Bunkering behind greens

[Thomas Dai]

Old course photographs seem to indicate that prior to approximately the early 1930's there was quite a bit of bunkering behind greens. Mackenzie seems to have used this quite a bit at some courses.
Was this a deliberate design/strategy of the time that then drifted away into disuse?
I'm curious to know more so details and thoughts welcome.
atb

[Mark_Fine]

Ross for example rarely ever used bunkering behind his greens.  Rear bunkering varied greatly by architect.

[Matt OBrien]

Ross for example rarely ever used bunkering behind his greens.  Rear bunkering varied greatly by architect.

Seminole has bunkers behind 2,5,10,12,13,14,15,16,17

[Adam Lawrence]

I was discussing this yesterday during my round at Royal Daressalaam's Red course in Rabat, Morocco (Cabell Robinson for RTJ Sr, with recent renovations by James Duncan of Coore and Crenshaw). There are a LOT of rear bunkers on the course, and almost without exception, I dislike them intensely. Two basic reasons:


Either 1. you cannot see them, and I'm not generally over fond of hazards that you cannot see or 2. they are high up above the putting surface, in which case they generally look terrible (why would you have sand up that high?) and you have a shot from a bunker to a green below you, which usually feels wrong to me.


Adam

[Kyle Harris]

Ross for example rarely ever used bunkering behind his greens.  Rear bunkering varied greatly by architect.

Seminole has bunkers behind 2,5,10,12,13,14,15,16,17

Most likely from Dick Wilson. Check the Ross plans from the Tufts Archives.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thomas - three things occur to me:
1. In the 1930s such bunkers made sense, for both equipment-related and playability reasons; if you were a middling golfer happy to land *anywhere* on the green (in regulation or not) you'd almost never have to contend with them
2. They *still* make sense; their absence on modern courses suggests that most are strongly influenced by fashion (and related rationales), and that the kind of challenges we *do* like fall within a narrow bandwidth
3. Whenever there is such a uniformity of opinion and/or approach, I think it's noteworthy; take the architects we love around here and the ones we loath: they *all* avoid such bunkering. It may be their secret handshake
Peter

[Jon Wiggett]

Thomas,


I think the fact that courses were firmer due to a lack of irrigation made bunkers through the back of a green much more of a problem for the average golfer and thus more interesting to the GCA. These days they are often used as framing by modern GCAs which is a practice that I dislike.


Adam,


whilst I agree with your points in a very general way I do think that both that both types have their place. A very good use of the hazard you do not see was the bunker that was behind the sixth green at Musselburgh Old. It was a great hazard and I am baffled as to why it was removed.


As to the hazard above the level of the green I agree it feels and looks odd but it is something that many very good players are not to at ease with when playing it. Not something that should be used often but in the right situation and used as the exception possibly a good defence.


Jon


Jon

[BCrosby]

Isn't the question rather 'hazards' behind greens?


If so, you include the Eden Hole (the Eden River estuary) and the Road Hole (the road) as holes with hazards behind the greens. Which as we say here in Georgia, is pretty high cotton as holes go. There are lots of similar greens, in the sense that they back up to boundary lines, woods, water or just plain gunge.


I like bunkers/hazards behind greens. They square an architectural circle. They tend to catch better players hitting overly aggressive approaches. Their recoveries are more difficult because they are hitting onto down slopes (because most greens tilt from back to front).


So back bunker/hazards tend to make a hole more challenging for better, aggressive players, while having less effect on weaker players.


Bob

[Sean_A]

Sticking with Dr Mac...I am not a fan of his general hazard placement to the rear of greens because they are usually out of play due to being set too far back or too high above the green.  I usually feel the main purpose for his rear bunkers is framing first and acting hazard second.  Otherwise, most of these hazards would be lower down and tighter to greens...and consequently not visual features for approach shots.  I guess its okay once in while to whack in the wow rear bunkers, but its a trick which can quickly get old.  I am struggling to think of a single example of a great rear bunker.

Zeroing down to the 14th at Cavendish (which I suspect prompted the thread), the bunkers were set so far behind the green that only a shit shot could end up in sand.  They were purely decoration bunkers...in which case they should be unquestionably stunning.  Instead, they looked out and out of place. It was a smart move to ditch those bunkers.

Ciao

[Mark_Fine]

Matt,
In the 400 plus courses that Ross designed there were always exceptions.  If I recall correctly, Ross had more bunkers at Seminole than almost any of his other courses (close to 200 bunkers at Seminole).  Some were bound to be beyond a few of the greens especially on a site like that one but that was NOT his normal practice.  Ross tended to end his holes at the back edge of his greens and beyond that was not something he was too concerned about.  Kyle might be right in that what you see at Seminole is Dick Wilson’s influence (Wilson did build lots of bunkers behind greens).  I know for sure Ross had no bunkers beyond the 2nd green because I have a copy of his original drawing of the hole.  I might have a few others as well, just have to take time to search.

When I see bunkers beyond a Ross green (though he did a few), most likely they have been added by someone else. 

In general, I don't mind an occasional bunker beyond a green.  On most holes, going long is usually enough of a challenge to try to recover from.  Sometimes a bunker actually makes things easier and saves one from a worse fate.
Mark

[Anthony Gholz]

Matt:


Wilfrid Reid comes to mind in the Detroit area.  I'm thinking Indianwood Old #6 and several holes at Black River in Port Huron.  Often at BR the greens were horse shoed with bunkers both in Reid's original design of 1926 and Martin Conway's 1928-29 revisions.


Regarding Ross:  I spent some time on the North Course at Oakland Hills this summer during the US AM and remembered the framing that some of you don't like.  On the back side #14 (I think) and #16 definitely have it and I enjoyed these good players going for the back pins and just going over.  Great bunker shots to watch.


Anthony

[Jaeger Kovich]

Ross for example rarely ever used bunkering behind his greens.  Rear bunkering varied greatly by architect.

Seminole has bunkers behind 2,5,10,12,13,14,15,16,17

Most likely from Dick Wilson. Check the Ross plans from the Tufts Archives.

Wait till you see what we put back from Ross 1929 on 5, 11, 14, and maybe another in the future

[Garland Bayley]

One of Macan's principles was no bunkers behind the greens. He did not want to penalize aggressive players.

[Joe Hancock]

I wonder if the changes of irrigation practices had any impact on the utilization of bunkers behind greens. I think golf balls used to bound much further before irrigation was so easy to use. It's difficult to think about playing conditions back then since none of us has any practical experience with such.

[Sean_A]

Joe


If the bunkers are raised their impact would have been reduced.  They would basically be catching bad shots which if the sand wasn't there would often leave a harder recovery.  Interestingly, the most glaring rear bunkers on the planet are at 13 Augusta.  I think originally they swung down much closer to the green, but still had reasonably high profiles.  Eventually, I think, a wider collar was created which somehow became a swale (Nicklaus?)...which has been fiddled with at least once to reduce the depth. 


Ross normally didn't need sand behind his greens because they are often back to front...making the recovery when long already very difficult. 


Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

As with everything else in design, y'all are much too quick to stereotype architects as either "usually" building a certain type of feature or "almost never" building it.  Great architects generally like to mix things up a little more than that ... so, Ross sometimes did do bunkers at the backs of greens [think about the 9th hole at Pinehurst No. 2], and MacKenzie sometimes didn't.


Generally, though, MacKenzie and C.B. Macdonald were bigger proponents of sand right behind the green than other designers.  MacKenzie was building the sand up on the faces of "dunes" behind the green; Macdonald's you almost never see from the fairway, and many have been grassed over.


Where I dislike seeing them the most is on links courses where someone is trying to introduce bunkers into a dune behind the green, but trying to make them visible from the fairway ... so you get a pot bunker with a high back wall.  You would never see such a thing at St. Andrews or Muirfield or Dornoch ... they do sometimes have a bunker behind the green, but when they do, it's invisible.  Being able to see such a bunker is the clearest "tell" that it's not an original feature but a modern addition.


I don't think there is anything wrong with having a bunker at the back of the green, but I have to admit, I don't think to do it that often.  My first course, High Pointe, had a great pot bunker hidden at the back of the 7th green.  First-time visitors were not afraid to hit their approach shots right up to the hole, but players who knew the course better were always coming up short because they were scared of it.  My 4th, 11th, 13th and 15th holes there also had bunkers behind the green.  I'm not sure I have built that many on any course since.

[Thomas Dai]

Thank you all for your thoughts and comments.

In modern play what with yardage books and rangefinders and lofted wedges bunkers behind greens may have lost something in comparison to decades ago when yardage details weren't readily available, clubs had less loft, balls behaved differently, greens weren't irrigated and bunkers not raked etc.

It wasn't so much the 14th at Cavendish that inspired this thread more scrolling through the very informative and humourous Facebook account that is - https://www.facebook.com/DrAlisterMackenzie/?ref=page_internal - where many of the photos and plans displayed struck a cord with some old photo work that I've been undertaking in relation to my usual Mackenzie places of play.

I guess watching the Masters with it's bunkering at the rear of the 12th and 13th at ANGC got me pondering as well as did coming across some photos of Pasatiempo and both the 15th and 16th at Cypress Point.

I am not as familiar with older day US architects as I would like to be somImcan't cooment on their approach but Mackenzie did seem to use the bunker-behind-green method in the UK (and US). Was this always the case throughout his career or was there a period when he used the technique more/less? Is there a similar trend in rear bunkering in Aus/NZ/Arg/Uru I wonder?

I suspected he was trying to replicate the impression of playing into a sandy bowl on a links so Toms comment 'building up the sand on the faces of "dunes" behind the greens' gives some confirmation to my suspicions.

Many rear bunkers seem to have gone now though. I guess following easier upkeep and maintenance trends. Kind of a shame really....not just GCA wise but also playing wise as splashing out of a rear bunker onto what is usually a downslope green would even today be a difficult/nice playing challenge.

Atb

[Robin_Hiseman]

Bunkering behind a green is a perfectly legitimate design tool and I have done so (sparingly) on most of my designs. I'm not slavish on trying to make them visible at all costs. I did one behind the 3rd green at Casa Serena, which was deliberately an RTJ style backing bunker and I felt then and still feel now that it frames the backdrop very nicely and works well in conjunction with the front bunker, in denying the golfer the fallback of a safe overshooting of the target.

We were forbidden from having them when I worked for Hawtree's, which I felt limited the paints in our palette. As an accent hazard, I think the occasional one can have a great impact.

I do concur with Adam's observation of RTJ's Red Course in Rabat. It felt like pretty much every green followed the same bunkering pattern, with a small bunker cut into the face of the rear supporting mound. As with everything in life, too much of a good thing can become tiresome.

[David_Madison]

How about bunkering behind the short side of angled greens? For example, #5 at Mid-Pines. The green on this short par-5 runs a bit from front left to back right, yet is fairly heavily tilted from right to left. There's a bunker nestled about halfway back on the left side, so most of it sits behind the front half of the green. The bunker is not visible from the fairway as the green is elevated. If the pin is in the front half of the green and you are in the bunker, your approach was too long. If you are in it and the cup is cut in the back half of the green, you'd be pin high. Anyone have a problem with this construct?

[BCrosby]

Two of the MacD/Raynor templates - Road Hole and Short Hole - usually have bunkers behind greens.


Bob

[Jeff_Brauer]

I like bunkers/hazards behind greens. They square an architectural circle. They tend to catch better players hitting overly aggressive approaches. Their recoveries are more difficult because they are hitting onto down slopes (because most greens tilt from back to front).


So back bunker/hazards tend to make a hole more challenging for better, aggressive players, while having less effect on weaker players.


Bob

Bob,


I agree that has been the general theory in my lifetime.  While no clear cut rules, as TD notes, it has varied over time (like Mac doing more than Ross overall).  No one has mentioned George Thomas, who, at least on long par 4 holes, placed fw behind greens, reasoning that a shot long is actually a better shot than one that comes up short, and didn't deserve punishment, but an easier recovery.


I do recall discussing this subject with many architects early in my ASGCA membership, and they said similar things.  My gut tells me that as very general trends, they declined on all but the top courses/architects in the 60'70's, due to cost constraints, and practicality, i.e., "if few hit in them, why spend money on bunkers THERE?"  In the CCFAD days of the 80-90's, the returned because of the emphasis on visuals and making a course "look tougher than it plays" (again, visual, but who hits a bunker back left?) and have been on the decline as budgets get tight.


Agree with architects who have said (generally) its a legit design tool, but no more than half, probably a third of greens should have them, if just for variety, and avoiding the sameness of green appearance throughout the course.


Also, agree they probably work best on shorter approaches and reachable par 5 to increase precision requirement.  It does seem as if every course ought to have a few greens cross the line of play, hazards front and back (at least for one Sunday pin) that challenges distance control, rather than lateral accuracy, which most greens do.


My "acid test" for placing them is (more and more) do they serve multiple purposes?  Should make sense as hazards, as above, be on holes that otherwise wouldn't have as much definition, and perhaps, save a real long shot from going over the hill to worse trouble, or put someone in danger.  Merion 17 has some bunkers in the slope going up to the closely adjacent 18 tee, if I recall.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
You stated: "As with everything else in design, y'all are much too quick to stereotype architects as either "usually" building a certain type of feature or "almost never" building it.  Great architects generally like to mix things up a little more than that ..."



I would be willing to bet that we both could identify 9 times out of 10 a Raynor design from a Fazio design from a Engh design from a Dye design from a C&C design and from a Ross design,...   Do you agree?  The reason is because even great architects had/have design preferences.  I have studied enough Ross plans to know (I think you might have as well) that he designed very few bunkers beyond his greens.  He built them along side them and even sometimes toward the back corners but rarely directly behind his greens as you would often see with someone like Thompson or others. 


Having design preferences is not a bad thing.  Most great artists for example can easily be identified (most of the time) such as a Rembrandt vs a Monet.  I think most here could identify a C&C design from a CB Macdonald layout.  Do they fit the definition of great architects? I think so. 

[Garland Bayley]

... No one has mentioned George Thomas, who, at least on long par 4 holes, placed fw behind greens, reasoning that a shot long is actually a better shot than one that comes up short, and didn't deserve punishment, but an easier recovery.
...

This actually sounds much like Macan's philosophy as outlined in his biography.

Another aspect of Macan's philosophy that ties in was that he resisted building greens sloping down from back to front. This of course allowed more balls to go off the back. Eventually, he had to mediate this philosophy, because of the popularity of the back down to front slope.

[Anthony Gholz]

Ross again in Detroit: The back bunkers at Oakland Hills South #16 are original Ross and not Jones adds.  In fact Rees, in the last go around, took the right rear bunker out in favor of more water.  IMO this is a detriment to the hole both playing wise and visually.  The back bunkers were very visible and were the main contrast to the fronting water.


Re ANGC 13th: the green originally came considerably forward along the creek and the bunkers were tighter as mentioned above.  Nicklaus was the original swale guy, but I expect Fazio did the most recent swale depth revisions as well as the back and forth on whether the water should be a creek or another "modern" hazard.  Seeing those original pictures of 13 remains us that the bunkers were the big deal originally not the trees and Azaleas.  You could actually see the ridge line behind the hole quite clearly.


Regarding Ian's wonderful contour drawing:  I'm a little slow but this clearly indicates that the negotiation with August CC for property must have started at the beginning in 31-32.  Ian's drawing indicates the property stopped at the creek edge.  The 12th green and 13h tee right at the creek bank must have been the first piece of the ACC pie to fall to the Roberts/Jones team.  Maybe TD knows if MacKenzie may have suggested the purchase to make those holes as wonderful as they are.

[Rich Goodale]

As has been said above, Donald Ross did a lot of great rear green bunkers, many of which are NLE as the "board member hackers who thin the ball" took over the charge of his courses.  Rear bunkers combined with backward rear shelves and strong back to front sloping greens really test the good golfer.  Sic transit gloria mundi....


Rich