Distance between bunker and green in classic era

[Jeff Goldman]

Folks,

Yesterday I was rummaging around an old U.S. Open program (actually, it had been put on a cd) from the 1920s, with a pretty good description of the holes and a few nice pictures.

One thing that struck me was the distance between the greenside bunkers and the greens they guarded.  Many hole descriptions indicated that there were 10 yards or more between the bunkers and greens.  

My fairly uneducated guess for this is that on hard ground you would need to land just over the bunkers to hold the green, and that if the greens were right next to greens you probably couldn't hold them back then.

Any thoughts about this practice, and whether it was common to do this in that era?  Did other classic courses have this, and, if so, were bunkers later moved closer to the greens?

Jeff Goldman

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Jeff,

Nice to be in touch again.

I should have thought that most bunkers were now further from the putting surface because of the introduction of green watering and the general greenkeeper's reduction in green areas for economic reasons during depressions and wars.  But, I can see that it might have been an interesting conceit in days of old, with a layer of uncertainty between the rim of the bunker and the mown surface.  Unfortunately, even I am not old enough to remember those days.

Mark.

[Kyle Harris]

Jeff,

Where are these bunkers located in relation to the green and fairway?

[Tyler Kearns]

Jeff,

Back in the 1920's, grass was cut with bigger machinery, perhaps with gang mowers that we often see today cutting the secondary roughs. Machinery such as this would necessitate larger distances between the edge of bunkers and the putting surface.

TK

[Jeff Goldman]

Mark,

Nice for me too.  I would think that, as with this course, bunkers tended to be placed (or replaced) very close to the green to make the course play harder when the aerial game came into more play.  In today's game, it seems likely to me that bunkers 10-20 yards away from the green might be out of play.  In the example I came across, that was done later, apparently in the early 60s.

Kyle,

A couple "set back" bunkers are located directly in front, zipping across most of the green 15-20 yards from the green.  Otherwise, most are to the sides, usually front left or right.

Tyler,

That could be (though R.B. Harris also practiced this a bit in the 60s).  Are you aware of other classic courses where this was seen?

[Kyle Harris]

Jeff,

A favorite trick of a lot of architects from that era was to place the bunkers further away from the green which would give them the appearance of looking right next to the green when there was actually a lot of room.

Donald Ross did this a lot apparently and here's a modern example.
15th at The Architects Club based on Donald Ross

[Kyle Harris]

Either way, the idea was to fool the golfer into thinking the green was closer and also to get the golfer to just carry the hazard and by rewarded, which I think you alluded to in your first post on this thread.

[Mark Brown]

If the edges and surroundings of the greens slope away from  the putting surface toward the bunkers, which are placed a few yards from the green, it could produce a more difficult longer bunker shot.
Not a bad idea when looking for ways to put the teeth back into bunkers, particularly for the Tour players.

Tom, Jeff, Mike: have you ever done this?