Small, shallow bunkers

[Matthew Runde]

Is there any use for small, shallow bunkers?  All they seem to do is provide the appearance of danger, while allowing players (especially long-hitters and their errant tee-shots) to escape relatively easily.  I suppose they could scare players away from danger, such as parallel fairways, but I imagine that after being in a couple of sandboxes, players' fear would decrease a bit.  I haven't come up with any other uses, yet these bunkers seem to exist in many courses.  Do they serve some other purpose?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Matthew

Use them as Pets Corner for cats, dogs etc as IHMO they are a waste of money on a Golf course - a hazard that is no hazard, a true test of a skilled golfer

Melvyn

[jonathan_becker]

Matthew,

I will say that it's much easier to hit an approach shot out of "small, shallow bunkers" than out of the rough.  At least out of the bunker you can pick it and spin the piss out of it.  That's not happening out of the rough.

[Rory Connaughton]

Yes, there is a use for them.  Imagine a situation where a green is fronted by water, set into a hillside and canted back to front so that the green runs toward the water.  Shallow bunkers (that is shallow at the lip though maybe quite deep on the uphill side) set into the hillside make a very very interesting hazard as the golfer will want to try to bring the ball out very short so as not to blast it over the green into the water or have it run down the green into the water. A six to 10 inch lip makes the shot more challenging as options beyond simply flopping it up high and having it drop straight down exist. In other words, more options and more opportunity for sculling or blading the ball back into the water.  Imagine 12 and 13 at Augusta or 12 at Lancaster.

[Garland Bayley]

As Melvyn says they are a waste of money. They only hurt the average guy who is afraid of such things to the point of not even being able to make a half decent swing to get out of them. Why do you want to hurt the average guy? There is far too much emphasis on bunkers as eye candy IMHO. And there are far too many golfers willing to pay for that eye candy as Veblen goods. IMNSHO

[Tom_Doak]

George Thomas was a fan of sometimes using shallow bunkers adjacent to the green.  He reasoned that the player who just missed the green and found the bunker would not be punished too badly, but the player who missed WIDE of the bunker would be penalized more for having to hit his recovery shot over the bunker and make it stop quickly.

As for fairway bunkers, I don't believe they should all require a wedge-out, but they should always be such that a player who is trying to reach the green from one of them is taking a risk of not getting out at all if he hits a less-than-perfect shot.  A bunker like that forces the player to make a tactical decision, instead of just doing the same thing automatically every time.

[Sean_A]

IMO, if there is enough room in the budget for shallow bunkers, there are too many bunkers allowed for in the budget.   

Ciao

[jonathan_becker]

Tom,

Your first paragraph equates well with a few holes at my home club.  The trade-off for missing wide is having to master the baby flop shot.... and trying to get too cute with that shot normally turns into a double or worse.

[Rory Connaughton]

Tom

  What about the shallow bunkers behind 4 green at Stonewall?  That green site shares some characteristics with the ones I referenced above. Curious to hear what your intent was there.

[Tom_Doak]

Sean:

A shallow bunker is a lot less expensive to maintain than a deep one.

Rory:

Those bunkers behind the green at Stonewall are mostly a pretty diversion for drainage water coming down off the back hillside.  I suppose some here would prefer they were grass bunkers instead ... I just think that choice is entirely a matter of personal preference.

[Rory Connaughton]

Thanks Tom. I hadn't even considered that use.  Regardless of functional intent, they are not a good place to be playing back toward the hazard.

[archie_struthers]

 

The shallowest bunkers Ive ever encountered short of a muni were at Bulle Rock  a Pete Dye in Maryland...as much as I think Pete is way cool as an architect  ...these bunkers were quite bad   ...anyone else know of what I speak here

[Sean_A]

Sean:

A shallow bunker is a lot less expensive to maintain than a deep one.

Rory:

Those bunkers behind the green at Stonewall are mostly a pretty diversion for drainage water coming down off the back hillside.  I suppose some here would prefer they were grass bunkers instead ... I just think that choice is entirely a matter of personal preference.

Tom

How bout compared to no bunker? 

I will tell my issues with shallow bunkers.  On a well designed course with indirect penalty on a poor drive - meaning a guy is out of position and must take on the bunker if he hopes to get near the flag or perhaps even hit the green - where is the indirect penalty with a shallow bunker?  The idea is to make a guy pull off a heroic shot or choose the safe route.  To me, a shallow bunker is just another safe route.  Its sort of like playing poker for pennies.  I am always in because the damage in losing a hand isn't onerous - indeed, imo, we aren't even playing poker under these circumstances.  So far as the guy missing well wide, is it not a good challenge to chip over a hollow/knob or perhaps choose to run a shot through that area - probably to a green running away from this spot?  Finally, on the vast majority of sites I believe archies should be looking at 30-50 bunkers on the course in most cases.  That means each and every bunker has to be 100% a proper hazard to make the bunkering effective.  Otherwise, we start to get into the realm of 60, 75 and 100 bunkers because archies are using inferior bunkers where another element will work just as well.

Ciao

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tom

A shallow bunker is a lot less expensive to maintain than a deep one.

I do not dispute that for a minute but its still cost money to design, build and maintain and for what. It is still a total waste of space, time and money. Even if we use the modern marketing approach “Two for the Price of One” they are still a non starters in the realm of hazards. Shallow is no deterrent, but a potential aid to a golfer.

We seem to go from one extreme (shallow bunkers) to another (Island Greens). IMHO both should never be seen on a golf course.

Melvyn

[Gary Slatter]

Small, shallow, random bunkers are great and should feature on most public golf courses as an introduction to other bunkering. 
They are also fun when located within 60 to 100 yards of the green on short par fours and fives. 
I think small shallow bunkers are easy to maintain and can protect the easier routes to the green in a less mean way than small deep bunkers with overhanging fescue.

Tom: I noticed quite a few small bunkers at Renaissance Club that were almost impossible to get a swing at the ball - forgot the holes but I was in one on the left of a par five on the front nine.  Fortunately either Rich was in good shape or we'd already lost the match.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Gary like Tom you seek to want to make life easy for the golfer, but my point is that golf is a challenge. There are times that a shallow bunker suddenly becomes an aid rather than a hazard, thus assisting the golfer on his way, so what is the point?

Melvyn

[Jason Topp]

I like them as greenside bunkers provided they are actually in play and not there for the appearance of being in play.  I like the idea of giving the high handicap player a chance to hit a putt out of the bunker.  A better player will rarely, if ever, use that option because it is difficult to get up and down with a putter.  By contrast, a high handicap player can get it on the green.  

To me golf is not like church.  It is a game designed to be fun.  Shallow greenside bunkers can provide essentially the same challenge as a deeper bunker for a good player while providing a poor bunker player with an interesting, fairl unique shot opportunity.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tom

What are the basics or origins of shallow bunkers, dwarf sheep perhaps

Melvyn

[Rory Connaughton]

I can understand why you don't believe that they are hazards when in a fairway or where their effectiveness does not really on other features as I described above but I can promise you that the circumstances I have described above provide some some of the most taxing recovery shots available. In fact I watched a number of professionals and top flight ams play out of the bunkers behind 12 green at Lancaster back into the water fronting the green. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom

What are the basics or origins of shallow bunkers, dwarf sheep perhaps

Melvyn

Melvyn,

Loved that quote!  The rest of your ideas on bunkers, not so much, however.  Whilst watching the Red Wings valiant, but falling just short effort last night, I picked up the last LINKS magazine, which profiled ANGC.  Tom Dunne, who posts here, had some nice quotes from Bobby Jones on the course.  But, as most of us well know, his idea was a minimum of bunkers, and bunkers that allow, with a well played shot, a chance of recovery.

So its a question of whether golf is a war, and bunkers should be a death trap like a foxhole, or if golf is a game, and the hazards should not be quite so dangerous.  IMHO, it is more fun if those hazards allow some chance of recovery, rather than a certain lost stroke or ten.  I try to match my fw bunker depth and upslope to about what club might be needed for a safe escape, if hit perfectly.

Now, I agree that flat, smalll bunkers with no lip usually do little, and they usually do not have a great visual impact either.  So, it might be helpful for everyone to describe just what they mean by flat bunkers.  Can you putt or chip out of it? Is it knee high? Is it eye high and can you just see out of it?  Is it so deep you can almost hear Chinese voices coming from the earth? 

[Melvyn Morrow]

Jeff

My old friend Jeff its all a matter of taste and how you were introduced to the game. For me Golf is a challenge or just what is the point. Courses were judged by the challenges they provided for the competent golfer.

For me I see no problem with deep bunkers on the fairway there to trap the long ball from an over enthusiastic player or an errant shot. To consider a retreat out of the rear is acceptable to me if it allows me to stay within my game, but I know there are those who refuse to retreat and restart the fight. They battle on within the deep bunker getting closer to your Chinese or in our case Australian voices.

I do not seek penal, penal, penal but a balanced course should IMHO be testing.  You know my feeling, golf is getting softer, our rules and etiquette are watered down because player want to play by their interpretation of the rules, not to mention aids being allowed re carts, & distance, all which should come from within the golfer. OK I get it, many seem to think that the modern guy is not as robust and willing to face challenges for fear of losing. But then I suppose that is one of the differences from the modern game and that which I was introduced to way back in the late 1950’s.

As for bunkers, that may depend on the type of golfer you are, I am a Links Man so bunkers, just bring them on, I am not a great supporter of the inland courses, the conditions are just not the same.

So any hazard installed on the course needs to test the golfer or at least act as a serious deterrent to show the quality of the routing and designer.

Some shallow bunkers I have seen in my time could act as a Tee for the advantage they offer the golfer. But as not a designer I do not have to comply with clients requirements, so am free to voice my unclipped wing and views. Oh to be free to fly over  a course designed for playing golf and not for a client.

I will say, shallow bunkers are preferred to Island Greens any day.

Melvyn   

[Jeff_Brauer]

Melvyn,

No doubt I can't always use personal preference as a design standard, and to me its not necessarily preference, but a design philosphy that must encompass those preferences of all or most end users.

But, philosophically only, I think golf is more fun when you can perhaps recover from a hazard, which is why I think we both prefer sand to water hazards, no?  And, if the purpose of hazards is to distiguish bewteen competitors, I have a hard time - even in match play - thinking of a reason why a hazard ought to cost more than one stroke.  That should be enough to distinguish, and if a competitor cannot play well enough to win a hole when the other guy has spent five shots in a bunker, there isn't really enough to distinguish!

That said, the occaisional backwards only bunker would be part of my ideal course, even if only on a par 5 fw, so that I am in effect costing the golfer one stroke instead of two.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Jeff

Oh YES, Yes, Yes, Yes and a further yes, we seem to agree on nearly all accounts, see knew you had it in you, Man, just let them good vibes free, its cool.

As for water that’s for adding a little drop to the Single Malt afterwards not to surround a Green - just think one shallow bunkers slipping down the slope into the lake can cause a Tsunami washing away the Green and any smug golfer who made the Green  
So the deeper the less chance of sliding - another reason for deep bunkers - Safety 

Melvyn

[Gary Slatter]

Gary like Tom you seek to want to make life easy for the golfer, but my point is that golf is a challenge. There are times that a shallow bunker suddenly becomes an aid rather than a hazard, thus assisting the golfer on his way, so what is the point?

Melvyn

I have never met an average golfer who would consider a small shallow bunker an aid!  Never!

[Matthew Petersen]

Gary like Tom you seek to want to make life easy for the golfer, but my point is that golf is a challenge. There are times that a shallow bunker suddenly becomes an aid rather than a hazard, thus assisting the golfer on his way, so what is the point?

Melvyn

I have never met an average golfer who would consider a small shallow bunker an aid!  Never!

I agree.

As a low handicapper, I'm not particularly afraid of any bunker. I don't necessarily play for them but if the only deterrent to, say, trying to go for a par 5 in two, is sand, then I'm more than happy to take that chance.

But this is simply not so for virtually everyone with a handicap over about 9, which is to say 95% of golfers. To most, any sand is dreaded, no matter how deep the bunker is.