Penalty v. Challenge

[Kyle Harris]

“The question of bunkers is a big one and the very best school for study we have found is along the seacoast among the dunes. Here one may study the different formations and obtain many ideas for bunkers. We have tried to make them natural and fit them into the landscape. The criticism had been made that we have made them too easy, that the banks are too sloping and that a man may often play a mid-iron shot out of the bunker where he should be forced to use a niblick. This opens a pretty big subject and we know that the tendency is to make bunkers more difficult. In the bunkers abroad on the seaside courses, the majority of them were formed by nature and the slopes are easy; the only exception being where on account of the shifting sand, they have been forced to put in railroad ties or similar substance to keep the same from blowing. This had made a perfectly straight wall but was not done with the intention of making it difficult to get out but merely to retain the bunker as it exists. If we make the banks of every bunker so steep that the very best player is forced to use a niblick to get out and the only hope he has when he gets in is to be able to get his ball on the fairway again, why should we not make a rule as we have at present with water hazards, when a man may, if he so desires, drop back with the loss of a stroke. I thoroughly believe that for the good of Golf, that we should not make our bunkers so difficult, that there is no choice left in playing out of them and that the best and worst must use a niblick.”

-Hugh Wilson, 1916

Be careful attaching ethos to execution. Someone may wreck the subsequent mythos.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Kyle,


I think that is similar to what I just typed on the Mandell book thread, but I won't type it again here, LOL.


I believe that perhaps the old Scots didn't have to worry about bunker depth on the seaside courses, they just took what was given, although this quote shows they did think a bit about it.  When golf got to both inland Britain and then America and was built on gently rolling sites, then guys like CBM and Hugh Wilson had to think about how much fill to bring in and how deep to build a bunker rather than just carve one out of a dune.  And not surprisingly, Hugh seems to come to the conclusion that a recoverable bunker has some merit to it. 


The other takeaway is that golfers a century ago were also in the let's make it easier and more enjoyable mode, similar to today, while some surely were sticking to the "stick it to them" mode.  100 years later, there is probably still no consensus.


That said, nature does have it's say.  If you route a hole over steeper ground, chances are the bunker is going to have to be a certain depth to fit the land, regardless of whether your theory of design says a fw bunker ought to be 4 foot deep or less, etc.  And the beauty of that is, these kind of design rules are often meant to be broken.  And, the designer has other options to compensate, i.e. wider fw, no hazards on other side, etc., when nature forces them to put a very deep hazard in a key place.   


One thing Richard didn't mention on his bunkers on both sides example in the other thread is that there is nothing saying they have to be of the same depth on both sides.  You can use the Eden principle on tee shots, too, i.e., the harder hazard in front, but if you overplay, you end up in more benign, but still hazardous bunkers on the other side.  There is also staggering bunkers and other ways to avoid the straight "must hit it down the middle" non-strategy of a hole, or you might argue that the strategy of such a hole is to use your favored shot pattern to get the ball to a very narrow place.  Or, if that fw is angled just a few degrees, consider using your opposite shot pattern to feather the ball into the narrow target zone.


So, Vive la variety. 


Or as I used to tell clients, "Nothing wrong with a hard hole every once in a while!" (also, nothing wrong with an easy one, either)

[Peter Pallotta]

This reminds me of the fairway bunker shot Tiger hit on the 18th hole on Sunday to win the Canadian Open -- 206 yards with a 6 iron, over water to 15 feet. It was at Glen Abbey, a Jack Nicklaus design.