[PThomas]

Patrick's question made me think of this:  is another solution to reduce the number of bunkers on a course, esp. if one is designing a new course?

what if a GCA was told "you can only have x number of bunkers on this course you are designing"?...and what if x was 36 or less=2 per hole so about 1 fairway and 1 greenside each hole..

might that not make the architect really think about how to use them efficiently?  for ex, if only using 1 to guard several of the greens, he'd have to use the green slopes to protect the non-bunkered parts of the green sometimes, probably...

less maintenance , lower construction costs, and fewer manhours to maintain too

[Rob Rigg]

Yes, yes, yes.

Using the ground to create strategy instead of hazards seems like a solid and viable idea.

Sidehill, uphill and downhill lies add just as much interest and challenge as a flat fairway with two bunkers on each side in the driving area and near the green.

It would be interesting to use the fairway bunker as a cross hazard as well on occassion, as opposed to a bunker sitting off to the side all the time.

Chipping areas are more interesting and fun to play from than bunkers anyways - and they challenge the good player and make it easier on the "average" player.

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:

I think it would be great if more courses had 30-40 bunkers and better contouring in the fairways and on/around the greens.  I have actually tried giving my associates a quota a couple of times, telling them no more than 60 bunkers or 50 bunkers on a course.  It hasn't worked well; I guess I need to start paying them on that basis.

You do need clients who don't care about public opinion, though.  Most golfers seem to think more bunkers = a better course, and clients fall into the same trap ... they always want to suggest an additional bunker somewhere.  In all the years I've been designing courses, I've only once had a client suggest that I take a bunker OUT.

[Mike Cirba]

For starters, you need some really good landforms, and then, beyond that, you need some natural hazards, preferably in the form of a stream, or creek, or burn running through the property.

If the land is really good, an archie should be able to keep it under 30 bunkers, or even under 20.

My education in golf course architecture over the past decade or so has led to a place where I see tons of sins masked with sand bunkers, and other visual slight of hand, and I'm starting to think the ideal is a well designed bunkerless course, and anything deviating from that needs to have a good, explainable reason for each and every artificial feature constructed.

[Sean_A]

It is my feeling that if bunkers were employed to a lesser degree than their placement would become far more paramount and likley centre based rather than wing based.  I would hesitate to say there should be a limit, but I can't see why world class courses can''t have minimal bunkering.  The guys who can shape a bunkers really well have no excuse to not be able to re-shape fairways to create interest and strategy - equally, they have no excuse for not giving it a go.  Think about it for a minute, with all the dozens of bunkers TOC has - and a great many are totally unnecessary - the first thing people think of when pondering TOC is the undulations, then the double greens, bunkers are a third thought.  Why is this the case?

Ciao

[Kalen Braley]

I think this is a terrific idea, 1 or 2 bunkers per hole......max.





Sincerely,

Rees Jones

[Kalen Braley]

P.S.  On second thought, what does a few extra bunkers hurt anyways?



Yours truly,

RJ

[Melvyn Morrow]

Limiting bunkers on a golf course is in my opinion not the way forward. The real problem is how people and golfers define a golf course or their expectation of one and I believe bunkers are a must.

My own thoughts are that a golf course no matter its location should have bunkers. They are as much about golf as the hole. Certainly for centuries they were far more important than the Tees being perceived as hazards, a fundamental part of a golf course and obstacles for golfers to navigate.

I feel the modern bunker or should I say the idea of the modern bunker has been much reduced in functional importance and more or less appears as a decorative statement. Perhaps trying to convince golfers that this IS a Golf Course of merit, to be taken serious yet ultimately the majority of its bunkers are just there for decoration and the enhance the claim, ‘After all do not all links courses have bunkers’.

Bunkers are not for decoration, they are not there to make a statement on the type of golf course, they are there to be a hazards, to challenge and test the skill and foresight of the golfer. Yet we can look at many new courses built over the last quarter of a century and note the large selection of big shallow bunkers that seem to defend our Greens like the WW1 trench systems, yet only a few are any serious deterrent, some in fact being a useful option to chip to the pin.

Bunkers are part of the designers arsenal, they should be limited to where they do the most good and once sited they should be made to do the job they are there to do.   
   
The problem as I see it is in our interpretation of the word Strategic. Again, I question if strategic and penal are they really separate, are they two different concepts of design or are they as I believe part and parcel for the strategic design package. With this in mind I believe that the modern designer may have concentrated on what is called a strategic design but with a well watering down penal aspect. As we see in our modern society, strategic policies without a penal element are a sign of weakness and rarely works. This I see in golf.

So IMHO ALL golf courses should have bunkers, nevertheless, I do agree that quantity is not necessary but strong strategically placed bunkers will get the golfers thinking, after all is that not the real reason for hazards on a golf course or have we forgotten the very early principals behind good design. That’s a question which only designers can answer.

Melvyn

PS Thanks Kalen for proving my point

[TEPaul]

"might that not make the architect really think about how to use them efficiently?  for ex, if only using 1 to guard several of the greens, he'd have to use the green slopes to protect the non-bunkered parts of the green sometimes, probably...

less maintenance , lower construction costs, and fewer manhours to maintain too"


Paul:

Believe it or not the foregoing was essentially the underlying theme of George Thomas's interesting proposal entitled "Arbitrary Values" that suggested golf should use "half strokes" for putts!!!

[Tom_Doak]

Tom P:

I must say that while I admired some of Thomas' reasoning in that chapter, the main suggestion struck me as batty.

If you're going to start counting strokes differently depending on where they are taken, you might as well just paint a bunch of bullseye targets on a practice range, and reduce golf to that.  That would REALLY lower construction and maintenance costs!

Then again, I'm one of the only people in the world who liked those "cop" hazards at Hoylake.

[TEPaul]

"Tom P:

I must say that while I admired some of Thomas' reasoning in that chapter, the main suggestion struck me as batty."


Tom:

I'm pretty sure most thought that proposal was really batty; probably assuming Thomas just didn't like putting or whatever and perhaps never even bothered to read or to seriously consider the ultimate point he was trying to make and do with architecture. His ultimate point was to come up with essentially an effective architectural structure via "half strokes" for putts that would be much less expensive because it would require much less bunkering due to the fact that many more holes could be designed in that middle distance area with all three par type holes (par 3,4,5).

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I must say that when you play Royal Ashdown and Berkhamsted you don't miss the sand bunkers, for there are none on either course. But I suppose most golfers will demand bunkers on their home course if only that they will know how to get out of them when they play on other courses.

I can remember Portpatrick, a fun little course on the Galloway coast in the days when it had no sand bunkers. My father and I played there on holiday in the 1960s. I revisited in the 1990s and found that they had added a few token bunkers. They did absolutely nothing for the course. But I suppose it is a similar situation to one found on one of the railways in the south of England, connecting a seaside town with London. When it was almost completed it was realised that the line had not a single tunnel on it. 'But the passengers will expect a tunnel,' said one of the directors. A cutting was then roofed over so that the passengers would have their expectations fulfilled!

I don't know, but I rather suspect that Fowler's Bull Bay had no bunkers when built (and no need of bunkers). The few bunkers there today are rather pathetic offerings.

[Michael Rossi]

Patrick's question made me think of this:  is another solution to reduce the number of bunkers on a course, esp. if one is designing a new course?

what if a GCA was told "you can only have x number of bunkers on this course you are designing"?...and what if x was 36 or less=2 per hole so about 1 fairway and 1 greenside each hole..

might that not make the architect really think about how to use them efficiently?  for ex, if only using 1 to guard several of the greens, he'd have to use the green slopes to protect the non-bunkered parts of the green sometimes, probably...

less maintenance , lower construction costs, and fewer manhours to maintain too

Paul

Take a look at what Ian A and Mike W are putting together for a new course; you might like what you see.

Doesn't appear that bunkering is the main focus but proper use of the land and bunker use emphasize strategy. 

http://www.weirgolfdesign.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=8&Itemid=20

[Mike Cirba]

I grew up playing courses that had no bunkers because they simply were viewed as a frilly expense on what were very utlitarian courses.

Even Scranton Municipal designed by William Harrison/Fred Garbin only had a handful of bunkers that they actually filled with sand...most were just earthen bunkers, although I believe they've sanded more of them since back in my day.

I remember one of the first courses I ever saw with numerous fanciful bunkers was Geoffrey Cornish/William Robinson's  Wilkes Barre Municipal which had 72 swirly bunkers in the 18 holes and on the same day, while on a family ride, we stopped at what is today Cornish/Robinson's Mountain Laurel GC and saw my first island green on the par four 10th!   

We couldnt' wait to get the opportunity to go back and actually play at both of those courses, and I must have looked at the scorecard/marketing pamphlets we picked up that day 200 times during the interval. 

Ahh...young love.

In retrospect, I have grown much fonder for those courses that were able to provide challenge, and more importantly...interest and pleasurable excitement...while needing nothing more than grass.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

I'm pretty sure most thought that proposal was really batty; probably assuming Thomas just didn't like putting or whatever and perhaps never even bothered to read or to seriously consider the ultimate point he was trying to make and do with architecture. His ultimate point was to come up with essentially an effective architectural structure via "half strokes" for putts that would be much less expensive because it would require much less bunkering due to the fact that many more holes could be designed in that middle distance area with all three par type holes (par 3,4,5).

Tom:

It seemed to me Thomas was overly concerned with having each hole sort out a winner.  He didn't want you to miss the green and me to hit it and halve a bunch of holes that way ... the half strokes seemed designed to produce a winner, one hole at a time.

I just thought the idea of having mowing lines determine the scoring was too arbitrary.  But he did call the chapter "Arbitrary Values".

P.S.  Does anybody know much about Thomas' golf game?  It's been so long since I read Geoff's book that I can't remember much of it.  I have to say, though, that no matter how forward-thinking someone is trying to be, if they want to change the scoring rules to put putting in its proper place, I would have to suspect that they were a tee-to-green player who didn't like to lose to guys with a good short game.

[TEPaul]

Tom:

I'll get it out and read that chapter again but last time I read it I felt that the net affect of what Thomas was proposing with architecture via and with Half Strokes for putting would generally tend to favor handicap players against better players compared to the way we've always known the game with single strokes for everything.

I tend to think a lot of those guys like a Thomas were searching for various ways to make things more appealing for less good players probably with an eye to generally popularizing the game more as well as looking for ways to cut the cost of golf (architecture et al).

[Tom_Doak]

I tend to think a lot of those guys like a Thomas were searching for various ways to make things more appealing for less good players probably with an eye to generally popularizing the game more as well as looking for ways to cut the cost of golf (architecture et al).

I agree with your general sentiment, but I was surprised that Thomas was so concerned about bunkers.  He seemed to be saying that with current values, having too few bunkers just left the course defenseless, and that we ought to change the rules so we didn't NEED so many bunkers.

But we don't really NEED them.  Heck, one of the holes he illustrated was the tenth at Riviera, without bunkers.  And to me, that hole would probably work just as well without the greenside bunker.  It's damned difficult to get up and down from anywhere to the right of that green, even from a tight lie in the fairway ... although I did make a great up and down from the bunker when I was out there last fall.

[PThomas]

Patrick's question made me think of this:  is another solution to reduce the number of bunkers on a course, esp. if one is designing a new course?

what if a GCA was told "you can only have x number of bunkers on this course you are designing"?...and what if x was 36 or less=2 per hole so about 1 fairway and 1 greenside each hole..

might that not make the architect really think about how to use them efficiently?  for ex, if only using 1 to guard several of the greens, he'd have to use the green slopes to protect the non-bunkered parts of the green sometimes, probably...

less maintenance , lower construction costs, and fewer manhours to maintain too

Paul

Take a look at what Ian A and Mike W are putting together for a new course; you might like what you see.

Doesn't appear that bunkering is the main focus but proper use of the land and bunker use emphasize strategy. 

http://www.weirgolfdesign.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=8&Itemid=20

Yes Mike, something like that!

man , what a great way to fool higher handicappers too:"Oh, this course cant be too hard, there's only 31 [for ex] bunkers on the course"...then when they hit away from them and miss the green, they still get F*&%ed cause their recovery shots are harder than simple bunker shots!

another idea to file away when i build my own course after winning the lottery....

[Michael Rossi]

Patrick's question made me think of this:  is another solution to reduce the number of bunkers on a course, esp. if one is designing a new course?

what if a GCA was told "you can only have x number of bunkers on this course you are designing"?...and what if x was 36 or less=2 per hole so about 1 fairway and 1 greenside each hole..

might that not make the architect really think about how to use them efficiently?  for ex, if only using 1 to guard several of the greens, he'd have to use the green slopes to protect the non-bunkered parts of the green sometimes, probably...

less maintenance , lower construction costs, and fewer manhours to maintain too

Paul

Take a look at what Ian A and Mike W are putting together for a new course; you might like what you see.

Doesn't appear that bunkering is the main focus but proper use of the land and bunker use emphasize strategy. 

http://www.weirgolfdesign.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=8&Itemid=20

Yes Mike, something like that!

man , what a great way to fool higher handicappers too:"Oh, this course cant be too hard, there's only 31 [for ex] bunkers on the course"...then when they hit away from them and miss the green, they still get F*&%ed cause their recovery shots are harder than simple bunker shots!

another idea to file away when i build my own course after winning the lottery....

Paul sounds like you found the design team already , good luck with the lottery. 

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