling. I might want to rebuild this one so that it doesn't bury my green with sand on some windy winter day. Yikes.

Bradley, I disagree.
Have you ever seen this bunker in person ?
The wind isn't having its way.
This bunker is sheltered from the prevailing winds


This is again the Sahara bunker (at least labeled as such) this time from 1910.  I don't think that was the green . . . if it was it was moved shortly thereafter.   See photo above (and below) for indication that a wilder look for this bunker was intentional. 

Dave, go to Google Earth and look at the 2nd hole.  Rotate the view so that the west is at the top of your screen and the east at the bottom.
If this is the 2nd green, it would have to be 60-80 yards closer to the tee, and still, the topography wouldn't fit the photo/configuration.
Yet, that island in the bunker fascinates me since its at a similar location and angle as the island in the current Google Aerial, however, if the green was to the left of it, the terrain behind the green doesn't gell with the topo in that area.  If you look at the gree and area to the right of the flagstick, it looks very similar to the 3rd green, and, if you were standing on the hill short and left of the third green, that's the view you would get.
But, as Tom Doak said, the hill behind the green doesn't jive with what's there currently, so, was the green moved back, offset from the bunker, which is the way it is today, or, is this photo from another hole, another golf course ?


This bunker looks remarkably like the bunker that is there today

I would disagree with that.
Look how steeply that bunker falls from right to left.
There is NO such slope in today's bunker.
Are they both large bunkers ?  Yes.  Do they have a turf island in them, Yes, but their lines/borders/perimeter is dramatically different.

Except that now it has a grass face on it rather than a flashed sand face. The face may have originally been seeded to have grass on it but the grass didn't fill in, and subsequent seedings where made. Or the face was originally intended to be sand flashed but was grassed later for aesthetic or practical reason reasons.

Brad, you're making the quantum leap that these are in fact the same bunker, which I dispute.
If you look at the bunker above, the line of demarcation is sharp.  I submit, that on that slope, it would be impossible to maintain that sharpness without erosion and the bunker encroaching further and further into the green.

We have a 1926 photograph of this bunker posted above (in the dual photo with the Sahara) that shows a sand face, thus answering your question about the intent. 

Dave, it would be impossible to maintain the large bunker on # 2 with a sand face as opposed to a grass face.
As you know, the top of that bunker would sit high, on the crest of the hill, subject to all of the elements, INCLUDING golfers trodding the fairways and extricating themselves from that bunker.  There's NO WAY a sand faced bunker could survive without serious encroachment into the fairway and green, thus, function and maintainance dictate the style



Not much to see on this one.

I disagree.   Those are NOT grass faced bunkers.

Dave, again, I think the topography dictated the bunker style on this fairway bunker.

This bunker is Mid Ocean, from the mid 1920's



Non-NGLA photos have no bearing on the bunkering at NGLA



This looks like intentional sand flashing to me. The foreground bunker has a grass face, and behind it there is a bunnker with flashed sand. This picture shows that there were different styles of bunkering at NGLA. And there still are. Let's think about that for a moment. Is it possible that there has been some allowance for grass movement in to bunkers, and some edging of grass out of bunkers for the sake of uniformity?

I agree that this bunker shows different aesthetic styles present, and would emphasize that this was obviously intentional, and not just a product of erosion or grow-in.    But while I agree that there are still different styles of bunkering at NGLA, this old look is not represented, at least not to the degree it once was.   This goes for both the rough edged sand face look and sand faced bunkers like the one highlighted in this photo. 

Dave & Bradley,

I think the mistake you both make is that you're evaluating bunkers from an angle OTHER than the angle that the golfer sees them from.
Sand flashed bunkers are ONLY sand flashed bunkers if that's what the golfer sees.
You're viewing bunkers from the side, not the front, and that impacts your evaluative process.
You have to evaluate the bunkers from the golfer's view, not a particular photographer's view

THE SAND SPLASHED-FACE BUNKER STYLE VISIBLE IN MOST OF THESE PHOTOS IS NO LONGER PREVALENT AT NGLA.

That's because it wasn't a sand flashed bunker in the first place.
The photo is taken from the hill to the left of the green, well above where the golfer would take his stance in the fairway to the right.


Hard to see what is going on here, but these have the shape of the bunkering at NGLA today.

They may be the shape, but again at least one or two of these are sand faced or partially sand faced..

Again, I"m not so sure that the photo is taken from the "golfer's" angle.
What hole is this ?



This looks like a grass faced flat sand bunker to me. Here again there is a lot of stuff growing inside the bunker, and it does not appear to be turfgrass. Was this vegetation planted or was it volunteer? Is it there to make the hazard more hazardous? Is it there to help stabilize the sand? Is it there because the rules that touch on am I in the hazard or out of the hazard are not clearly defined at this time in the game?

This is a strange one and very early; 1909 I think.  It could be a bunker representing the Eden River behind Macdonald's Eden Hole, but I can't remember the details.  To be honest with you, now that I look at it again, I am not even sure if it is a bunker or just the turf as it existed off the course at this time.

The problem I have with this photo is the object/structure/building above the horizon.
It would have to be huge.
The 1938 Aerial shows no such object/structure/building.



The Redan bunkers. I think there would have been a focused effort on stabilizing this grass face because the entire concept of the hole depends on the fall away angle of the green that is so closely tied in with that bunker. So we shouldn't be surprised to find that this grass face is in pretty good shape. You were right to call me on this one David. There is some clumping that looks like it could be erosion, but now I think a better explanation is it hasn't been cut in a while and some tufts of fescue are growing higher than others.   

The bunker face looks pretty much the same today.
Golfers who climb the face of that bunker help erode the steep face.
In addition, a great deal of sand splash coats the grass face, creating that look.


The Short Hole. One can say that the timbers are there to protect the putting surface from falling in to an eroding bunker problem. But one could also say that CBM wanted that timber look, and that there were no grow-in issues or banks stabilization problems here. I am more inclined to favor the former, because CBM doesn't seem to have been big on artificiality.

The use of timber/sleepers was quite common.
Garden City used them and CBM was a member at GCGC.
They serve several purposes.

It was apparently important in CBM's scheme for his short holes that they sat up abruptly around the surrounding terrain.   
This is a situation where I tend to agree with your explanation.   
He may have been building up here, instead of cutting into, so it makes sense to be that these ties might have been to stabilize the edge.   I believe the timbers were gone by the mid-1920's further indicating that he did not intended the look to be permanent.   
TomP wants to give Garden City credit for inspiring this look but the reality is that there were RR ties used on many of the links courses at this time to stabilize bunkers and ground.

Dave, I was the one who cited GCGC.
There are a great number of photos of timbers/sleepers at GCGC.
They provide a penal situation.
In addition, I'm sure that CBM saw their use in his travels to the UK.


Sahara bunker. Clearly wind swept and blown out with weak edges. But I think that's what they wanted here. However, even this bunker would need to be contained at some point. You can not rule out that there is more wind erosion here than what is wanted. Nor can you rule out that this is exactly what they wanted.
Whether this was the exact amount of eroded look they wanted is debatable, but we agree that generally this is what they wanted here.

Dave & Brad, you can't ignore the topography in conjunction with the wind, rain, etc., etc..
When you add in golfers traipsing in and out of these bunkers, you can understand how they would rapidly deteriorate.
They NEED grass facing to stabilize them.
Don't forget that sand splash makes grass banked bunkers look sparse or weather worn.

The water tower to the left would have provided all the water for the whole course.
The elevation of the tower provided pressure to the sprinklers so the water would throw some distance, but it wouldn't have been very much water that's for sure.

With cool, moist air off the Ocean and Sound, I'm not sure how much water NGLA needed.  If it was an enormous volume,
it's doubtful that an adequate supply came from the water tower.

 Thanks again for taking a closer look at the bunkers.   I think we are in agreement that there were a number of sand faced bunkers that were intended to be so, and that CBM was going for a natural look.   

Dave, how can you claim that CBM was going for the "natural" look when he surrounded the 6h green with wooden timbers ?

I don't think CBM was going for any look.
I think he viewed the bunkers primarily in the context of playability, function and maintainance.
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