[Ally Mcintosh]

A constant mantra by many on this website (and by some golden age architects) is/was the need to be sparing with bunkers.... Yet a large number of the great American courses from 1910 to 1930 had a vast acreage of sand, used spectacularly from an aesthetic and strategic point of view... Is this a contradiction? Are these apparently opposite philosophies mutually exclusive?   (Let's leave maintenance costs out of the equation)

[Mike Nuzzo]

NGLA and Shinnecock have about 400 bunkers between them. 

I agree it is a contradiction.

[Niall C]

Ally

As Mark Rowlinsons recent threads on Britain from Above would seem to testify, they certainly liked there sand back in the golden age, and to good effect by the looks of it. Perhaps the compromise should be fewer bunkers but make them bigger. So many bunkers on older courses have morphed into smallish round pots that seem to have the sole intent of costing a shot. I like the idea that bunkers could be big enough that you can actually play forward a reasonable distance depending on the lie/position in bunker. You don't need to be faced with a shot out sideways every time. A bit of variety is perfect.

Not sure if that answers directly the question but there you go.

Niall

[Lynn_Shackelford]

I disagree.  Look at the old aerials.  Golf was intended to be an obstacle course.  To carry or not to carry.  To go around or go straight at the hole.  Americans introduced more trees and bunkers on the sides.  Both of these introductions necessitated fewer bunkers as obstacles to carry or go around, and architects had to respond.  We introduced boundaries for some reason or the trees just grew and folks didn't or couldn't take them out.
The best holes have no boundaries on the sides, e.g. 10th at Riviera.
Wm. Flynn said the two most important things, first accuracy, second the ability to carry the ball a certain distance in the air.  We introduced the power into the game and thus reduced the first two components.
I say reduce vertical hazards and have more hazards to carry and skirt, result a more fun experience.
As for fewer bunkers that is okay if the ground sucks up a bouncing ball and carries it to a bunker a la TOC.

[Tom_Doak]

Ally:

It's a matter of "Do what I say, not what I do."  It SOUNDS better to talk about strategic architecture, but it LOOKS better on the ground when there are lots of pretty bunkers.

For all the talk about being sparing with bunkers, the only famous architect I can think of who was consistently sparing with bunkers was Tom Simpson.  Dr. MacKenzie was very sparing with bunkers after 1930, but he had a lot of past sins to make up for in that department.

Niall's prescription above is not likely to work ... the reason all those old bunkers are smaller today is that big bunkers have enormous issues with wind erosion, so the greenkeepers have made them smaller.

If you want to get serious about reducing bunkers, it should be possible to limit yourself to no more than three bunkers a hole.  In fact, it's a great thought experiment to think about great golf holes and which three bunkers would be the ones to keep.

[Niall C]

Tom

We can all dream........

Ally

If I was any use at posting photos I would start a thread titled "The grass bunkers of Moray". In fairness not many in too meaningful a position but good to know they are there even if they are situated on the sidelines.

Niall

[Ally Mcintosh]

Ally:

It's a matter of "Do what I say, not what I do."  It SOUNDS better to talk about strategic architecture, but it LOOKS better on the ground when there are lots of pretty bunkers.

For all the talk about being sparing with bunkers, the only famous architect I can think of who was consistently sparing with bunkers was Tom Simpson.  Dr. MacKenzie was very sparing with bunkers after 1930, but he had a lot of past sins to make up for in that department.

Niall's prescription above is not likely to work ... the reason all those old bunkers are smaller today is that big bunkers have enormous issues with wind erosion, so the greenkeepers have made them smaller.

If you want to get serious about reducing bunkers, it should be possible to limit yourself to no more than three bunkers a hole.  In fact, it's a great thought experiment to think about great golf holes and which three bunkers would be the ones to keep.

As usual, it was Simpson I was also thinking about... plus MacKenzie post-crash... But also I'm thinking about the Sean Arbles of the world... And I too would prefer to not "over-bunker" a course.... But when the ground ain't that great, it must surely be tempting to throw a bunch of bunkers in to create both a strategic element and to add to the visuals... Great ground, different story although even on those great sites, the ODG's loved their sand

[Sean_A]

Yes, I think huge numbers of bunkers came in big with the Golden Age US courses (either of the championship ilk or wannabe), but there were enough examples in the UK to follow. 

I too think of Simpson, Park Jr and especially Fowler when I think of high quality/low bunker courses.  I still have the nagging feeling Dr Mac went frugal because that was the way the wind was blowing. 

The thing about Simpson though is he could afford meagre bunkering because of his superior placement and willingness to create ground features.  Nobody got more out of of sand than Simpson did. 

All that said, sometimes there is a place for 100 bunkers.  Little Aston does well in this department.  BUT, I honestly can't see any reason for Muirfield-like numbers.  Sure, its easy to dig bunkers in sand, but no course should "need" that many bunkers - especially of the pot variety which don't really contribute to aesthetics until one is quite close to the sand - close enough that a well shaped hollow or mound could look cool as well. 

Ciao     

[Paul_Turner]

I don't think Simpson was all that sparing with bunkers.  Not if you take area covered rather than pure numbers of bunkers. 

Simpson courses like Spa, Lys and Blackwell have some huge bunkers and are hardly minimalist.  Hell, Blackwell has one that's about 200 yds long on the 12th.

I do agree bunkers went out of fashion in the 30's but it might just have been due to a lack of money.

[Connor Dougherty]

I had a thought playing Sheep Ranch that lower cost courses could eliminate many of their bunkers to the point that there are less than a dozen on the course to minimize costs and still maintain strategy with the proper contouring. But, like Tom mentioned about the looks, I don't think that would go over particularly well with the golfing public. You need a club with a dedicated membership (like Royal Ashdown Forest I would imagine) to be successful.

In some places, the huge bunkers look right in place. In others, they should try to avoid them in many places.

[Sean_A]

Paul

I don't believe Blackwell's famous long bunker was original to the Fowler/Simpson design.  I am also convinced there are other bunkers at Blackwell which are not original.  Mind you, there are some missing bunkers as well.  

Ciao

[Paul_Turner]

Sean

The snake 12th bunker is visible in WW2 aerials.  Is there evidence it was added by someone else in that 1923-1939 period?

[Garland Bayley]

We were instructed to ignore maintenance cost. But, I'm not very good a following directions sometimes. It simply is the crux of the matter. You don't need so many bunkers for good golf, but as Tom noted, courses look better with them. Plus, as a relatively rich society, we indulge in this excess. There are lots of low cost courses with few or no bunkers, and you won't convince me that the people playing them are having any less fun than the people playing Shinnecock.

[Peter Pallotta]

It does seem that, with a very few exceptions, the "do as I say, not as I do" approach ruled the day. What's interesting is that, for everyone to agree (i.e. to say) that fewer bunkers were better must mean there was some definite cache attached to saying so. (No one says it's better to poke your eye out with a stick than not). And I think that cache was all about demonstrating that you understood how great architecture allowed the beginner (the rabbit) to have fun while at the same time tested the scratch man (the tiger). The fact that, in the end, most architects over bunkered their courses suggests that maybe, just maybe, they weren't all that concerned with the rabbits; and that they knew that, in America at least, it would be the tigers (and paper tigers) who'd be footing their bills at private courses.

Peter

[Travis Dewire]

"Niall's prescription above is not likely to work ... the reason all those old bunkers are smaller today is that big bunkers have enormous issues with wind erosion, so the greenkeepers have made them smaller."

Tom, can this really be said for all large bunkers, becoming effectively smaller? I'm not so sure

[Travis Dewire]

Smoke in Mirrors. What about golf holes with ZERO bunkers.

Brae Burn #7
Few greens up here at Mt. Washington, NH have no bunkers at greenside. Most notable hole number 2 completely rebuilt by B. Silva, there is but two fairway bunkers, one not in play unless you are on the beginner side of things, but does great work to "blind" up your tee shot a little. The other bunker is hardly reachable and situated behind a cluster of trees, and not relevant to the hole

[Tom_Doak]

"Niall's prescription above is not likely to work ... the reason all those old bunkers are smaller today is that big bunkers have enormous issues with wind erosion, so the greenkeepers have made them smaller."

Tom, can this really be said for all large bunkers, becoming effectively smaller? I'm not so sure

Travis:

No, not all large bunkers become smaller over time.  But Niall referred to the old aerials from Britain that were posted here a week or two ago, and in Britain, I would say that there are very few big bunkers left, because most of the courses are in windy locales.  Even a relatively secluded course with a famous big bunker -- the 8th at St. George's Hill -- divided the bunker into two or three smaller ones, because of water erosion issues.

[Patrick_Mucci]

A constant mantra by many on this website (and by some golden age architects) is/was the need to be sparing with bunkers.... Yet a large number of the great American courses from 1910 to 1930 had a vast acreage of sand, used spectacularly from an aesthetic and strategic point of view... Is this a contradiction? Are these apparently opposite philosophies mutually exclusive?   (Let's leave maintenance costs out of the equation)

Ally,

The "proof" is in the pudding/tasting.

It's what they built, not what they wrote, that counts.

When you have a career that spans 20, 30, 40 or more years, finding contradictory statements shouldn't surprise anyone.

[Sean_A]

Sean

The snake 12th bunker is visible in WW2 aerials.  Is there evidence it was added by someone else in that 1923-1939 period?

Paul

I wish I took a photo of the aerial I saw in the Sec's office.  I saw the bunker in a later aerial, but in an earlier one it didn't look like there was sand in the ditch.  The Sec said the bunker was originally a water ditch, but he couldn't point to anything definitive to prove it and the aerial wasn't clear enough for me to be positive.  To be honest, even today it looks like a water ditch and the hole would probably be better with a water ditch so long as trees down the right were cleared out - as it was originally.  Its incredible to see aerials of the property without the load of trees.  The bunkers have a totally different meaning in that environment.  The Sec was coy, but he also mentioned that the club may have something in the works to "restore" the course.  I'm not sure what that meant.

My question to y'all is, have folks read the big guns write about minimal bunkering before the Depression?

Ciao

[Ian Andrew]

I recently worked on a plan for a golf course north of Toronto where they need to rebuild their greens for agronomic reasons. Their architecture was from the 1950’s and I recommended an architectural style right out of the golden age to help emphasize the land rather than the bunkers. The land is spectacular so I worked hard to radically change and expand the grassing lines. This involved getting rid of a lot of extraneous (target) bunkers and replacing them with larger diagonal carry bunkers, feeder slopes or run off short grass slopes around the greens.

We got through the entire process with each hole being approved by the committee. Now keep in mind this is as good a piece of land for golf as I have seen in Ontario. At the end I said, since it will come up in the vote, there are only 28 bunkers! We increased the number of bunkers by 10 for a presentation to the membership (a Town Hall Meeting). Through that process we ended with 56 bunkers.

The interesting aspect for me is most of the bunkers have gone into diagonal ridges reinforcing the strategy already found in the land. Others replace areas that were going to be short grass roll-offs and in many ways make things easier rather than harder. There is no question the course is far more “visual”, but I still believe the architecture was just as interesting without the extra bunkers (keep in mind this was “great” land). Golfers want visuals and generally like lots of bunkers.

I think through this I’ve come to the conclusion that golf courses on great land often have more bunkers than necessary if we are only talking strategy alone. But that’s the architect’s choice because most architects know the players like the visual aspects of bunkers along with the clues and definition they help create. I’m hard pressed to think of any great courses that have very few bunkers with perhaps the exception of Augusta National.

I happen to like the idea, but perhaps I’m too much an idealist in my approach to stripping things down to their core. Laval has only 44 and the first review talked about the lack of bunkering in places and whether players would “Get it.”

The whole topic is an excellent one. I don’t believe any era designed with less bunkers. The concept of using less is more of a stand-alone topic.

[Sean_A]

Ian

I tend to prefer seeking black and white absolutes, but often fail miserably.  One of the areas where relativity certainly exists is bunkering.  I am hard pressed to think of what "very few" bunkers is.  I certainly think that is very dependent on the land and the style of design.  Out of curiosity, what is "very few" bunkers for you?

For the sake of argument, I can't think of any great courses with "very few" bunkers either, but that is likely due to my ignorance.  On the other hand, I can't think of any great courses where the bunkering is the highlight of the course.  

Ciao

[Niall C]

"Niall's prescription above is not likely to work ... the reason all those old bunkers are smaller today is that big bunkers have enormous issues with wind erosion, so the greenkeepers have made them smaller."

Tom, can this really be said for all large bunkers, becoming effectively smaller? I'm not so sure

Travis:

No, not all large bunkers become smaller over time.  But Niall referred to the old aerials from Britain that were posted here a week or two ago, and in Britain, I would say that there are very few big bunkers left, because most of the courses are in windy locales.  Even a relatively secluded course with a famous big bunker -- the 8th at St. George's Hill -- divided the bunker into two or three smaller ones, because of water erosion issues.

Tom/Travis

Thinking about it some more, I'm not sure that wind woukld have been that big an issue on the majority of inland courses which is not to say it wasn't windy but when you think back to some of those earlier photos of inland courses the bunkers were as much dirt and gravel as sand. That being the case I don't think sand blow would have been nearly as much a problem as on a links.

I suspect that a lot of those bunkers disappeared as a result of cross hazards going out of fashion, and others simply with the encroachment of grass over a period of time.

Niall

[BCrosby]

I haven't played enough Simpson courses to say whether his practise was to minimize the use of bunkers, but from early in the 1920's he advocated that they be used sparingly.

For example, he thought the 3rd at Woking with its single greenside bunker was a model hole in that regard.

Bob

[Ian Andrew]

Ian

I tend to prefer seeking black and white absolutes, but often fail miserably.  One of the areas where relativity certainly exists is bunkering.  I am hard pressed to think of what "very few" bunkers is.  I certainly think that is very dependent on the land and the style of design.  Out of curiosity, what is "very few" bunkers for you?

For the sake of argument, I can't think of any great courses with "very few" bunkers either, but that is likely due to my ignorance.  On the other hand, I can't think of any great courses where the bunkering is the highlight of the course.  

Ciao

Sean,

Your comment made me smile.

I desperately need to find a game with you.
I think I would enjoy that very much.

Ian

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