Why do we need bunkers (on most courses)?

[JBovay]

A bit in keeping with the "less is more" thread started recently by Mark Fine (and I'm glad to see that he and Forrest Richardson are actively posting as I write this):


Do the bunkers on most courses serve as sufficiently penal hazards and provide sufficient aesthetics to justify their cost of construction and maintenance?


Without knowing the details of costs, I suggest not.


On the first point, I am becoming convinced that 99% of bunkers are penal hazards for beginning players, but only minor annoyances (in the sense that play slows down) for better players. If bunkers are maintained so that balls typically plug or remain near the lip, leading to unpredictable recoveries or awkward stances, then they penalize all players. I commented earlier this year that each of my bunker shots in my round at Wannamoisett presented sufficient penalty for a poor shot, in that each of my balls was held up near the lip. But maintaining bunkers perfectly costs a lot of money.


If the walls of bunkers are so steep that they force a full-shot penalty and do not permit playing toward the hole, then they are hazards that need to be avoided. Revetted bunkers on links courses such as TOC and North Berwick definitely present these types of penalties.


However, even at a course as well regarded as Yale, I don't believe the bunkers are better hazards than fairway-cut grass or 3-inch rough would be in their place. No, I don't want to hit it left of the green on the second or eighth at Yale, but this is because the bunkers are 20 feet below the green, not because there's sand at the bottom of them.


On the second point, I suggest that bunkers are inconsistent with a minimalist approach to construction and maintenance in most parts of the United States. On the swampy, clay-soil Florida course where I grew up, the bunkers were as unnatural as the cart paths and the homes surrounding the course. 30 minutes to the west, in the longleaf pine sandhills, they were more credible. As I look around my current surroundings, I realize that rocks in the fairways would be a more natural hazard than sand-filled pits here in Connecticut.


Shouldn't the goal of golf course design, and a more sustainable approach to construction and maintenance, be to present a strategic and fun game that complements rather than replaces the natural landscape? I was particularly moved by a recent visit to Storm King Art Center in New York, where sculptures are scattered across a 500-acre landscape, sometimes connected by wide fairways and sometimes by narrow hiking paths. The sculptures complement the beautiful setting, and the curators have not imposed too much artificial structure by building staircases or laying down excessive pavement. This presents lessons for golf course architects, too.


In conclusion, I suggest that we should begin advocating to our clubs that bunkers be replaced with hazards that are either less or more costly, in terms of both maintenance cost and strategic value, to make the game more fun and improve its aesthetic qualities. If we're going to have bunkers, let's at least make them penal. If we're going to claim that we enjoy golf because it allows us to get out in nature, let's be mindful of our natural surroundings.


I look forward to others' thoughts.

[Mike_Young]

If sand were the same color as grass you would see less bunkers...and quite possibly a more difficult course for good players.  IMHO

[Thomas Dai]

If sand were the same color as grass you would see less bunkers...and quite possibly a more difficult course for good players.  IMHO

+1
atb

[Tom_Doak]

The main reason to have them nowadays is tradition - i.e., so golfers (and raters) won't freak out. 


I'm looking at a project now where bunkers are unnecessary, but if I really go to zero, I'm sure there will be a bunch of panelists ready to opine that hitting from sand is an integral part of golf and a course without bunkers is therefore lacking in shot values, or some other b.s.


Do I agree?  No.  There are some great courses without bunkers, from Arrowtown to Kington to Royal Ashdown Forest.  But none of those are ranked in the top 100, and my client wants his course to be ranked.  So I will probably have to leave the decision to him whether to build twenty bunkers, or just not build any.

[Randy Thompson]

The main reason to have them nowadays is tradition - i.e., so golfers (and raters) won't freak out. 


I'm looking at a project now where bunkers are unnecessary, but if I really go to zero, I'm sure there will be a bunch of panelists ready to opine that hitting from sand is an integral part of golf and a course without bunkers is therefore lacking in shot values, or some other b.s.


Do I agree?  No.  There are some great courses without bunkers, from Arrowtown to Kington to Royal Ashdown Forest.  But none of those are ranked in the top 100, and my client wants his course to be ranked.  So I will probably have to leave the decision to him whether to build twenty bunkers, or just not build any.

Tom,
 I am getting ready to open 9 holes in Papudo, they decided to convert from sand greens to grass, your comments in the confidental guide, helped. We ended up doing some minor earth moving around the greens mainly to eliminate the road cut shaping. This is the newer nine that was kind of forced around the better laid out front nine. Anyways, there are two bunkers in the new design of these nine holes and both are not really justifiable other then to stop the freak out reactions! Looking forward to the next nine in March!

[Tim Gavrich]

Corollary question: to what extent is the current expense of bunker construction maintenance tied to the desire for them to be uniform in presentation and consistency?


Put another way, how much cheaper would it be to build and maintain bunkers if they could be truly hazardous?

[Jim Hoak]

I think this is a great question--and one I have felt for some time.  It does seem as Tom D. says that bunkers are only necessary for appearance and tradition.  Sand dunes if natural to the terrain may be different, but bunkers--especially too many of them--are unnatural and obtrusive and not helpful to the playability of the course.
Maybe bunkers need to be left unraked--and even totally unmaintained--to be a cross between dunes and bunkers?  Pine Valley would be a good example.

[Tom_Doak]

Sand dunes if natural to the terrain may be different, but bunkers--especially too many of them--are unnatural and obtrusive and not helpful to the playability of the course.

Jim:  You can't really leave "sand dunes" since they usually exist in windy places and will be be slowly blown away over a couple of years.  But there is a huge difference between building bunkers on sandy sites [where they cost almost nothing to build] and bunkers in heavy clay [which can cost $6 or $7 per square foot with these fancy new liners to keep them pristine]. 


There wouldn't be any bunkers in Scotland if they'd had to build them all the new way!

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I don't agree that a sand bunker is equally penalizing as grassing the area would be.

Only the game's best players scramble really well from bunkers. For all other levels of play the bunker presents a more difficult shot than a shot from the grass. (And even though on the PGA Tour guys will yell "get in the bunker," they still scramble only about as well from the sand than they do from the rough, and worse than they do from fairway lies.)

So bunkers still present more of a graduated challenge, for all but the top 0.1% of golfers, where it's basically break-even.

I'm in favor of generally finding more "grass bunkers" (apologies if you hate that term), as the poorer player tends to like them more, while the better player tends to wish (even if they're incorrect) that they were in sand instead.

[Tom_Doak]

I'm in favor of generally finding more "grass bunkers" (apologies if you hate that term)

A "grass bunker" is essentially just "rough" as golfers know the term.  It is often applied to former bunkers that have been grassed over on older courses.


What I hate is the idea that someone would shape a hollow just to call it a "grass bunker".  If you insist on them, just put rough on the natural contour where you want someone to have to play out of rough.  Don't disfigure the ground unnecessarily.


And when you look at it that way, you can see that bunkers are really being built for other purposes, as Mike Young hinted, instead of for their strategic value.  Because they might have the same value even if the sand was not there.

[Peter Pallotta]

I wonder if nowadays bunkers go hand in hand with green construction approaches.
If an architect tends to *build up* his green sites, that perching seems almost to demand green side bunkers.
But if an architect instead tends to *cut away* at his green sites, the resulting lay of the land doesn’t require bunkering in the same way.
Do most architects today build up their greens? Does the USGA model of green construction foster this?

[Duncan Cheslett]

It's always puzzled me that even architects pursuing a "natural" look include the most unnatural of features on inland courses


Bunkers originated as hollows dug into sand dunes by sheep sheltering from the elements on links courses. Early "keepers of the green" would maintain them somewhat to prevent them collapsing; eventually shoring them with either railway sleepers or turf revetting.


The mystery is why the early inland architects such as MacKenzie placed such importance on bunkers when one might have thought that they would consider them out of place. Was it simply a case of wanting to recreate the look of links courses as much as possible?


Bunkers are now expected to be present on all courses. As hazards they do not necessarily offer the best solution, but used properly they can lift the aesthetic impact of a hole immensely. Look at the famous Himalaya bunker at St Enodoc - it is not so much there as a hazard as a statement.


The bunkers at Reddish Vale are largely functional rather than aesthetic, and I have long had sympathy with the view that many should be filled in for ease of maintenance. My eyes have recently been opened however, by walking and playing the course several times with our architect Ken Moodie. He has pointed out many old filled in bunkers which most of us had never noticed before, and made a strong case for many of them being reinstated to add visual drama as well as for strategic reasons.


Happily our greenkeeper is fully on board and keen to get stuck in. Watch this space...

[Sean_A]

I'm in favor of generally finding more "grass bunkers" (apologies if you hate that term)

What I hate is the idea that someone would shape a hollow just to call it a "grass bunker".  If you insist on them, just put rough on the natural contour where you want someone to have to play out of rough.  Don't disfigure the ground unnecessarily.

Tom


I am not sure what disfiguring the ground unnecessarily means, but I really like it when large, shallowish pits are dug ala Simpson style.  Huntercombe's are more crude pits, but also have great value.  I think the main thing is place the pits in the centre of the action.






Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

Duncan,
Good point about elimination or reinstatement.
I’ve been looking at the historical records of a couple of MacKenzies I play regularly, both of which are now heavily tree-avenued but we’re both once almost entirely tree-less. Remove the trees and the playing lines in relation to where bunkers, some of which serve more than one hole, were positioned becomes understandable again as do angles, slopes etc. And that’s only in relation to tee-to-green bunkers for back when Dr MacK’ laid them out he also positioned numerous bunkers at the rear of many the same courses greens.
Atb

[Jon Wiggett]

I'm in favor of generally finding more "grass bunkers" (apologies if you hate that term)

A "grass bunker" is essentially just "rough" as golfers know the term.  It is often applied to former bunkers that have been grassed over on older courses.


What I hate is the idea that someone would shape a hollow just to call it a "grass bunker".  If you insist on them, just put rough on the natural contour where you want someone to have to play out of rough.  Don't disfigure the ground unnecessarily.

Tom,


I don't believe it is always the case that grass bunkers are grassed over sand bunkers and whilst some were built in that form to be turned into sand as finances allow others were genuinely meant to stay grass. I am surprised that you can like a course such as Kington when you are a self proclaimed hater of the many grass bunkers which adorn a majority of its greens. For me the shaping around the greens is one of the key reasons for liking the course.


Whilst I used think as you do that good GCA was all about making the contours look natural I have come to realise this correct but not the only option. Braid for instance did not shy away from the obviously manmade but he was the master of making it fit the landscape.


J Bovay,


I think that bunkers are over used in GCA often been there for cosmetic rather than strategic reasons. I think Tom has it right when talking about using a few as 20 bunkers for a course with aspirations of world fame.


Jon

[Thomas Dai]

[quote author=Jon Wiggett link=topic=65267.msg1555929#msg1555929 date=1511198955
I don't believe it is always the case that grass bunkers are grassed over sand bunkers and whilst some were built in that form to be turned into sand as finances allow others were genuinely meant to stay grass. I am surprised that you can like a course such as Kington when you are a self proclaimed hater of the many grass bunkers which adorn a majority of its greens. For me the shaping around the greens is one of the key reasons for liking the course.



A Kington aside if I may.


When I was at Kington a few weeks ago I was told by a local with a historical interest that some of what we may now think were grass bunkers on the 16th-17th holes were actually cock-fighting pits from times well past. The same general area was once also apparently a horse racing course/circuit.


Atb

[Garland Bayley]

,,,
I'm looking at a project now where bunkers are unnecessary, but if I really go to zero, I'm sure there will be a bunch of panelists ready to opine that hitting from sand is an integral part of golf and a course without bunkers is therefore lacking in shot values, or some other b.s.
,,,

And the rater that really understands the course is great in part because it has no artificially placed bunkers will have his high score for the course thrown out for being an outlier.

[Jack Carney]

The best bunkers really help define the golf hole and the shots required. This could be a part of appearance or cosmetic but I think an important distinction.

[Joe Hancock]

MacRayBanks courses generated the vast amount of dirt need to build the big platform features by excavating bunkers in close proximity.

[Pete Lavallee]

The best bunkers really help define the golf hole and the shots required.

Jack,

Could you give us an example of a bunker that does this?

[Carl Rogers]

The best bunkers really help define the golf hole and the shots required.

Jack,

Could you give us an example of a bunker that does this?

TOC Road Hole

[Tom_Doak]

The best bunkers really help define the golf hole and the shots required.

Jack,

Could you give us an example of a bunker that does this?

TOC Road Hole

That's why they named the hole after the bunker   

[Thomas Dai]

The best bunkers really help define the golf hole and the shots required.

Jack,
Could you give us an example of a bunker that does this?

TOC Road Hole

The Road Bunker/TOC - not apparently created as a golf feature but more an evolving convenient spot (pit) close to town for the locals to gather sea shells (sea shells were I believe spread in vegetable gardens)


For more see paragraph 2 of Ian Andrews fine piece in the Best of Golf section - http://golfclubatlas.com/best-of-golf/on-bunkers-by-ian-andrew/


atb


atb

[Joe Hancock]

The best bunkers really help define the golf hole and the shots required.

Jack,

Could you give us an example of a bunker that does this?

TOC Road Hole

That's why they named the hole after the bunker   

So it’s “The Road Hole Bunker Hole”?

[Mark_Fine]

JBovay,
This thread can't possibly address all the reasons for bunkers or against bunkers but there are some pretty good posts so far.  Some simple answers are:


- Historical significance as they were part of most seaside courses


- Architects feel a need to add them because they are associated with golf courses


- Bunkers can be one of the most striking aspects of a golf course, why do you think so many architects spend soooo much time making them look so artistic and dramatic and/or "natural"


- Bunkers clearly look artificial on most Parkland courses but architects are trying to emulate seaside golf and again feel the need to add them


- Actually bunkers don't necessarily slow up play especially greenside bunkers as there are few options to ponder when in most of those kind of bunkers and players just get in and play their shot


Too much to talk about here but as with most aspects of golf course design, any thing or feature that is overused is probably not good.