[Tommy Williamsen]

Can they be too deep? Should you be able to hit long irons out of them? I was a member at Four Streams, designed by Steve Smyers, which had many deep fairway bunkers that caused a lot of grumbling.
Woodhall Spa Hotchkin. This is Richard Latham in one of the many deep fairway bunkers. It is deep but the sloping lip of the bunker allows the play to hit a longish club.


No going for the green from these.





This is the famous Cape bunker at Westward Ho! That must be carried on the tee shot.



No hitting a long shot out of the middle bunker on number two at Ballyhack.



There are plenty of other examples at TOC, Royal St. George and other links courses.
I am not interested in fair vs unfair but when is a fairway bunker too deep?

[Greg Smith]

For any ONE bunker, I think the answer is no.  If a bunker is a really deep, hack it out sideways type, then in the realm of a hole's strategy it becomes THE point to avoid and affects the thinking/positioning/results on every shot.  Great!  It doesn't matter how horrible it is!  (The 4th at RSG, right?)  (Or some of the pits at Sand Hills?)

But if ALL the bunkers are like that -- and especially if there are a lot of them -- we might as well have fairways bordered on both sides by impenetrable gunch which dictates you play down the alley.

I haven't played there, but I keep thinking about the pictures of some of the deep bunkers at Garden City which are denoted by nearby danger flags so the golfer can see, then avoid.  There's only a few of those, and they look nasty.  Other bunkers look like they have varying degrees of recoverability.  Variety is the spice of life.

[Tommy Williamsen]

For any ONE bunker, I think the answer is no.  If a bunker is a really deep, hack it out sideways type, then in the realm of a hole's strategy it becomes THE point to avoid and affects the thinking/positioning/results on every shot.  Great!  It doesn't matter how horrible it is!  (The 4th at RSG, right?)  (Or some of the pits at Sand Hills?)

I was thinking of the sleepered bunker on the right side of four.

[Sean_A]

I have never seen fairway bunkers that were too deep. A player of my ability should have a very outside chance of hitting a green from a fairway bunker of 100 yards. This should be an exceptional shot for me with a decent probability of not getting out of the bunker if being greedy. However, if the bunkers are that harsh then there should be relatively few of them. I don't see the point in building and maintain a shallow bunker. I do, however, think sandy waste areas can be much less deep.

Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

Agree with Greg, no one fw sb can be too deep.  For a few courses, heck, they can all be deep.  For most courses, the generalized theory is that fw sb can get deeper as they get closer to the green, with the basic goal (hard to be consistent with free form shapes) of being just deep enough and with appropriate slopes, to make escape a 2/3 likely to succeed, but requiring a good full shot.


I believe par 5 sand bunkers in the first LZ can be really deep.  Even if you only hit a 9 iron out, you can still reach the green so there really isn't even a penalty, unless you think it is your right to hit a par 5 green in 2.


I once told a shaper who asked how deep the fw bunkers should be to figure out what club golfers would be hitting out, and make the bunker that deep, i.e. 7 feet deep for a 7 iron shot (I told him to figure conservatively using average golfers and 150 yards as a guide for 7 irons, not pro tour golfers who would hit a wedge out, LOL.  Nothing exact, but it conveyed the idea to at least one shaper.


I once lost a job when this question came up.  My answer to , "Mr. Brauer, don't you think it should be just as easy to hit the green on a par 5 hole from the bunker as the middle of the fw?" didn't seem to please those members.

[jeffwarne]

no

[Mark_Fine]

Tommy,
Is this a trick question as you know the answer.  ANY design feature can be over the top whether it be a bunker or a green or a fairway or a ... But most, if used in moderation, then the answer is NO.

[Kalen Braley]

Nope

[Peter Pallotta]

"...if the bunkers are that harsh then there should be relatively few of them"

Sean has made this/similar points consistently, and for years. And it makes great sense to me -- especially given that, from my own playing experience, the opposite is the far more common approach, i.e. too many fairway bunkers, and all of them shallow ones. Instead: give me the experience of staring out from the tee at a genuinely frightening 'hazard' -- one that adds real meaning & meat to the notion of options/choices/strategies and that promises the thrill of managing to avoid it. And with that, you have the added bonus of needing to build & maintain many fewer bunkers over 18 holes -- maybe as few as 14 instead of 30 or 40 or 50. When a (very deep) fairway bunker frightens, thrills, and offers strategic import, you only need one.       

[jeffwarne]

I like water hazards that are shallow enough to get a clean strike on a long iron


Intead of littering courses with acres and acres of manicured bunkers (with "fair" lips")
just have less and make them something you seek to avoid

[MCirba]

Kalen,


Where is that?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Tommy,
Is this a trick question as you know the answer.  ANY design feature can be over the top whether it be a bunker or a green or a fairway or a ... But most, if used in moderation, then the answer is NO.

I have AN answer. The fairway bunkering at Four Streams was deep. There were few bunkers that allowed a shot to the green. I actually like that it is a penalty. Same was true at Woodhall Spa and Ballyhack. Bunkers should be half a shot penalty. That said, not all of them need to be deep. It is nice to be able to hit a long iron out of them once in a while.

[Ira Fishman]

I like water hazards that are shallow enough to get a clean strike on a long iron


Intead of littering courses with acres and acres of manicured bunkers (with "fair" lips")
just have less and make them something you seek to avoid

Lol and +1. I cannot even count how many times I tried to hit a dumb shot out of a fairway bunker.  Miss a fairway, hit it out sideways. Hit it in a centerline bunker, have a drink to get past the “unfairness”.


Ira

[jeffwarne]

Tommy,
Is this a trick question as you know the answer.  ANY design feature can be over the top whether it be a bunker or a green or a fairway or a ... But most, if used in moderation, then the answer is NO.

I have AN answer. The fairway bunkering at Four Streams was deep. There were few bunkers that allowed a shot to the green. I actually like that it is a penalty. Same was true at Woodhall Spa and Ballyhack. Bunkers should be half a shot penalty. That said, not all of them need to be deep. It is nice to be able to hit a long iron out of them once in a while.

well said
and it's nice when a player can showcase the skill of launching that long iron high over the lip when others must wedge or short iron out. The bunkers we built at The Bridge may err on the side of excessive in spots-mostly due to their small size, which was mainly done to enlarge fairways and options.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I should add, while I do think about bunker depth, in most cases, I let nature decide.  You look over the entire 18 after a first pass, and if there is too much of anything, you start looking for ways to make each one different.  If there is a naturally deep one on the right of the first par 5, maybe the next one (or next hole) should be shallow, etc.  Or bunkerless.


And Peter says, if they are deep, there should be fewer of them.  If they on both sides of the fw, maybe they should be shallower when more in number. Sort of a take on the old "proportionality" theory of design.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Nope

That is a serious bunker. Where is it?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Nice bunker.  Would probably be impossible to build on clay soils...….we have occasionally raised the base of sand bunkers above natural grade, when we determined that it needed to be that high to get the drain tiles to their outlet.

[Greg Gilson]

The bathtub bunker is 18 at Chambers Bay, I believe. 1 of the unnecessary USGA adds for the US Open

[Thomas Dai]

No for me personally as a player and as a competitor but to paraphrase a question that's been posed on other golf architecture issues - "could your grandmother play a successful shot out from there?" ... assuming in the case of a deep bunker she can even climb in and out of it!?
This is why I'm heavily in favour of there being a 1-shot penalty for dropping a ball outside a bunker not the 2-shots that was introduced a year or so ago. More folks will take the 1-shot option, not many if any will take the 2-shot option thus giving flexibility to different levels of player whilst still being a hazardous hazard to players who wish to take such a shot on.

I won't mention the related issue of bunker rakes, but I'm tempted too!

Maintenance and upkeep also needs to be considered, eg drainage, mowing, rivet replacement etc.
atb

[Sean_A]

"...if the bunkers are that harsh then there should be relatively few of them"

Sean has made this/similar points consistently, and for years. And it makes great sense to me -- especially given that, from my own playing experience, the opposite is the far more common approach, i.e. too many fairway bunkers, and all of them shallow ones. Instead: give me the experience of staring out from the tee at a genuinely frightening 'hazard' -- one that adds real meaning & meat to the notion of options/choices/strategies and that promises the thrill of managing to avoid it. And with that, you have the added bonus of needing to build & maintain many fewer bunkers over 18 holes -- maybe as few as 14 instead of 30 or 40 or 50. When a (very deep) fairway bunker frightens, thrills, and offers strategic import, you only need one.     

Well, I have been advocating for fewer bunkers and more varied/balanced features for 15 years. So I am consistently like a broken record 😳

Ciao

[Ben Stephens]

The fairway bunkers at Stapleford Park have rather steep faces and it is difficult to hit even a wedge out of them for most of us golfers.


Unfortunately Stapleford Park is due to close permanently in October, the news was announced before COVID 19 hit the UK.

[Kalen Braley]

Tom and Mike,


That is indeed the bunker at Chambers #18, smack dab in the middle of the layup area.  I've seen it in person, its far deeper than it looks in that picture.  Put me down as one who likes it, but I know its controversial.

[MCirba]

Thanks, Kalen (and Greg G.),
Boy, I really like the look of that.   Wouldn't want to be in it which is the point! 

My buddy Hugh Irvine Wilson might not agree with me, however.   Later if I have time he may weigh in on this question.

[Tom_Doak]

You all know I don't believe in any formulas . . . so when everyone agrees the answer is "no", I've gotta play Devil's Advocate.


The bunker in Kalen's picture, for example, looks too deep to maintain, and it looks like the stairs might be in play for a recovery shot.  If it was better designed, maybe it's not "too deep", but it isn't good.


If bunkers are all uniformly wedge-out deep, to where you're not ever tempted to try for the green, that's boring.  When we do build deep ones, I usually like to have them where you will think about risking hitting something other than a wedge, to get yourself in better position for the third shot.  But, then you are also risking hitting the lip and leaving your ball in the bunker.


But I don't do that all the time, because that would be a formula   


P.S.  Or you could let it be random.  At Garden City G.C., I believe the depth of Travis' bunkers was based on how deep they had to dig to get to the free-draining gravel layer underneath the loamy topsoil -- if they dug too deep they might contaminate the surface with gravel.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Interesting.  I mentioned bunkers that may have to be raised for drainage, don't think I had heard of one that had to be deeper for drainage.


I agree on the temptation factor TD discusses.  I think the most tempting recover would be if you might have an option to reach the green, but on longer holes, options just to advance it far enough to make the third easier would also work.  If a wedge left 180 or more, you would surely be thinking in terms of how far you could hit it.  If you had only 120 left, a thinking golfer would make the safe play, I think.

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