"Random Bunkering"

[Ryan Farrow]

Don, what I see from most modern architects, is they or the shaper will move just enough dirt to create some support, but that support or mounding rarely ties into any kind of natural land form.


Here are two examples of bunker which I do not care for. They feel forced into a location or yardage where they do not belong.





The 3 bunkers on the right side of the fairway help turn the hole and do not tie into the land forms behind, I'm sure one of the reasons is because of a cart path just behind the bunker but you can tell they were shaped for maximum visibility.





Here is another that looks like it was built up to help stop a ball from entering the lake.






The problem for me, is that while I do not like the medium scale earth work to prop up a bunker I cannot help myself for falling head over heels for a bunker like this! Obviously built with the spoils from excavating the cavity of the bunker.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ryan,


I think a lot depends on the topography.


When you have flat land, especially when it's combined with a high water table, creating elevated foot pads is almost a necessity.


A lot also depends on the targeted end user.


If the course is intended for a residential community, there may be an underlying general concept of keeping the ball "in play" and not allowing it to end up n more hostile environs.

[Don Mahaffey]

Ryan, I don't take issue with what you like.
I guess I don't mind bunkers, sometimes, where you can see the spoils because no one tried to hide the work. While I realize that probably makes no sense to most anyone here, some of the older courses I've seen where the spoils are just there seem better than the modern method of thinking you are tying them into something when there is not enough spoils, or no land-form to actually make any sort of tie in work. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

I recall the old Cornish and Graves books wrote and diagrammed that fw bunkers ought to be built above grade, and my mentors felt the same, so I had the impression that style developed in the 50's as part of the streamline era.


However, the reasons make sense from many points of view -


Raised bunkers are visible, sunken bunker are not,


Raised bunkers are easier to drain and sunken bunkers are harder to drain (impossible in some cases)


Raised bunkers do reject balls, whereas sunken bunkers can collect them, so where you are really looking for factory golf (yes, it is a design criteria for many clients) it may limit the amount of time devoted to getting out of fw bunkers, one of the hardest shots in golf for typical ams.


Raised bunkers used fill that came from irrigation lakes, more practical than wasting localized spoils around a smaller scale bunker, so oddly, the rise of irrigation also raised a lot of bunkers.....


Tying in long slopes eased mowing when mechanical mowers came along (of course, horses and gang mowers also worked better on long flowing slopes, too)


Not surprised that after 60 years of that style, that many are sick of it, and looking to try something new! 


I would ask Ryan if he was against the raising, tying of slopes, etc., as much as he just likes the smaller scale and randomness of older bunkers?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Don,
 
You'll have to come and visit GCGC, where those bunkers abound in number.

[Ryan Farrow]

I would ask Ryan if he was against the raising, tying of slopes, etc., as much as he just likes the smaller scale and randomness of older bunkers?

Jeff, I think it all depends on the site. Raising bunkers more than a foot or two above the fairway defeats the purpose of a bunker, and at that point is only visual noise. The only shots they are going to collect are the ones that land directly in them. At that point it is not worth the hassle of building them in the first place.


 I feel like most bunkers should just be built on whatever grade is existing. Which would limit the amount of dirt needed to tie into the surrounds.  If drainage is going to be a major issue where a bunker is too be placed, I would choose not to locate a bunker in that area.


Of course if we are talking about a sandy site then we can get a little more aggressive with the bunkers placements in some natural low areas.

[Tom_Doak]

I recall the old Cornish and Graves books wrote and diagrammed that fw bunkers ought to be built above grade, and my mentors felt the same, so I had the impression that style developed in the 50's as part of the streamline era.

I grew up on one of Mr. Cornish's courses in Connecticut where all of the bunkers were built above grade.  He was used to working in New England, where you would frequently get into ledge rock trying to dig a bunker into the ground, or dig the drainage line away from the bunker ... leading to big cost overruns on his very-low-budget construction projects.  It was much more easy to project the costs of just bringing in fill for features [and maybe digging a lot of it out of the ubiquitous ponds], so he stuck to that way.  He did not seem to care about tying things in or making them look natural at all.


Of course, a lot of Geoff's early work for Stanley Thompson was done the same way, Thompson just had so much more flair for bunkering that the fill doesn't seem as obvious.

[Sean_A]

Ryan, I don't take issue with what you like.
I guess I don't mind bunkers, sometimes, where you can see the spoils because no one tried to hide the work. While I realize that probably makes no sense to most anyone here, some of the older courses I've seen where the spoils are just there seem better than the modern method of thinking you are tying them into something when there is not enough spoils, or no land-form to actually make any sort of tie in work.

Don


I agree with you.  Today, archies think they are doing good shaping by tying-in when there is nothing to tie onto. This is where vegetation can be very useful ala heathland style using heather to link sand to non-fairway areas.  Of course, some of the playability of the bunker is thus sacrificed because heather gets in the way somewhere.  Then you have a guy like Fowler who had no compunction with building bold, untied earthworks to house bunkers and slapping heather into the mix.  It doesn't look natural, but it sure looks like golf to me...and that matters most of all.


I wish more archies would think outside the boxes of the natural look, or what I call the RTJ look (bunkers slapped around the place and made to "look good" by shaping, but in truth look totally fake and insipid). 


Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

Sean,

I was told once that I didn't seem to care if my stuff tied in like some architects.  It was compared to the Japanese Garden style, where they give up on natural, and admit its artificial, knowing the eye will know its a representation of nature.

While I never thought so deeply about it to compare my style to Japanese garden design, that comment did get me to wondering.  If golf features are artificial, why so much emphasis on trying - in what is usually a losing battle - to make them look natural?  Just accept that they were placed there for a reason, build them as bunkers, not some mimic of nature....

Also recall the Langford pamphlet where he suggests fewer bunkers in the Chicago District, because, let's face it natural sand pits are few and far between there.......making them look natural would be making them mud holes rather than sand traps.  So, why not just philosophically accept that the sand bunker was brought over as part of American golf as a functional element, not a natural one?

That thought basically opened up a lot of design options and explains why bunkers look the way they do now.  And, jagged edges, under that theory, aren't really an attempt to be natural (really long term, erosion smoothes rather than roughens) they are just another expression of artistic intent, like conceptually, but different in form, than Mac's puzzle piece bunkers......

[Sean_A]

Jeff


I agree...the idea of trying to make all bunkers in all in conditions look natural (when much of the time what is really achieved is a "standardized acceptable look") is really counter-productive. 


Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

Sean,

Has jagged edge bunkering become the standardized acceptable look yet?  If so, when is it time to start looking for a new look?

[Patrick_Mucci]

This thread is randomly drifting away from the focus of the topic, "random bunkering" to bunker styles and/or bunker construction.

[Jeff_Brauer]

This thread is randomly drifting away from the focus of the topic, "random bunkering" to bunker styles and/or bunker construction.

Stuff happens.....but, topic drift is both the strength and weakness of this forum.