Guys,
Excellent comments on the bunker (and the trees). I assure that we are all thinking along the same lines here. It is hard to tell but the bunker in our opinion serves a pretty good purpose in this case. There are many way to play this hole (would be even more if we could remove the trees to the left plus many more angles as Tom suggests). Firstly, Tom for your info Martin is 100% for removing every single tree on the course (as am I, as you all know). Then and only then could we get the maximum out of the beautiful links terrain that we are so lucky to have our course on. However, changes are as I've mentioned really tough to get through, tough to get environmental permits for. Way more difficult than the US and UK from my experience. We are in the process for years dealing with the government organizations etc. Since this is new for me - it's only my 2nd year as a member, I'm learning more than I would like to about red tape in NL and how all these organization and everyone else works against you here, even when you are greatly improving the land and bringing back the natural dunes that have completely been grown in. I just can't emphasize enough or explain in anything less than a book how complicated the smallest of changes are.
Martin Ebert has also said in the UK things like gorse and buckthorn can just be taken out in most cases, not here we have to replant it and get a permit to do so. Can you imagine, that's a step above a weed. Then there seems to be an endangered insect sort that is invisible to the naked eye every place you want to put your shovel. Don't laugh, it's true.
However, I digress, back to the bunker. The bunker is 200 meters (220 yds) from the tee. From the middle of the bunker it's 120m to the middle of the green. However, the bunker face is steep enough that it would be tough to pull that off. In the photos I showed we had just removed the trees and the stumps were still in the ground in the corner so we spent a fair bit of time today assessing the visibility of the bunker from the tee. We all agree it needs to be in view.
With the trees cut back like they are, higher hcp'ers that could not reach the corner to have a shot at the green at all now have the ability to player a shot other than a 20 meter chip to the corner. So they can now realistically reach the green in 3. Better players and longer players will now have to choose between hit a low iron off the tee and aiming for the fairway in the corner, hitting a hybrid/3 wood off the tee and coming up bunker high or just short or going for it with a driver. Carrying the bunker, a carry of 205 meters will reward them with a little larger landing area and a short approach. The bunker is being placed in the exact same place it would of been with the full plan, ie short par 4 with all the trees on the left gone. Eventually there will be another bunker further up on the left as well if this happens. We would want to encourage good players to go for the green but not without considerable risk/reward. The hole would really be a gem if/when we can remove all those trees.
Today we lowered the part of the area brining the bunker more into view but there are still two stumps that keep the left side a bit high which will be removed this week. We also removed a couple trees from the left of the women's tee which really opened up the tree line and made it look less straight (one of the things Ally mentioned above, which is why I suggested it won't be as straight as it looks.)
We also are placing a new back tee on 18 which will make it a tough finishing hole at about 391 meters. I took a couple photos of that to show you guys as well.
I notice on GCA that often we have photos of courses which are brilliant but I'm hoping you guys also appreciate the photos in process which I've not seen many of. I really enjoy sharing and discussion the changes as we are doing them. For me it's really actual so I hope you guys see it the same way.
Thanks for the comments.