"No Recovery Possible" bunker shots

[JC Jones]

Not sure you can tell from an aeriel.  What I do know is that a poster here, playing with a member of HN I am friends with, noticed that left 17 is impossible to get out of.  The poster received the same sort of criticism.

The next time I played HN the host took me to #17 and said "try to get out of it". Almost impossible, he had been showing it to everyone and it certainly did not look the part.

I have no clue about #3 but I suspect they present comparable problems to the golfer.

Impossible to "get out" of or impossible to play at the back pin?  or, impossilbe to get it out and on to the green?

I think we need to define impossible in this context.

[Dennis_Harwood]

Impossible to "get out" of or impossible to play at the back pin?  or, impossilbe to get it out and on to the green?

I think we need to define impossible in this context.

I agree-- If a shot to the hole is blocked is that an "impossible" position on the golf course?

I find lots of "impossible" shots-- In the water, behind trees, etc.

[Bill Brightly]

I've never played in Scotland (yet!) but I can handle a pot bunker with steep faces where I know before i swing that I am in deep trouble if I hit it there. And I am not whining about having to hit a really difficult shot to a section of green away from the pin.

My question: is it good architecture to create pure randomness within a bunker, where sometimes you are dead? Are you Ok with taking away a players ability to hit a good bunker shot, beacuse he foolishly hit it in a bunker where the ball collects under the back lip due to the design of the bunker and the firmness of the sand?

I wonder what TD and the other architects think?

[Bill Brightly]

OK, what time do we tee off?

[Brock Peyer]

Aren't they called "Hazards?"   You've got to take you medicine and move on.  I was in a bunker last Sunday and there was a nasty un raked foot print about 2 inches behind my ball (must have been a heavy dude b/c it was a deep footprint).  It perturbed me for a minute and took me two to get out but I should not have hit there in the first place.

[Dennis_Harwood]

Aren't they called "Hazards?"   You've got to take you medicine and move on.  I was in a bunker last Sunday and there was a nasty un raked foot print about 2 inches behind my ball (must have been a heavy dude b/c it was a deep footprint).  It perturbed me for a minute and took me two to get out but I should not have hit there in the first place.

Who says bunkers should be raked?

If legend is correct, rakes were introduced at Oakmont to insure that trenches accross the line of play were created to insure that "good" lies, which would permit you to reach the green , from fairway bunkers, did not exist.

[TEPaul]

BillB:

Personally, I like what you described as 'no recovery possible' here and there on some golf courses, and I remember so well (and actually pretty fondly now) when those things have happened to me.

I could write you a fairly lengthy laundry list of what those courses and those areas on them are.

The good news, in my opinion, is they have such a strategic influence on players when they come within some shot of them and they influence your play and your strategies so effectively.

Naturally most golfers don't like the effect of them when they happen to them but if they are something less than completely selfish or self-absorbed they tend to get over them and sometimes laugh about them later.

In my experience some of the best courses and architecture in the world have them, particularly Pine Valley (or it used to), NGLA, Merion etc.

In recovery the deal is to both exercise your imagination and don't try to over-reach.

There was a wonderful one at Pine Vally on the 10th where you pretty much needed to turn halfway from the green and putt your ball back down the bunker and go from there. On the same hole many, many golfers have always needed to decide to play stroke and distance or spend many shots trying to recovery from the DA.

And of course we have all seen many professionals at TOC trying to decide whether to go forward or simply putt their ball backwards away from the green and then go from there in the Road Hole bunker.

I recognize this kind of thing is not for everyone or for all golf courses but it's interesting to me that one finds this kind of thing on many of the best and most respected and most famous courses in the world, and it's pretty much always been that way.

[Mark_Fine]

I still find it hard to understand how there can be so much concern about a tough if not near impossible bunker shot yet water hazards are commonly accepted.  I haven't seen too many recovery shots from a four foot deep pond  

[TEPaul]

Mark:

That certainly is something all of us ponder constantly and have done for a very long time.

How indeed, have sand bunkers become so much less penal than they once were and were originally probably intended to be, particularly in and with their lie and playable interior sand surfaces, while other hazard features such as water hazards, rough, trees etc, etc have become so much more penal over time?

My feeling is it all just evolved that way without much thought or forethought on the part of anyone but it's hard to deny the effect of it has been some kind of over-all "balancing out"----eg water hazards, rough, trees etc becoming more penal than perhaps they once were and sand bunkers so much less so than they once were.

Funny you mention that as I've just been conjuring up a comprehensive proposal (thread) on how architecture, maintenance and golf generally, including the Rules of Golf may be able to get away from this in the future.

I think you'll see that the way to do it can never be some "either/or" kind of thing. It needs to be considered in more of an "all-in" general and comprehensive kind of way, in my opinion.

[Kalen Braley]

I still find it hard to understand how there can be so much concern about a tough if not near impossible bunker shot yet water hazards are commonly accepted.  I haven't seen too many recovery shots from a four foot deep pond  

Mark,

Let me introduce you to my little friend named Woody....

[Mark_Fine]

Kalen,
Did he get it up and down  

[Joe Bausch]

I'm guessing I'm not the only person to have had this happen:  playing a course where the rakes are kept inside the bunkers, my 2nd shot rolled into a front bunker and into a rake at the edge.  I had to play out backwards.  

[Joe Hancock]

Let me introduce you to my little friend named Woody....

No, thank you.