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Tim Nugent

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Re: Rear Bunkers
« Reply #25 on: April 12, 2012, 09:25:18 AM »
Thanks for the input.  What I struggle with is the difficulty for the higher handicappers.  It seems the ones most apt to find a rear bunker are also the ones that would find getting out of them the hardest.  Granted the shape of the green, long vs wide has some bearing as well as shot in - low handicapper going for it in 2 vs a mandatory 3.  I've found that I tend to perfer a grassy bunker or a depressed chipping area in most instances as I generally have moved away from containment mounding that my father prefered.  Besides, CM seems to present it's own problems to high handicappers with a downhill lie to a green sloping away.
I guess I will reconsider a few Rear Bunkers just to provide interest and variety but the situation will have to be really call for it.
Coasting is a downhill process

Jeff_Brauer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rear Bunkers
« Reply #26 on: April 12, 2012, 09:59:31 AM »
Tim,

With containment mounding, there are also some issues of chems draining onto greens in bermuda surrounds/bent greens.  My use of them is altered by that alone, plus as you say, getting tired of downhill lie chips from behind the green.  Stopping a chip on a green falling away to the front is hard enough w/o having a downhill lie.  Better a small swale and then a mound, if need be.

That said, one notable pro critiqued one of my back bunkers as too severe a downhill lie, saying it was a difficult shot for him.  By that standard, the back bunkers would have to also be uphill shots, below the green, and thus blind on the approach, which I am generally loathe to do.  Just seems like with the cost of bunkers, they ought to be seen!

Net, net, back bunkers for me are usually as cosmetic as anything, a relic of the old make it look harder than it plays by putting the same amount of bunkers in places unlikely to be found with golf shots, i.e., back left of the green.

So, what defines a "situation that really calls for it?"

I have a number of long par 4's with bunkers in back (and sides) of an across the LOP green, figuring, as you say, they test the long iron of the good player, who can still stop the long iron shot, but the handicap guy should have similar accuracy with third shot a wedge.  I usually do these on prevailing up or downwind holes, not cross.

If the challenge is to make sure you take enough club (say uphill, into the wind) and the green front is open, then I feel the back bunkers create a little doubt about adding the extra club.  Similar doubts might creep in downhill and downwind, too, encouraging the golfer to club to the front of the green, just to be sure they stay out of the bunker.  Knowing that would leave a longer, but typically uphill put makes the "bail out" decision a bit tempting.  In a prevailing crosswind, I don't see back bunkers having any similar effect.

At the same time, low handicappers, if you listen to Pelz, etc. have more distance control problems on short irons, so perhaps back bunkers make more sense for them on really, really short approaches, maybe the driveable par 4 or usually non reachable par 5? 

For mid length holes, your scenario would kick in - good players always shooting at the flag with shorter clubs than the average guy, and probably being affected less.

Just my theoretical take.  Of course, you start looking at what the land gives, the balance of the course, etc.
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Wayne Wiggins, Jr.

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rear Bunkers
« Reply #27 on: April 12, 2012, 07:03:10 PM »
The rear bunkers that stick out in my memory seem to fall into 3 categories

1: Eye candy/Framing - generally useless but can be pretty

2: The "thank you Mr. Architect" bunker - as they save bad shots from becoming much worse

3: The "Norman miss" bunker - in that that's the place that you just can't miss as there is no up and down unless you hit the stick type of miss - usually a sucker type of shot as you chase a back pin - this is my favorite type as a lot of my strategic thinking involves figuring out where the areas are that I can't recover from

Rear bunkers I like (Option #3 above):

#2 at Olympic-Lake
# 12 at Seminole

Both are basically "hidden" i.e. not really so prominent to be seen as one approaches the green.  I guess at Olympic, the bunker on the rear left is somewhat visible, but doesn't "frame" the hole, but the one of the rear right seems to get more action.
The rear bunker at Seminole #12 certainly comes into play when the pin is in the back of the green and the wind is off the ocean into your face.  Just try to get your shot back to that pin... i dare you.

Rear bunker I don't like (Option #1 above):

#8 at Olympic-Lake

Like much about this new hole, my feeling is this bunker is just out of place.  It's completely visible from the multiple elevated tees and really has become the only rear bunker on the entire course (save part of the right-rear one on #2) that frames the green so much.  Not that that's necessarily bad... it just doesn't mesh with the rest of the holes on the course.

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