Sandbelt Bunkers

[Glen Rapoport]

Can some of our Austraiian friends comment on the style of bunker design found in the Sandbelt near Melbourne?
1. I have never seen it copied in the States
2. They are massive and the contours really hide pin postions
3. They are often cut right down from green surfaces
4. How do you play out properly when you 'short side' yourself

I need help!

Glen

[Matt_Cohn]

5. The sand is FIRM. Imagine sandstone with a 1/2" layer of dust on top. It's close to that.

Glen - what do you want to know? To answer one of your questions, it's hard to play out when you short side yourself because it's hard to slide the club under the ball to get either spin or height. Conversely fairway bunker shots and long bunker shots get a bit easier.

[Andrew Summerell]

It’s a little bit of a misconception to say the bunkers of the sandbelt are one style. Many of the courses differ slightly, which is where some renovation work has ‘struck a snag’ over the years.

[harley_kruse]

Andrew you are correct. There are some subtle difference between courses and this largely due to the different hands that originally built them. For example my understanding is the Mircom brothers and their team under the guidance of Russell and Mackenzie created many of the  bunkers  at RM and the same people went on to bunker Kingston heath. Thats the reason for the exceptional bukers at both courses

Many sandbelt courses then went on and tried to copy RM and KH and under different construction hands that's where they didn't quite get the same style.  

Also topography has effected the bunkers. Whilt RM had natural shape and elevation to bunker into,  places such as Metropolitan and Huntingdale were relatively flat requiring bunker faces to be pushed up out of the natural ground and therefore  differences in the overall shape and dramatic nature.

[Glen Rapoport]

Thanks Andrew and Harley,

so far I have been on relatively flat courses and will see KH and RM soon and this will help understand the differences.

Glen

[harley_kruse]

Glen

I suggest you also go to Victoria (next to RM)  as the rolling topography there makes for good bunkering

[tonyt]

it's hard to slide the club under the ball to get either spin or height.

I couldn't possibly disagree more.

I think these must be among the easiest bunkers on planet earth from which to spin a ball quite a lot out of. As they are firm, when going for the spinner, there is little chance of accidentally shovelling the club a shade too deep and taking too much sand. Every bunker shot not played like an explosion or runner will skip and check.

I am a 15 marker and have no untoward trouble negotiating the sandbelt bunkering, and nor do most golfers. The difficulty lies not in the sand base, but in their design and that of the green complex in firm and fast conditions. I'd say that the green firmness difference from a lot of what US courses seem to be is a 100 times greater influence than the sand base of the bunkers. If you mix that with develish subtle contouring, then many tough shots result.

[tonyt]

4. How do you play out properly when you 'short side' yourself

Don't get cute and allow for a 10-12 footer coming back. Or a lot more if you muck it up. They aren't deadly or anything. The 15-25 handicappers of this country aren't all handing in horrid scorecards after playing these courses.

Check out the ongoing RME, Woodlands, and upcoming Commonwealth and Spring Valley photo threads to get even more of a look.

[James Bennett]

Some guy called Mike Clayton wrote about Melbourne sandbelt bunkers some years ago.  He commented that if you played in Sydney, a sand wedge with significant bounce was needed.  But that club was not suited to Melbourne.  There, a sharper leading edge and less bounce was necessary - Mike played PING then, and that was the style of sandwedge that was ideal.

I'll see if I can find his article. (edit - it isn't on his web-site these days, so I can't post it).

James B

[David_Elvins]

Andrew and Harley raise a great point in regard to the diferences in sandbelt bunkering.  My non-expert interpretation of Sandbelt bunkering would be as follows:

All courses: Generally firm based with extremely firm packed faces.  Grey sand that leache to white, mainly in the faces.  Medium to large in size with walk-ins for ease of access.  And that is about where the similarities end between courses.

Royal Melbourne:  Large scale bunkers on a large scale course.  Broad flowing lines.  Excellent terrain for cutting bunkers into rises.  Variety of sizesa and shapes but walk-ins always flow down into bunker and flatten out.  

Kingston Heath:  Bunkers are significantly smaller than Royal Melbourne and are more often seen in small clusters.   They have a far more agressive look to them, more angular and intricate with the "raised eyebrow" arch in the bunker face that makes them so visible on the flattish landscape perhaps being a trademark of the course.  More long grass around the bunkers giving a more rugged look.  A few semi-reveted faces.  Perfectly fit the scale of the property and the subtleies of the terrain.  

Victoria: Maybe half way in beween RM and KH in style?  Bigger and less intricate than Kingston Heath but blends outstandingly with the vegetation. Terrain is perfect for locating bunkers and the more simple looking shapes than RM makes Victoria's bunkers perhaps my favorite on the sandbelt.  

Metropolitan:  Flat site with pushed up greens and bunkers.  Typically seen as white faces sitting  at you.  Medium sized and very neat with the hairiest peter Thomson bunkers having been removed.  Most bunkers are surrounded by short grass with less heath on this site.  Small variety with the different eras but this has more to do with bunker placement than general bunker style.

Woodlands:  Medium sized and modestly shaped but fit the land extremely well.  elegant without being overstated or trying too hard to be a feature.  More recent bunkers look like a bit too busy like Kingston Heath bunkers.

Commonwealth:  A real mixed bag.  Different eras, different architects.  Even the older style bunkers (which judging by photos have been rebuilt in the last 20 years), lack a coherent style.  Perhaps Woodlands could be a model for this site with the upcoming masterplan?

Peninsula North:  Similar to Victoria.  Medium sized, tie in well with the vegetation, easy to locate and sit naturally on great topography.  

Peninsula South (under construction):  Larger scale than the north with big broad flowing lines and very few walkins.  Should contrast the North course (and the rest of the sandbelt) whilst fitting the big expansive playing corridors.  

Yarra Yarra:  Original bunker work has great style and nice flowing lines on medium sized bunkers.  Bunkers built in last 30 years are perhaps a dissapointment in comparison to older work.

Interested to hear what others think.

[Andrew Summerell]

David,

The land dictates so much, doesn’t it. The courses you have mentioned vary from extremely flat to reasonably undulating. The best bunkering in the sandbelt (as anywhere) is the bunkering that best suits the land.

Harley makes a great point about other courses looking to copy the style of RM & KH. David, you have pointed out that those 2 courses have their differences & much of that is to do with the different topography of both courses.

Some of these bunkering styles are obviously very attractive to architects who are doing work elsewhere. What is the best way to transfer these styles to other areas & other courses ? What specifics do you use & what do you disregard ?

I recently played a course in another sandy part of Australia, where a previous architect, with 4 or 5 of his bunkers, seemed to copy a bunkering style from one Melbourne sandbelt course in aesthetics only, without consideration to the function of the bunkers. (This complex is being worked on as we speak, by a more capable architect).

Regarding bunkering, how well do function & aesthetics balance in the Melbourne sandbelt ?

[JESII]

4. How do you play out properly when you 'short side' yourself

I need help!

This one is easy. Do as I did, blast it out of the short side bunker across the green into a different one that'll give you substantially more green to work with. Nothing to it.

[James Bennett]

4. How do you play out properly when you 'short side' yourself

I need help!

This one is easy. Do as I did, blast it out of the short side bunker across the green into a different one that'll give you substantially more green to work with. Nothing to it.

Sully

you needed a good caddie.  You would have learnt quickly.  The key word that is wrong in your post above is 'blast'.  In Sydney, with a sand wedge with bounce, you blast.  In Melbourne, with a sharper leading edge and less bounce on your sand-iron, you play more of a half-shot.  Never a blast!

James B

[Tom_Doak]

The main characteristic of Sandbelt bunkers to me, is that they don't put sand in them.  They're just excavated down to the native soil, which is a very firm sandy loam material that plays differently than most bunkers in the USA.  Strangely enough, it's similar in playing characteristics to the sand we found in Bandon -- I use my Ping pitching wedge exclusively out of the bunkers in both places.

[Mike_Clayton]

Peter Fowler is the best bunker player I have seen - Ballesteros once said ' the only guy with a better short game than me in Europe is Peter Fowler' - and he has a Ping Eye 2 sand wedge ground with a sharp leading edge and no bounce that he uses only in Melbourne.

He told me Karsten saw it once and nearly had a fit!

[harley_kruse]

It is true  that on many of the sandbelt courses they originally just dug them out of the natural sandy loam soil and didn't put sand in them,  but even then not all the bunkers could be built this way,  as not all the sandbelt courses had the luxury of at least 4- 6 feet of sand below ground level over there

 For example parts of  Kingston Heath, Huntingdale and Metro (back nine) they are  many areas where the soils are actually clay loam.  Sand would have had to be brought in from another part of the course or imported

These days many of the sandbelt courses actually buy in bunker sand. I saw a stack of it at Metro the other day.

RM had for a long time been able to quarry its own bunker, greens, and topdressing sands (quaries originally in area b/w 11W,!2W and 17W and also b/w 5E, 6E,15E) but I think those days might be over.

Certainly the type of sands in the sand belt which are  describded as  fine sands to sandy loams to silty loams had an important structural characteristic which allowed the development of the sand faced 'sandbelt style' of bunker.  

The silt and organic material held the tighly packed sand together  and this allowed two key sandbelt characteristics:

a) the cutting out and exposure of big sandy faces and
b)vertical bunker edges of vairable depths from zero to  2 feet . These would gene rally remian stable and resist the weathering of wind ,rain and traffic.

[Glen Rapoport]

Harley,

I played Metro last Thursday when the wind was howling 90 K and the temp was 36.5....at least 2 trees were blown down there....I saw lots of native soil/sand in those poor bunkers and found a ton of it in my pockets when I was done....Metro is awfully nice....now I just have to find a left handed Ping wedge and get some one to grind it down.

Glen

[W.H. Cosgrove]

Glen, lay the face wide open and get aggressive.  The fear is that you will blade the ball and then you flinch creating just that shot.  Stay committed!

A small flange would certainly help but it will dig if you don't get it open enough!