Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group => Topic started by: Jeff_Brauer on July 16, 2006, 04:16:38 PM
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Similar to above, what American courses have the most aesthetic bunkers? And, what gca generally builds the most aesthetic bunkers?
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Id say Whistling Straits has got to be one of the most aesthetically bunkered courses anywhere??
... and Steve Smyers has got to be up there with Pete Dye
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I found the bunkers at Wild Horse to be amongst the most aesthetic I've played.
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I would vote for San Francisco Golf Club's. Even before we restored any of them.
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I posted this a few weeks ago so I'm not copying Tom but San Francisco Golf Club has the most spectacular bunkers I have seen. I haven't played Augusta or Royal Melborne but Tillinghasts bunkering is sublime.
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Au natural crumbled edge lacey look
Sand Hills
Pacific Dunes
Whistling Straits
Ballyneal
Friar's Head
French Creek
PV...of course
Sutton's Bay
Tobacco Road
Boston GC
Ameoba whirlgy gig cape n bay look
SFCC
Riviera
Pasa
Dallas Nat'l
Bethpage Black
Winged Foot
Spyglass Hill
Honorable mention
Oakmont (irregular shapes)
TPC Sawgrass (low slung flat bottomed waste area)
Stone Eagle (Best transition from desert to turf I've yet to see)
Seminole (low profile D. Ross grass walled style set amongst Sand Dunes)
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Joel
I believe those sublime bunkers at SFGC are William Bell's...Sean Tully produced some interesting new info on the evolution of that course.
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We are seven posts into this topic and no one has mentioned Merion?
Agreed with the comment above about Wild Horse. Sand Hills and WH redefined aesthetic American bunkers, imho.
Bob
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In the spirit of Bill V's blond, brunette, redheads...
I'll go for Riviera for artfully crafted sculpted lips, capes, and bays with rolled over edges.
I'll go with Royal Melbourne and various traditional Aussie styles that seem to be on many of their courses. Sharp cut and mowed into the bowels of the greens and inward sides of FW Bs, and more natural shaggy native grasses outer edges.
I can only go from pictures, but many of the GB&I stacked sod wall Bs have an appealling look. I don't know that one can just attribute this to the architects, since it is an on-going maintenance technique that must be redone periodically.
Perhaps many of the aethetic tributes we pay are more properly given to the superintendents.
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(http://www.golfarch.com/Cypress/cp03.jpg)
Hole 3, Cypress Point
(http://www.golfarch.com/Cypress/cp16d.jpg)
Hole 16, Cypress Point
(http://www.golfarch.com/Bethpage/black04.jpg)
Hole 4, Bethpage (Black)
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It's hard to beat SFGC, Cypress, or any of the remaining George Thomas bunkers, and I love the blow out bunkers at Pac Dunes and Sand Hills, but for discussion purposes, the Fazio-designed bunkers at The Vintage Club's Desert Course are extremely dramatic. Some caveats: I'd like to see them on a more strategically interesting golf course to see how they would actually play, and I'm not sure they can be maintained anywhere other than the desert (and I'm not sure they can be there either with some of the wind storms that come through), but they sure are cool to look at. I'd love to hear from some of the architects who have seen them to hear their thoughts.
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SDZ: I was very impressed with the bunkers on the second course at The Vintage the one time I saw them, which was now many years ago. They did give the course a style of its own, but they weren't quite enough on their own to make it a great course.