[Tim Martin]

I recently walked a newly restored Emmet course and noticed that some long lost top shot bunkers were reinstalled. Was this the ODG's version of double jeopardy and if so doesn't it seem to defy some of the design principles of those that used it from a fairness standpoint? If you cold top your tee shot 100 yards shouldn't that be penalty enough? I used the search function but did not find a thread that dealt with this directly. Thanks.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tim,


I've always felt that "top shot" bunkers were minimum performance tests/requirements.


Golf in the early part of the 20th century was a far more difficult game.
Hollywood, Pine Valley, GCGC and others would be exhibit "A".


If you couldn't carry a "top shot" bunker, you shouldn't be on the course.

[Tim Martin]

It seems that Ross and Emmet liked to use them with regularity and I wonder if there were other architect's from that time period as well? Certainly another hazard that gives the player something to think about on the tee shot though the eye may be quicker to focus on a flanking fairway bunker or water hazard.

[Sean_A]

Tim


So called top shot bunkers (a really poor name) can give great pleasure to many people.  Since when did we ever start to think that a short hitting hack doesn't want the thrill of hitting over/around a bunker from the tee?


Ciao

[Tim Martin]

Tim


So called top shot bunkers (a really poor name) can give great pleasure to many people.  Since when did we ever start to think that a short hitting hack doesn't want the thrill of hitting over/around a bunker from the tee?


Ciao

Sean-I thought of it strictly as penalty but agree with your statement.

[Tim Martin]

Tim


So called top shot bunkers (a really poor name) can give great pleasure to many people.  Since when did we ever start to think that a short hitting hack doesn't want the thrill of hitting over/around a bunker from the tee?


Ciao
[/quote

[Tim Martin]

Tim


So called top shot bunkers (a really poor name) can give great pleasure to many people.  Since when did we ever start to think that a short hitting hack doesn't want the thrill of hitting over/around a bunker from the tee?


Ciao

[/quote

[Sean_A]

Tim


So called top shot bunkers (a really poor name) can give great pleasure to many people.  Since when did we ever start to think that a short hitting hack doesn't want the thrill of hitting over/around a bunker from the tee?


Ciao

Sean-I thought of it strictly as penalty but agree with your statement.

Tim


Yes, I undertand if the bunker had to be carried.  Though I can see once in a while having a hard carry bunker if the opportunity presents itself...sometimes a hazard like this is too cool not to include.  Even so, I would probably say a alternate short hitter tee should be available for those that just can't do the shot.  I mean, how often do we see two short tees with totally different angles?  Bottom line, short hitters need thrills off the tee.


Ciao

[Terry Lavin]

I've heard the term "8 or 80" for these bunkers, meaning they're only in play if you're really young or old and broken down. That makes them seem at once unnecessary and punitive.

[Jeff_Brauer]

When I last played Wakonda (its been a while) I noticed Langford had a few holes with bunkers about 100 yards off the tee, now grassed over, but still recognizable, so there is another architect who used them. It seems he only put them in faces where they easily fit.

I won't argue for those who think that overall, top shot bunkers are a good idea, but I don't.  They aren't there for the carry, or they would be called carry bunkers.....they are there to catch badly topped shots and prevent them from maybe rolling almost as long as a better struck tee shot.  That may have been an issue way back when, but I don't see a lot of topped shots with big drivers going as far as airborne shots today.  Top Shot bunkers were there to punish a bad tee shot, but in my mind, you don't punish the shot that can't reach the green anyway.  If they can't reach the green in regulation, what more punishment is needed? 

Add in slower play, cost, etc. from the management side, and overall, the idea only makes sense from the nostalgia perspective.

But, I recall the first NGF "Planning and Building the Golf Course" recently referenced here had a comment about the value of such bunkers in keeping a topped shot from reaching the green the same as an airborne one.  Even in 1967, as a 12 year old fledgling architecture student, that conflicted with other things I read about architecture and I found it odd.

Again, I wonder how many topped shots from 150 or whatever actually go straight and roll far enough to reach the green?  If it's 1 in a million, it doesn't seem like something you would waste money trying to stop.

[Adam Lawrence]

Obviously, top shot bunkers are the definition of penal architecture -- clear it or else. But that doesn't mean they don't have a place. We are too inclined to assume 'strategic' = 'good' and 'penal' = 'bad'. Obviously, though, they are subject to all the criticisms of penal architecture that saw the creation of the strategic school in the first place.

[Mark Pritchett]

Could some of these be classified as "aiming bunkers"? 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark, typically aiming bunkers are beyond the LZ, but sometimes, like Shinnecock 10, with the blind shot, they can be effective guiding bunkers, showing you where to aim over the hill.

[Sean_A]

Obviously, top shot bunkers are the definition of penal architecture -- clear it or else. But that doesn't mean they don't have a place. We are too inclined to assume 'strategic' = 'good' and 'penal' = 'bad'. Obviously, though, they are subject to all the criticisms of penal architecture that saw the creation of the strategic school in the first place.

Adam

I never took a top shot bunker to solely mean clear it or else. Just that a short bunker was in play...could be a crossing bunker or a more strategic bunker.  Do you have an example of only short crossing bunkering being referred to as a top shot bunker?


Ciao

[Mark Pritchett]

Mark, typically aiming bunkers are beyond the LZ, but sometimes, like Shinnecock 10, with the blind shot, they can be effective guiding bunkers, showing you where to aim over the hill.

Thanks Jeff, I suppose "guiding"might be a better word.  I know we have some of these at my home course and whether intentional or not,  the line over these bunkers is the ideal route. 

[Pete Lavallee]

I think many in this day and age many underestimate how far a topped shot could roll on an unirrigated fairway. Good players would be quite upset when the duffers topped shot was only 20 yards behind his perfect ariel blast!

[Greg Smith]

To me the best reason for short carry bunkers is to give the weak golfer an opportunity to fly a tee shot over a real hazard.   It adds interest to his game by relieving the parade of un-thinking short dinks up the fairway.  If there is also a safe way to avoid the top shot bunker by taking a less ideal line for that 120-yard drive, it can give the weak golfer a chance to exercise those strategic-thinking neurons which otherwise would sit there and atrophy.  If there is to be a top shot bunker, it should be as fierce-looking as possible to increase the thrill of carrying it.

Really I love top shot bunkers and would like to see more installed or re-installed if costs permit. 

[Pete Lavallee]

*

[Thomas Dai]

Whilst they sometimes may be a different feature, a top shot bunker is to me just another forced carry, and forced carries are something I'm not keen on, nor are others as I recall from this thread - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,60145.0.html


Atb

[Patrick_Mucci]

Whilst they sometimes may be a different feature, a top shot bunker is to me just another forced carry, and forced carries are something I'm not keen on, nor are others as I recall from this thread - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,60145.0.html
 
So let's vote on features and dumb down as much architecture as you can as you cater to the lowest common denominator

[JNagle]

The two courses above are on relatively flat sights.  The first the Country Club of Buffalo had many fore bunkers
throughout the course.  Without them the course lost some aesthetic appeal.  The same is true of Langford's Bryn Mawr
Country Club outside Chicago.  Also a very flat sight where L&M regraded the majority of the property to create interest
and features.  They added many fore bunkers which also were removed through the years.  Again, the features added a
significant aesthetic appeal to the course, but they also create variety in bunker placements and appearance from hole to
hole.  What I like about both courses is that the architects even used them on Par 3's. 


We have been putting these types of bunkers back in on many courses.  It has become easier because of the multiple tees desired
at most clubs.  The fore bunkers and progressively forward tees can be positioned so that shorter hitters are not impacted as much.


I cannot find the picture at the moment, but the 2nd hole at Lawsonia has two of the best fore bunkers I have seen.  Each over 100' wide and easily 10' deep less than 100 yards from the tee.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Whilst they sometimes may be a different feature, a top shot bunker is to me just another forced carry, and forced carries are something I'm not keen on, nor are others as I recall from this thread - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,60145.0.html
 
So let's vote on features and dumb down as much architecture as you can as you cater to the lowest common denominator

This begs the question....if a feature is not strategic, can removing it really dumb down a course strategically speaking?

[Tim Martin]

The newly restored top shot bunkers that I referenced in the original post seem to be on "the line of charm". Is that the usual practice or were they strewn about as a method of deception? The architect used them liberally on the outward holes coming three times on par fours.

[Bill_McBride]

Tom Doak or some other miscreant restored two top shot bunkers at the Valley Club.  The ladies are still unhappy about that!   They are on the original Mackenzie map in the men's grill so I'm guessing the ladies never were aware of the history of those bunkers!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Yes, I was going to comment on those who think they should remain for the thrill of a carry.....yet most shorter players are terrified of a carry.  Who are we to say they "should like it?"

I am just suggesting that before anyone does anything on a specific course that affects specific players, they ask them, not this website on how they feel about design proposals.....

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