[Joe Perches]

Geoff Shackelford recently wrote an article in Golfdom about Jeff Bradley.

Mr. Sand Man

Is bunker shaping really all that difficult?  Is it perhaps that most architects and superintendents don't care that much for bunker shaping?

Why is it that most course superintendents don't continually reshape bunkers?  I would find the continual and gradual repositioning, disappearance and installation of new bunkers in an old course intriguing and refreshing.  Is it just too much work for the average superintendent or more simply a budgeting problem?  Do irrigation and water flow designs really present that much of a problem for creation of new bunkers?

How much does a 200 to 250 sq foot bunker cost to install vs maintain?

[Forrest Richardson]

Firstly, a 200-s.f bunker would be very small. Pot-like.

We are restoring (rebuilding) 87 bunkers at The Wigwam (Arizona) and the tab works out to about $3000 each. That includes excavating years of sand build-up, re-edging, new drainage, finishing work, new sand placement and compaction.

I find the "mystery" of bunkers rather overkill. Hey...ther are holes in the ground meant to inflict pain and suffering.

I have a few convictions about bunkers:

1. If you need fabric or spray stabilizers to hold sand in place...well, perhaps you are building too steep of face — or, perhaps you should be looking for other hazards besides bunkers.

2. Placement is the single most important quality. The rest is the jewelry, the clothing and the fad — Anatomy is what makes a beautiful woman...bunkers follow this rule when they are placed to cause confusion, thought and planning by the golfer. "Pretty" bunkers get way too much press, discussion and attention.

3. A a follow up to "2", the edge, aesthetics and condition of a bunker will always be fluid. It is not that the attitude should be "who cares," but it is a poor choice of focus to look at these qualities and bypass the overall design strategy of the hazard — that is the crux.

4. More complaints (about difficulty) usually equals a better hazard.

5. MacKenzie, Ross, Tillinghaust, etc. did not necessarily "get it right." Some of the best bunkers ever encountered by golfers had little to do with the hand of man.

6. Show me a greenkeeper who cares more about the design of a golf hole — as opposed to the nail-clipper precision of a bunker — and I'll show you a course that is worth playing.

7. Bunkers are un-natural features unless they are built on pure sand sites. There is no argument to this...yet we see millions of examples where golf designers have refused to embrace this fact...sometimes you will see scores of examples within 18-holes. What a shame that other hazards —both formal and informal — were not integrated to the design.

8. Don't touch the sand with your club while you're addressing the ball.

9. Most bunkers are ill-placed and kept too tidy. I say bring back the firrowed rake. And do it soon before the USGA bans it.

10. Bunkers will never be on Letterman's Top Ten List — so let's not get too carried away with them. OK?

[Joel_Stewart]

Forrest:

I wonder if you could have saved money by hiring someone like Jeff Bradley?  

[Jim Thompson]

For you Forrest-

ODE TO OAKMONT
0 the dune hills in the sand
along the sea
Where the waves dash high
with mighty, noisy claps
Are as smooth as glossy silk, or
homogenized milk,
When compared with Oakmont’s
furrowed traps.

For a gentlemanly bunker, give
me those
That don’t ever show on topographic
maps,
Where the soil’s politely rakedneither
carved nor sculped
nor faked-
But deliver me from Oakmont’s
furrowed traps.

Now I’ve seen them all-from
awesome Pebble Beach
To Pine Valley’s woods-than
which there are no punker;
But the most remo’te from heaven
is when your ball lies in row
seven
Of a plowed and disced and
harrowed Oakmont bunker.

-Joseph C. Dey, Jr., June I953

And could we see these in future of bunker maint?



www.lambertonrake.com

Cheers!

JT

Edit - We hit our waste areas with a Gill Rake, sans rear roller, once every three weeks.  Its nasty perfect.

[Joe Perches]

Anatomy is what makes a beautiful woman..

You've either met more or fewer or different women than I.  While anatomy is important, I believe I prefer personality and spirit.  Others might prefer drama and intrigue.  A little eye candy can also show that the girl cares about herself and her appearance.  That is not an undesirable trait.

Show me a greenkeeper who cares more about the design of a golf hole — as opposed to the nail-clipper precision of a bunker — and I'll show you a course that is worth playing

This has me very confused.  Can you please elaborate?

[T_MacWood]

Forrest
When restoring a Billy Bell course how much effort do you put into accurately restoring the original style of his bunkers?

[Philippe Binette]

Shaping bunker could range from dificult to easy depending on the site...

on a pure sand based course like Barnbougle Dunes, it was relatively easy: they were dug out of the sand and a finishing job by hand after that. All we had to do was not messing up the site by doing something stupid.

on other soil: it is a little more difficult, but the issue is more about time than labor.
a good shaper can built a basic shape with a dozer, than a little finishing job and you've got a nice cookie-cutter bunker in a heartbeat.
from my small personal experience, I did a bit of the finishing job with Kyle Frantz (Kyle did much, much more than I there) at Stonewall #2 and we spend a day on details (the bunkers would have been already considrered done and really good by many people) and we worked on only 3 holes.

As far as a superintendent moving bunkers all over the place year in year out, I don't think it's a good idea. You need a plan...
Hello criticism

[Forrest Richardson]

Joe — Yes, you probably have met different women. Anatomy is at the heart of beauity — the structure of a meadow, mountain range, river course, etc.   All of the attributes you mention are part of the whole package. Intelligence and personality are part of the "structure", to be certain.

My point about superintendents who care about golf architecture rests in the overall appreciation they have for the game and its playing board. When the focus is in this direction — as opposted to just the obsession with "perfect" conditions — I usually see a course which probably has a golf course architect advising it, one which is set-up to be fun and interesting, and one maintained with the architecture in mind.

[Forrest Richardson]

Tom — You old GCA coot. Always asking questions from the back of the room with a snarl on your face. I have only "restored" a handful of Billy Bell bunkers. Most of them — the balance — would fall into the renovated/remodeled category. There is poor data on the originals (I am speaking of Bell, Sr.) in terms of close-up photography. At least on the courses I have been involved with.

With regard to Bell, Jr., it is a mixed bag. We have put things back where they were — and how they were. But we have also begun from scratch, taking latitude to inflict an improved style and shaping appproach. (But an approach with Bell as its foundation — its inspiration.)

In terms of EFFORT — which was your question, we always put a great effort into any work we undertake, whether it is in uncovering the past (as much as we can find) or improving for the future.

[T_MacWood]

"But we have also begun from scratch, taking latitude to inflict an improved style and shaping appproach. (But an approach with Bell as its foundation — its inspiration.)"

Forrest
I'm not sure I follow. You sometimes inflict an improved style to Bell's, but approach these improvements in Bell inspired way.

How would you describe the Bell style?

I don't doubt your effort, I was just curious how much effort was placed upon an authentic restoration of Bell's style. I get the impression that the look or style of the bunkers was not a major concern of yours.

[Forrest Richardson]

Jr. was all over the map. Some of his courses were built by shapers without much of his on-site time. Papago in Phoenix, for example, was overseen by Jack Snyder (my mentor.) Bell only made a few trips. When I look at old Papago aerials I see more of Snyder than Bell — bunkers and greens. It is Bell's routing, for sure.

At The Arizona Biltmore Adobe Course (William P. Bell...the elder), what were once great expanses of desert and cactus have been replaced over the years by lush turf and thousands of trees. Some of Bell's bunkers were as big as houses (originally), and our job was to put back as much of what we could reasonably (a) find, and (b) manage in the context of the "new" landscape. You might think of it as a "language" that we developed to bring back the Bell style and look. While there are many locations of actual Bell bunkers (found with probes and by digging up old sand layers), we also had to create new bunkers and shift bunkers based on the changed terrain. One has to consider that in the 1920s there was no warm season grass cultivated for golf use — The Biltmore had bentgrass and other cool season varieties. When summer arrived it literally dried up and blew away. Each year they would bring it back with new seed for the season of winter visitors.

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