Bandon/Pacific

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Jim, I could have sworn you told me that you had done them, or maybe it was over-seeing them being built? Sorry for the misinformation. Trust me, I'm far from perfect!

I'll still stand put on the bunkering at Bandon. It is just a bit to artificial looking for my tastes, but that doesn't make the course bad in any regard. I think it is worthy of the praise it does get. And like I said, I was a fan too of the old 6th and felt it didn't need any adjustment what-so-ever. Its funny, but the holes that many seem to have sone disreagrd for on Badon Dunes are some of my favorties on that course. 1, 6, 9, & 16. Hell, 18 isn't even bad once you know where to play it! Plus, it prescribes to my notions of blindness off of the tee, at least once during the round on a true dunesland course.

Also, I will go so far to say, and this might be a compliment in some ways, the current modern day bunkering on the Old Course isn't much different other then the use of some reveting here and there. I'm not a fan of the current modern day bunkering on the Old Course either, but it is my favorite course bar none.

Glad to see you here Jim. We need your participation more often!

[Norbert P]

Thanks Tom for reply and for telling me you used locals. I didn't know that. I agonized over how to ask that question and still didn't select the right words.  I'm still lost how to ask it but mainly I, as a common laborer, like to see the working Joe get some credit and from your website and Jim Urbina's interview, I have heard tremendous respect amongst yourselves and your crew members and that should be commended.  I asked the question wrongly.  I just wanted to give notice to how an unknown man like Kidd could pull such a rabbit from his hat with a crew of people he (ashamedly, I'd assumed here) hadn't worked with before.  I, in trying to do that, postured you two against each other but that was not my intent.

This WAS my thinking...

  A man gets a project;  dreams, draws and designs it.  Then has to encode his images into the minds and machinery to get the result he sees in his minds eye.  He's never built a newsworthy golf course and gets a commission across the world from his home.   I can't see him bringing over many people from Scotland, as the expense would be prohibitive, so he hires a bunch of cranberry farmers and builds a jawdropping, gawk-worthy golf course.  

  Then a man of high and deserved reputation comes along with another group and presents his vision of a great golf course to his crew (with Tony Trackhoe) and everything comes out like gold in the sluice riffles, as trusted and expected.  Praise is just.

  Now, these are both my favorite golf courses in MY world.  They are sister courses with distinct personalities and seem, like real sisters, to have a sibling rivalry.   One a child bourne of ragged lust, the other of nurtured love.  One dutiful and the other rogue. One Gothic, the other punk.  Yet, two maturing nymphs.



Tommy N, you think the bunkering on Bandon Dunes is manufactured looking but nearly every one of them is well constructed, effective, artistic, provocative and stable.  Unless we bring sheep back for golf course construction, I think every golf course is going to be artifice*.

* ambivalently and ambiguously chosen word.

[Michael Dugger]

Slagbert,

You've lost me a little here, my man....your comment about bringing back the sheep.  

Right next door at Pacific we have bunkers that do not look artificial.  Maybe they were created by artificial means, sure, and I agree 100% that just about every bunker is artificial in this regard.  

Howver, I agree with Tommy (surprise!) in that SOME of the Bandon bunkers looks artificial.  BUT.....but.....who really cares.  

It's just a different style.  For that style the Bandon bunkers are outstanding.  It's just that I prefer 'natural' style to 'unnatural'  or pot bunkers, or sod-wall, or whatever you want to call em'

I really like the bunkers on Bandon #1  They don't look as artificial.  They look like they may have always been there.  They don't HAVE to have necessarily always been there....they just have to look it!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Slag,
The idea is to make it look as natural as possible. You can have artifice as long as you emulate nature exisiting as close as possible. Especially on something that Mother Nature never intended to be a resort, let alone a golf course. The purpose is to to, in some cases, even recreate what may have been there, even before they found the property covered in whin.

My positives about Bandon Dunes is that the bunkering is well placed, in some cases perfectly placed for the strategies intended. (As an example, I'm always inclinded to think of Bandon Dunes 8th hole, more specifically the cross bunker. But not just thinking about the one paticular hole--all of them.) The negatives are the grass facing which is the result of being motivated on how they do it in Scotland in the modern age, which is being pushed by the American specification of clean and neat, yet baring the years of evolvement that has occured in the land which the game was invented. There is little doubt that many superintendents will find this bunkering totally acceptable because it is easy to maintain if you don't mind fly-mowing compared to having to push sand back up bunker faces that has fallen due to rain. On a site like that, you have the wind blowing at different angles during different times of the year. etc. etc. etc. It just shouldn't look so manicured. But its just not an esthetic issue. In fact, it isn't. It is how they were designed to be maintained, and the person maintaining them is doing his job.

I buy into the natural bunkering scheme of things. It is my personal preference, and I think that is why this site is so intriguing, we are allowed to expounce it!:) I'm not just talking rough and irregular edging, but more the ideal of lesser maintenence means ugly, knarly, threatening bunkering which I feel should affect the psychology or the mindset of play as well as llook totally natural, even though it may in fct be constructed. You know, the type of stuff I don't mind being in because it is fun to take on life's trite and biting challenges. To some, they will reckon, the bunkering at Bandon Dunes to be dark, deep, and just as threatening. That's OK. It just needs to emphasize this wonderful natural sandy bluff of dunes, and embrace the nature by emulating a bunker that looks as if it is a natural extension of the the very place you are standing, albeit a constructed one.

[Norbert P]

 Ok Tommy, but don't you think that having preferences denies appreciation of other styles, and can be limiting in ones pursuit of education?  
  Without the style contrasts of Bandon and Pacific,  each would not be as vibrant and memorable.

 Picasso was not always a cubist.
 
   What do you think of the fairway bunkers on PD 15?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Slag,
I think you are missing the point. I'm too tired to explain.

[Norbert P]

Perhaps, but I'd not have a clue if I went to Bandon and played Pac 10 times and Bandon zero.  

Time for a nightcap.

[GeoffreyC]

Tommy- I really like the bunkering at BD.  They are totally different then PD but beautiful and VERY functional in their own right. Many of them reminded me of Muirfield's bunkers in their shape and grass faces.  What I especially liked was the dark shadow like appearance of the grass faces without seeing the sand below.  This sinister appearance said at least to me- don't go there!

An example of this shadow effect



Other bunkers

[Norbert P]

Redanman, I don't think Geoffrey is knocking the bunker work at Pacific.  I believe he's supporting the design of Bandon's.  

  I don't think anybody will say (or secretly think) that the bunkering at Pacific Dunes is anything but extraordinary.  What seems to happen though is the idea that because it is the appropriate bunkering there, it should be the choice of bunkering everywhere.  

Fine pictures Geoffrey.  You must have had to move extremely right to get that gorse in the shot at 15, and to even see the sand at all.  Seems the sand is invisible from the tees from my memory.

[GeoffreyC]

Slag-  absolutely correct on both points.  Bunkers at PD are fantastic.  I was in fact supporting the bunkering at BD in my post.

Mike Cirba and I were just walking around the course for a time taking photos.  Hard to believe from the beautiful skies in the background of the bottom photo but only a couple of hours earlier John V and I were playing in sideways rain and cold.