What makes water hazards great for the game?

[John Kavanaugh]

You have many choices. Play like you would have if you were first to hit or select less club that assures you find the fairway. My personal favorite is a third choice which is to hit a three wood that  is more likely to draw than a driver.  Without the hazards the only choice of reason would be the driver.

[mike_malone]

  It seems that we need to define "strategy" better. My belief is it involves choosing among different angles of play. We "anglers" always end up arguing with you others who think choosing distances or a different club is the same thing.

   

[John Kavanaugh]

  It seems that we need to define "strategy" better. My belief is it involves choosing among different angles of play. We "anglers" always end up arguing with you others who think choosing distances or a different club is the same thing.

   

Distance control is about the angles.  We all out kick our coverage now and then. I would safely go so far to say that the guy who hits driver every hole is the one not thinking about strategy.

You anglers may want to be careful what end of the pole you find yourself on if you believe distance is not part of the equation.

[Jason Thurman]

Don't you still have to choose an angle, even with a lateral hazard? If the lateral hazard is placed in a location that dictates the best angle of approach, how do the angles of play matter any less than if the hazard was sand?

Personally, I think angles matter even more on a hole like the 9th at Pebble with the lateral hazard right instead of sand. If you want a good angle of approach on a hole like that, you really have to be bold as opposed to just being willing to hit an approach from a bunker. The penalty is much more severe.

[Jud_T]

Don't you still have to choose an angle, even with a lateral hazard? If the lateral hazard is placed in a location that dictates the best angle of approach, how do the angles of play matter any less than if the hazard was sand?

Personally, I think angles matter even more on a hole like the 9th at Pebble with the lateral hazard right instead of sand. If you want a good angle of approach on a hole like that, you really have to be bold as opposed to just being willing to hit an approach from a bunker. The penalty is much more severe.

It depends on the bunker.  In the old days they used to actually be severe hazards...

[Jason Thurman]

Jud, what percentage of bunkers on courses that you play are generally a full 1-stroke penalty, equal to that extracted by a lateral water hazard?

It's been a LONG time since I've seen a bunker where advancing the ball even 20 yards is impossible most of the time. That's a two club difference on my next shot versus the water.

Given the option of bunker or water, I'd rather be in the bunker 100 times out of 100. And I suck from the sand.

[Jud_T]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLH6kwi66P4

[Jason Thurman]

Jud,

The Hell bunker is definitely brutal. But it's also huge, and unless I'm right up against the lip, I still feel pretty confident I can advance the ball 20 yards or so. And if I get stuck playing backwards, I'm still lying no worse than if I had taken a drop from water. I'd rather be in Hell than in water 100 times out of 100 too, and I'm betting you would too. Even the guy in the video who didn't take his medicine probably would.

Let's just be serious. It's exceedingly rare that anyone would rather be in water than a bunker, and you know that as well as I.

[Tim_Weiman]

John,

Several years back I was playing Little Met, a nine hole beginners course that is part of Cleveland's Metropark system. Nobody will ever talk about such courses (despite reports of Stanley Thompson being the designer), but I think the course is exactly what golf in America needs more of: easy to walk, inexpensive, very few hazards - just the perfect place to learn how to play.

Anyway, I got matched up with a 40ish guy who was really a bad golfer but impressed me by how much he was enjoying himself. About the 8th hole I found out he had taken up the game about a year before and absolutely loved it. So, I made the mistake of telling him the game would only get better when he got to play some good courses.

He told me he didn't want to play any "good" courses because he had already done that.

"What do you mean?", I asked.

"Well, there was this course where you had to hit 100 yards over water"' he explained. "I don't ever want to do that again".

Ok, I told him laughing inside what a crazy game it is.

[Jud_T]

Jud,

The Hell bunker is definitely brutal. But it's also huge, and unless I'm right up against the lip, I still feel pretty confident I can advance the ball 20 yards or so. And if I get stuck playing backwards, I'm still lying no worse than if I had taken a drop from water. I'd rather be in Hell than in water 100 times out of 100 too, and I'm betting you would too. Even the guy in the video who didn't take his medicine probably would.

Let's just be serious. It's exceedingly rare that anyone would rather be in water than a bunker, and you know that as well as I.

First of all if you're up against the face you're worse off than if you were in water as not only do you have to take a drop in the sand, but are unlikely to advance the ball as far or as accurately on your next shot than off a drop on turf (i.e. lip, lie, contact, etc) so I call bollocks on the 100 out of 100 comment.  Secondly, if it's rare that anyone would rather be in water than a bunker, then why the hell have it at all unless it's naturally occurring, scenic and there's no better routing option?  

[John Kavanaugh]

It's really not 100 out of 100 considering the end consequences often found after hitting into a bunker that fronts a water hazard.  On the 17th at Victoria National I would estimate that a minimum 25% of the time that I find the fairway bunker that hugs the lateral hazard I flub my next shot into the water.  Given the additional work and time involved in raking the bunker, getting another ball and then going back the 30 yds to take the best legal drop outside the bunker my life would be better if the ball just found the water to begin with, not to mention I now got two chunks of coal staring me in the face.  Lucky for me I have experienced this enough times in the last dozen years that if the situation warrants I just advance the ball to 100 yds from the green to assure a bogey.  

[Garland Bayley]

It's really not 100 out of 100 considering the end consequences often found after hitting into a bunker that fronts a water hazard.  On the 17th at Victoria National I would estimate that a minimum 25% of the time that I find the fairway bunker that hugs the lateral hazard I flub my next shot into the water.  Given the additional work and time involved in raking the bunker, getting another ball and then going back the 30 yds to take the best legal drop outside the bunker my life would be better if the ball just found the water to begin with, not to mention I now got two chunks of coal staring me in the face.  Lucky for me I have experienced this enough times in the last dozen years that if the situation warrants I just advance the ball to 100 yds from the green to assure a bogey.  

At last we have it. What makes water hazards great for the game, is that some people who are disinclined don't have to go to the work of actually hitting recovery shots or raking bunkers.

So it can never be 100 out of 100 who prefer a bunker to water.

[Jason Thurman]

John, that's a good point. Bunkers are a huge hassle to rake, especially in the situation you describe or worse, the situation where you ping-pong from one greenside bunker to another. That probably adds 4 minutes to the round by itself. No wonder so many weekend hacks love courses with lots of water and hate tough bunkers.

The more I think about it, the more I think they should all be turned into water hazards (aside from the ones played as waste areas where grounding the club is fine and raking isn't necessary).

[Carl Rogers]

The ugliest water hazard on a great course that happens to be contiguous to Earths greatest hazard is the artificial pond fronting the 18th at Torrey Pines South.  No one could argue that the hole would be made better without the pond.  I would go so far to say that no one could make a legitimate argument that it is anything but a great hole.

I still remember the first time I played Torrey that I had no idea a water hazard fronted that green until I saw the stakes from about the 200 mark.  Fortunately I had played the hole too poorly to have found the pond by mistake. It is a butt ugly mark on a beautiful walk.

The pond fronting the 16th at Firestone .... it seems to me just a bad.

[Connor Dougherty]

I couldn't help but share this video I found on the thread. It's perhaps the best example of what a great bunker can do. And what you can do to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXzNsKcXrBM&feature=endscreen