The Art Of The Bunker-A Case Study #3

[TEPaul]

Come on Brian, most, half, one quarter, whatever, it really doesn't matter! The point is we're talking about bunker styles here and there are all kinds! I'm not advocating one style over another and you shouldn't either! The variety makes golf courses interesting, and one style most definitely should not be assumed to fit all!

I happen to love the grassed down to the floor surrounds and the "shadowy" look of bunkers because of that! I believe it actually makes a golfer pay more attention, probably concentrate better and search out a course's strategies!

But on the other hand, I can't deny and would not advocate the removal of the style of bunkering that uses the flashed up sand faces to create an entirely different look, effect and thought process in the mind of a golfer! The flashed up style certainly isn't some new and untried wrinkle as a bunker feature and bunker style and as for the ball plugging in the flashed up face, well, that just is not supposed to happen--the ball is supposed to filter down the face to a more level lie. At least that's what Donald Ross and many of the others said who used all kinds of bunker styles throughout their careers including both the grassed to the floor style and the sand flashed face style!

[A_Clay_Man]

Brian I like your quote by robert hunter. I wonder if using mounds to show the golfer where the bunker is, is taking away the surprise? While I haven't been to TOC I understand that the fairway bunkers are for the most part unseen from the tee. When will someone have the gouions(hueavos)  to build an unplayable wreck like toc.?

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

There is no correct or preferred style of bunker.  There are number of distinct and differing styles that are all very interesting in there own right - both from an aesthetic and strategic standpoint.

Flashed bunkers with irregular capes and bays is a representation of the naturally broken ground found on seaside dunes with irregular flashes of sand appearing among the grasses. The capes and bays reflect the broken irregular look of the dune.

The bunker banked with grass is equally noble - both strategically and visually. Nearly all the ancient links (and not so ancient links) of the British Isles utilize the grass pot or a variation. I suspect it was done more for practical purposes (a elatively recently 20th century development), with the problem of blowing sand and maintaining there form. Although some very old photos of St.Andrews and other old links reveal a combination of styles including some very wil natural flashed bunkers.

These two styles in the purest form have one thing in common - an uneven and unpredicatable punishment, from a relatively common extraction to being completely screwed - you never know. And there are number of variations and combinations of these two basic styles - some more appealing and appropriate than others. In fact many architects seem to change and mix & match these styles depending on the circumstances - including Ross, Colt, Macdonald and Tillinghast. Tillinghast's style would be the greatest mystery to me.

[TEPaul]

I like Tom MacW's thoughts on bunkering and its totally varied styles a lot!

With that in mind, and in fairness, shouldn't I then accept and maybe even admire the more recent American adaptation of the bunker feature with its vastly interpretative styles? Maybe I should and maybe even I do sometimes--at least in the name of variety I might accept them but I don't know that I admire them as much! Why?

Because then we're right back to the same old subject we discuss on here so much--the bunker's function! The American bunker adaptation with its vastly cleaner manicured look also creates vastly cleaner and more formulaic play! And that contributes far too much to the gutting of the basic design function of bunkering as the primary feature to create strategy and without the ability to extract something from the golfer it just doesn't function so well as a design feature!

I know, I know, most golfers can't get out of bunkers well no matter how clean or formulaic they are but most golfers couldn't get out of those rugged old things from yesteryear either so they just may have tried a little harder not to get in them and then we are back to the whole purpose of them in the first place and their true function in golf's architecture!

I don't like so much the opinion on here that any area of a bunker should be designed in such a way to give a golfer totally standard degrees of recoverability in almost every case from anywhere in a bunker. I like Tom MacW's sentiment about unpredicatability and the occasional instance of just being screwed for no particular reason except just plain luck! Too many designers seem intent on designing "just plain luck" right out of their bunkers! That's OK, I guess, for some, but the price of function is always quite high!

And I do have more admiration for the architect who took the time to really study the work of nature on the so-called natural bunker and to do his best to emulate it! But I do recognize that the rugged bunker probably wouldn't fit well or look right on a course like ANGC is now!

But that's a whole different subject and one that's been discussed too much already!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I'm not familiar with the American Adapted bunker look with cleaner manicured lines in the Metropolitan New York area.
Could you cite some examples for me in this area, thanks.

[Brian Phillips]

TEPaul,

Point taken..

Pat,

If you want to argue with Tom about that can you not do in private as it has nothing to do with this thread.  You don't even agree with the thread so why bother posting?

Let's get back to the bunker in question..

 

[TEPaul]

Pat:

No, nothing particularly comes to mind in the Met area but the country is full of them. Look around some in Florida, I doubt you will miss them!

We can always do a little before and now comparison together in Georgia too when the Masters rolls around--somehow it could be that those bunkers don't look that much like they used to!

[BillV]

If all the collar of rough were removed from the periphery (Especially the roll-into-the-bunker-from-the-fairway side)of the bunker, I would like it even a bit more.

On the whole, not a bad bunker at all.

I always chuckle at edges of rough at water hazards and bunkers to keep the player out.  As Cirba says "They are supposed to be hazards, silly!).  This one seems to come closer than avreage to not allowing that to happen.