Apologies, I should have scribbled a little more...it was late at night and my fingers were crooked.
When Bill Coore said that, we were standing in the middle of the 12th fairway at Old Town, looking at a HUGE bunker that was roughed in behind the green, because an old black and white picture depicted that the bunker looked like that at one time in the late 30's. We came close to building what was there, but it just didn't look good; perhaps things just look better in black and white photos ? After that, we filled in about half of the bunker and understood what the man was getting at, "just because it was there, doesn't mean it was good."
That bunker on the left of 7 at Hirono: yes, that's beautiful, what was there WAS good; aesthetically at least. I don't think the old photo depicts it being cut beyond the back of the bunker, I still think there's a couple of feet of grass beyond it, but it certainly is cut up there quite high, and that's where I kind of stopped...If the superintendent, Kitatani San, saw us cutting bunker edges up towards the sky, he would probably take away the keys to the excavator and never give 'em back. The wind wouldn't be a factor, and the soils are thick and sturdy, but it does rain quite a bit in Japan during the summer time, and last year saw a record (39?) typhoons pass through the islands. Something like that would likely wash again and again and that's just not fair to good people like Kitatani San. Plus, putting the "devil's divot" back down in the gully on the right is enough maintenance to worry about for one hole, though it will be more of a "waste" bunker, with "mountain sand" that firms up pretty good and should stay in place once it settles in...
Hope that makes sense, now it's too early and I'm rambling, though my fingers are still crooked.
Pinehurst #2 has a couple bunkers like that though, where the sand kinda walks out the back of the bunker...but the place is all sand and inland and low lying and the maintenance practices are a bit care-free so all in all, it kinda' works, meaning it can be done.