Mound or bunker?

[Jon Wiggett]

What do you prefer in front and center(ish) of a green, a bunker or a mound such as on the 4th TOC?

I feel that a bunker works well on a sloping site where the slope can be used to run/slingshoot the ball around the bunker to a pin position behind it. But a mound also works well in this situation where as if the site is flat a bunker is one dimensional to me offering only the flighted route and a mound is to my mind the better choice.

This means that a mound is the more flexible option. So why is it bunkers are so much more prevalent?

[Mike Hendren]

Fairway mounds are the most under utilized efficient architectural feature.

Mike

[Anthony Gray]

Fairway mounds are the most under utilized efficient architectural feature.

Mike

 Agreed..And if you accept that the better architecture gives the player more options than moundind would be prefered. The mound on No 4 gives that hole a little twist.

  aRG

[David_Tepper]

John W. -

I don't know why mounds are not used more often to defend greens. Maybe it is because they can create a blind shot and blind shots have fallen out of favor over the years.

The mound front & left of the 12th green at Royal Dornoch defends that green better than any bunker possibly could.

DT 

[Melvyn Morrow]

Mounds and turf dykes where used on many of the new inland courses in the latter period of the 19th century to mimic the bumps and mounds found on Links courses. Their introduction was not an actual alternative to bunkers.

I feel they are at home on most courses; however, they seem to have become unfashionable. It may have something to do with the Penal vs. Strategic debate sidelining these enjoyable hazards.   

Melvyn   

[Tom_Doak]

I love the mound on the 4th hole at St. Andrews.  I've tried to build a similar feature a couple of times, but never had it turn out half as well.

That said, I generally don't put in mounds on my golf courses because I think they look unnatural in many landscapes.  On a tabletop like Cape Kidnappers or Riverfront, they really stick out like a sore thumb.  But on a dunesy course, they're fine, so perhaps I have failed to take advantage of the opportunity as often as I should.

[archie_struthers]

 


In the move to create "fairness" mounds have often gotten a bad rap. Bunkers are so much more predictable , especially with our penchant for perfect conditioning .  When you really think of it , mounds are cheaper to build , easier to maintain and probably exert at least as much impact on scoring for the expert player.


 The free form mound allows for lots of weird science... crazy bounces that infuriate many golfers ,

As only certain among us  (lol)  try to create controversy ...most architects  ( myself included ) probably make the mistake of looking to fairness , predictability in design....I'd opine that this is a mistake , given my current predisposition to quirk 

 Mounds are way cool when done right ...there is an absolutely fabulous giant mound on the 5th at Royal Portrush that challenges both the tee shot and approach ... good stuff indeed



When it's classic architecture quirks are often seem as beauty marks while in new construction are deemed silly.  Perhaps as golf  architecture evolves  further the appreciation of some deviant  features might find favor to a greater extent

[Jon Wiggett]

Thanks for the replies. I also think that the unpredictability of a mound is often seen as 'unfair' and has lost favour with many golfers and GCAs because of this. On the other hand a mound is less penal to the higher handicapper than a bunker is where as the reverse is true when looking at the lower handicapper. One would think this to be the perfect scenario.

Tom D,

Although it is right that a mound often sticks out on a flat site isn't it also a case that a course should be interesting to play and if the interest is significantly increased by a feature it might be considered preferable to use it even if it does not look quite right?

[Kevin_Reilly]

Two San Francisco area courses recently went the opposite direction in terms of mounds.  The mounds on the right side of the 7th hole at Olympic Lake were removed (and Cypress was planted), while SFGC added mounds to the right side of #14. 

Mounding seems to have a negative connotation in GCA...many think of something like Loxahatchee or similar when it is mentioned.

[Adam Clayman]

Tom D. Next time you're on the Monterey Peninsula, check out the mound front left center of the 13th green at Pacific Grove. It works extremely well. There's even one on the left hand side of the fairway at the 140 mark. (But it is natural)  One other feature worth examining on that hole is the mini valley of sin front right of the green.

[Sean_A]

Tom D is right.  Mounding is often tough to blend in with terrain.  I think this concept of blending became stylish with the likes of Colt, Dr Mac and T Simpson.  One can see in Dr Mac's early career how he built mounds to house bunkers - not very different from this photo of Huntercombe.


I think the key to good mounding is to make it front and centre - in your face rather than off to the wings and not be afraid to leave it as a mound.  One of the best uses of mounds is Beau Desert's 5th.  Fowler was certainly stylish than Colt and it is evident when we look at a pic of the 5th.  That said, it places a premium on hitting the correct side of the fairway and is a very effective architectural element without having to revert to sand.  


Here is yet a different look at some mounding at Luffenham Heath's 17th.  They stand out, but are still quite attractive.


Yet another use of mounding.  On Northamptonshire Co's 8th these mounds can either shunt a drive away from the green or gather one toward the green.  This is a very early Colt course, but I am not sure if he did the mounds.


Thinking on it, Whittington Heath also has mounding well short of two greens and Colt was involved with this course. #12.


Just as a comparison, below is the 16th at Whittington Heath.  Its the exact concept of the 12th, but using bunkers instead.  


Of course the king of mounding is Kington, but they are used in a totally different way and this is why Kington is unique.  The mounding serves to contain and repel shots on the hilly terrain.  I have never seen anything quite like it.


Bottom line, I am all for mounding as a possible alternative bunkering so long as its used boldly just as bunkering is.  

Ciao
 

[Steve Burrows]

Bill Diddel was very accomplished at guarding greens with smallish mounds, not to the scale of the 4th hole at TOC, but they are very effective at forcing decisions from players and deflecting indifferent approach shots.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Sean - great job the photos... really cool!

I think a mound like the 4th at Friars Head is great way to mix it up from your typical bunker defense.... I also love the challenge that hitting from a mound above the green provides. Bunkers, you change the depth a little bit, but its basically the same shot every time.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom D,

Although it is right that a mound often sticks out on a flat site isn't it also a case that a course should be interesting to play and if the interest is significantly increased by a feature it might be considered preferable to use it even if it does not look quite right?

viousl

Jon:

So much of my style revolves around making a course look like it's been there forever, that for me, inserting a feature which looks obviously artificial would be like shooting myself in the foot.

I would be open to using mound features either on linksy courses (Barnbougle, Pacific Dunes, Old Macdonald) or on obviously man-made courses (The Rawls Course, Common Ground, etc.), but not somewhere like Cape Kidnappers or Riverfront or High Pointe ... even if it WOULD significantly increase the interest of a hole.

I am not a big fan of that little mound on the 5th at Friars Head for that very reason.  If they'd built the same hole in the dunes, it would have been fine, but out there in the open it looks really out of place.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tom

Although my agreeing with you will mean little, if anything at all, I still do. Nevertheless, I find it interesting that when courses started to move inland around the latter quarter of the 19th Century, its was seen important to mimic the Links courses. I suppose it was making a statement that golf was a links game therefore the courses should mirror some of the seaside features i.e. undulating fairways, sand traps and defined Greens. Basing it upon the natural but not on the inland landscape available but more on where golf was traditionally played for centuries.

We have taken that concept way past the ideas originally intended but seem to have kept faith with the old sand trap but over indulged with water features (these dark pools of frustration & despair) and trees.

Are some of our modern designers trying to retrace their steps offering links style golf courses inland or is that just a figment of my apparent wild imagination?

Regards Mounds IMHO they are a great asset to a course, but I totally concur with you that it needs to appear to blend into the surround landscape (not of course like the Castle Course which seems more at home in a seaside amusement park IMHO). Again, we seem to lower the challenge to the golfer by offering the 'Easy' option and shelving that which maybe challenging, which I believe is what golf at its heart is all about.

My agreeing with you is in no way meant to tarnish your reputation or cast down your name in the mud. Said in the hope of my tone not being misunderstood and that my comments are, I hope constructive.

Melvyn     

[Mike Hendren]

KBM, what was your thinking on the mound on the right side of a long par four (15th?) at Lederach in the landing zone. Its function appears to serve as a turbo boost or brake on a tee ball depending on the carry from the tee.  While artificial/manufactured I liked it on an otherwise flat hole.

Mike

[Kyle Henderson]

I love the mound on the 4th hole at St. Andrews.  I've tried to build a similar feature a couple of times, but never had it turn out half as well.

That said, I generally don't put in mounds on my golf courses because I think they look unnatural in many landscapes.  On a tabletop like Cape Kidnappers or Riverfront, they really stick out like a sore thumb.  But on a dunesy course, they're fine, so perhaps I have failed to take advantage of the opportunity as often as I should.

I always think of the lump near the 9th green at Ballyneal, although it isn't in the direct line of play quite like TOC's 4th.

DMK's Stonebrae course makes good use of a solitary mound that sits in the front right edge of the green.

[archie_struthers]

 


Tom D  ...how about the 5th at Portrush ,  anybody got pictures

[Eric Smith]

hole 4 green TOC

#6 @ Heathland.  See Tom's post below from an older thread:

I haven't been back to The Legends in a while.  What hole is that in your last two pictures?

It looks like #6, but there wasn't a bunker in that mound the last time I saw it.  When we built it, it was supposed to be a fairway-height mound which deflected shots, as on the fourth hole at St. Andrews.  But we built it a bit severe, and God forbid anyone in Myrtle Beach would walk-mow an approach, so they left it rough and planted tufts of grass ... and now they've dug a bunker.

Maybe I'll have to get back down there this winter and fix it for them.

[Jon Wiggett]

Although I also think that a course should not stand out like a sore thumb in the landscape I think there are limits to this. If we take this to its logical conclusion then there would be very few inland sites where the GCA could use sand bunkers as they would not be found occuring naturally.

I think this is has more to do with tying in/blending a feature into the surrounding area. I am not so sure it needs to look natural or not man made. Wether in course design or greenkeeping it is my opinion that the most important thing is that course should be interesting and fun to play. I would put a afeature in if it significantly enhanced the playing interest of a hole even if it didn't quite key in with the surrounds. There are many natural features that are at odds with their surroundings.

Also, Tom D talks about making the course appear as though it has been about forever. I would put forward Stonehenge as an example of something that obviously is man made, does not fit in with the natural landscape but also looks like it has been their forever (well several thousand years anyway ). This is one of the things that makes GCA so interesting, finding a way to to make something that is obviously out of place somehow fit.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

What is revealed by some of the photos (thanks for posting) is that it is very difficult to make a mound or a bunker look natural if the surroundings are not similar. There are so many factors involved. At Conwy there is a mound to the right of the 8th green which is a perfectly acceptable obstacle, but it is dwarfed by the mountain on the skyline behind the course (take note from Stanley Thompson) and yet sticks out like a sore thumb from the gentle ground in the immediate vicinity of the green. Put that hole in the rough and tumble of Royal County Down's first 15 holes and you could add any number of mounds or sculpted bunkers and make them look natural. Same with the hole from 6 onwards at Hunstanton. If I have an argument with Winged Foot (and how privileged was I to play there!) it would be that greens and attendant mounds and bunkers are pushed up from an essentially gently flowing carpet of land. They cannot help but look manufactured. Is that sacrilege?

[Jon Wiggett]

That is a good question Mark. As in my previous reply, I would say no. If the need to look natural over rides all else then you can not have any sand bunker where there is no natural sand at the surface. I suppose this raises another question and maybe one for another thread. What aspiration/ethos should a GCA have when designing a course?

Looking right and looking natural are two different things.   

[Dale Jackson]

To follow on from Tom's story about The Legends, I offer the following story told by AC Macan in 1947.

… I would like to tell you a story of the trails and tribulations of a golf architect.  When I planned and rebuilt the 8th green at Colwood, I designed a trap on the right front and side of the green which was joined by a mound on the immediate right front of the green.  A golf architect places mounds such as this to effect a purpose and does not always achieve that purpose; my purpose here was not only to blind the green to a tee shot which was not placed sufficiently in the left of the fairway, but also to make shots which were played from the right of the fairway and not played sufficiently full to hit this mound and kick in various and undesired directions.  When the green came into play, much to my joy my mound had precisely this effect – so much so that that the powers that be removed my mound because it did exactly what it was supposed to do.  All that remains is the outline on the ground where the turf had been relaid after the  mound was removed.  All this because some genius who happened to have the power to do so, removed it because it happened to accentuate the fault in a shot he had played.  Someday before I die I’m hoping that mound will be replaced.

Well Macan never got to see his mound replaced but it may come to pass in the next 2 or 3 years.

[Rob Rigg]

The mound on the front left of the 7th green at Pasa is quite interesting.

I think the mound in front of the 1st at Pac Dunes also does a great job of camo'ing what is behind.

In the wrong situations, mounds can look so fake and out of place, but in the right situation, even if not on the "right" site, they can add greatly to strategy.

Definitely a design element to be used carefully and sparingly on most properties, at least inland ones where they can look very out of place.

[Sean_A]

That is a good question Mark. As in my previous reply, I would say no. If the need to look natural over rides all else then you can not have any sand bunker where there is no natural sand at the surface. I suppose this raises another question and maybe one for another thread. What aspiration/ethos should a GCA have when designing a course?

Looking right and looking natural are two different things.   

Jon

I agree with you.  I used to go for the natural look as the number 1 goal, but since I moved tot he UK I have changed my opinion.  So many weird and wonderful things pop on courses that I would hate the idea of archies not trying in this day and age.  Besides, to my eye, nearly all courses look like they don't belong on the landscape.  IMO, I think its more a matter of making a course look good and interesting.  Sometimes that means looking natural, but most times it means looking attractive.  Where the UK courses shine is they often make unusual and unnatural features look attractive.  Personally, I think the types of grasses used and the maintenance regimes of courses over here lend themselves to getting away with oddball features.  After time, these features aren't just accepted, they are embraced.  The important thing is archies need to take risks now and then even if conditions aren't perfect for the idea.  Otherwise, in the main, we get a steady stream of what we have had this past several decades.   

Ciao   

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