Are sand features that are over 50 yards long an architectural crutch?

[Sean_A]

While I take the point, it is a bit dopey (from a playability PoV) to distinguish between a long bunker and a long sandy area.  Setting aside aesthetics and all else being equal, each produces the same results...whether or not the sand can be raked is irrelevant.  So in theory, if there is a place for flanking sand then there should be a place for a long flanking bunker.  I wouldn't want to see this feature very often in either case and it is my biggest criticism of the new Mid-Pines. Although that has more to do placement than size...it is too repetitive to flank fairways with sand even if it is naturally occuring...mix it up with sand moving across fairways etc. 

Ciao   

[Tom_Doak]

What about desert courses?  Other than holes that run parallel to one another, desert courses are going to have A LOT of long flanking sand hazards often on both sides of the hole corridors.  They will certainly be broken up at times by formal bunkers and mounding and hollows and water and rough but eventually there will be desert (just like at Streamsong, eventually on the sides there will be sand).  You can't grass everything!

Commenting further about long hazards, one of my favorite OB holes is at Talking Stick.  I think it is the #2 hole on the South.  The left side of the hole is a barbed wire fence as straight as an arrow the entire length of the hole from tee to green.  It is stark and everything left of that fence is OB and desert.  The right side is "wide open" with plenty of room to avoid the OB.  But as you approach the green you realize you really don't want to be off on the right.  You want to be as close to that fence as you dare get.  It is a brilliant strategic hole and I give C&C a ton of credit for its design simplicity yet complexity.  

Frankly the hole would work pretty much the same if the left side were a straight line of trees or water or to some extent a long bunker but the bunker would actually lessen the strategic value of the hole because a good player wouldn't mind the sand as much for a shot pulled left.  Sometimes forcing every player to deal with a long hazard can be quite fun and interesting.  Again, if every other hole were like this it would get old fast but long hazards (boundary holes) can have lots of merit and we see them all the time in different variations.

That's #2 North, and I agree it's a great hole.  [I just diagrammed it for volume 2 of The Confidential Guide.]  But I don't think the hole would be nearly the same if it was water or bunker or desert left ... the o.b. weighs much more on your mind, not just because of the penalty, but because it's so unusual.  I guess that's what I really don't like about all the holes flanked by lakes or waste bunkers ... there are just so many of them in the past 30 years, and they are all so freaking similar.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Yes, Talking Stick North.  I said the same thing as you, the hole would be a little different especially with sand.  

I hear you about ALL the courses that have flanking water and sand,… and I realize as an architect, especially one who is only interested in building unique golf courses, it is hard to block that out.  But you are forgetting that you are spoiled.  How many courses have you played and seen?  I told you the other day I am approaching 2000 and you are probably at that number or more as well.  The average golfer (even the avid golfer) plays a tiny fraction of that amount in their golfing lifetime (most play less than 20)!!  If they get to play a PGA National or a Doral or a Bay Hill for example (all public access) will all those long flanking bunkers and water hazards, you have to remember that these courses/features are super cool to them and something most of them have never experienced before.  Same goes for golfers going to play Streamsong.  99% of them never experienced anything like that before.  I took a good friend of mine there who is an avid golfer and never once did he say anything negative about all the flanking sand.  When I told him the Blue and the Red courses reminded me in some ways of a public access Sebonack he just looked at me strange.  How is he or 99% of other golfers ever going to get to compare the two? They won't!  

You are of course designing great courses and you sure don’t want to repeat what you have seen over and over again.  But for the far majority of golfers out there, when they see #16, #17 and #18 during the Players, they would give their first born to have a chance to play holes like that (while you roll your eyes thinking that is a finish I would never replicate on any of my golf courses).  That is fine and I don't disagree with you, but don't forget the other 99% and those who are catering to them