[ChipOat]

I'm looking at Mike Miller's painting of the original 16th at ANGC on page 2 in the Art & Architecture section.

I was struck by the bunker on the left that appears to be a good 20-30 feet removed from the green.

That got me thinking - what is the point of a bunker that far from where you're supposed to hit it?

You can't hide a pin behind it.  If the green slopes away from you, the shot from there is pretty tough anyway.

In fact, in this day and age, the shot from sand might even be EASIER (although not in 1932, for sure).

Does it help with depth perception?  Is it cosmetic in that it "frames" the green and makes it look more interesting somehow?

What is the "shot value" purpose, if any?  And does that matter so much?

The bunker on #10 at ANGC looks impressive, but is it relevant to the good ball striker (I doubt it)?  And does it force the dub to lay up on a par 4 (I've seen it happen)?

And does it matter?  Or is it enough that it just looks impressive?

I like bunkers that come into play on an "almost" good shot.  Redan bunkers, D.A. bunkers, #10 @ Riviera bunkers, etc.

[Carlyle Rood]

It can disguise the distance to the pin.  It can change the scale of the hole's aesthetics.  It can make a hole more pleasurable and harmonious to view.

[SPDB]

Chip - I brought up a similar question a few months ago w/r/t MacKenzie's seemingly gratuitous use of bunkers at Lake Merced - here is the picture I referenced:

[rgkeller]

Another example of a bad bunker properly replaced by a nice pond.

[Brian_Gracely]

The bunker on #10 at ANGC looks impressive, but is it relevant to the good ball striker (I doubt it)?  And does it force the dub to lay up on a par 4 (I've seen it happen)?

And does it matter?  Or is it enough that it just looks impressive?

The large fairway bunker on #10 at ANGC used to be greenside, so it was originally relevant.  Now it simply serves as a testament to Mackenzie and potentially provides some depth perception.  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Yes, keep on telling yourself that RG. This is a prime reason to worry about the future of GCGC if your anyway involved with changes there. And of course, I'm sure your much more wise to this then Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie ever were.

(Yes, Bob, I'm sure you could have done a much better job at building ANGC then those two. If only you would have thought of it first!)  

Chip, Brian hits it pretty good here. The whole idea is deception which isn't all that well read by the golfer's in this modern day especially when you have yardage books and laser yardage guides to tell you distances. It all takes away from the spirit of the Game, as well as the fun.

The image that Sean has posted is of Lake Merced, but it isn't much different from the same thing he was going for originally at ANGC #10. The MacKenzie Bunker that the club calls it now, used to disguise the hill to some degree, just as this bunker at Lake Merced used to disguise the hill at the 7th. You can see the line of the hill coming down, but the bunker was there to camoflauge it, to make it more of a heroic carry, or at least to make you think about carrying it over that intended line, in this case Line of Charm.

Also, I don't know of a single useless MacKenzie bunker that I have ever seen in person. At least not for play the way Mac had intended it for.

[RJ_Daley]

rgkeller, you are a wry wag...

Tommy, take the baited hook out of your lower lip.

[Matthew Delahunty]

http://www.historicgolf.com/page_photo.cfm?photoid=1776

Here is a link to the only photo I've seen of the old 16th at Augusta. I assume it's taken from the left of the old tee, close to where the current tee exists. The bunker appears to be very much in play when you take into account the slope of the land and the line from the tee - a shot out of there was probably more fearsome than escaping from the traps on 12.

By the way, the reference to the hole on which 16 is supposedly modelled is incorrect. The course is the Stoke Poges course (designed by Colt) at the Stoke Park Club. The hole in question is the 7th which the club's website claims is the model for Augusta's 12th.

[SPDB]

Tommy - He might not be less wise to this than Bobby Jones. Didn't Bobby Jones play an integral part in the current 16th?

I don't understand what you are saying about the Lake Merced (i promise i'm not challenging you, i really don't understand). Is there any evidence that the camouflaging of the hill worked? Did people think they were hitting uphill   (sorry, couldn't resist). What about the bunker to the right? extraneous?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Sean, Anything after 1936, I consider Bobby Jones just going along with what Clifford "Down By the Lake" Roberts wanted. They weren't even speaking in later years. But that's my personal opinion, and many will disagree with it.

As far as Lake Merced, you sort of have to know the site and also know that MacKenzie had in his career, place many a hole going uphill on a tee that was elevated, giving the sense of illusion that the hole was downhill when it really wasn't. The 7th at Lake Merced was one of these, and so was the 3rd at Pasatiempo. Ask anyone here who has played there how short they have been on the hole, thinking it was much closer then it really was.

I'll try to find a topo or something on-line on LM and see if they show any of the contours of that protion of the property it once existed.  Lake Merced is GREAT golf course land and worthy of study.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Sean,
This was the best map I could come-up with.

[ForkaB]

No bunkers are completely "useless."  As Tommy and others point out, even those superfluous ones which are largely out of play can serve "camouflage", "framing" or other eye-candy purposes.  MacKenzie was one of the more accomplished crafstmen of this school of "art."

[George Pazin]

Was one of Mackenzie's original 13 principles that hazards should only be situated where they would influence the play of the expert golfer?

[T_MacWood]

chipoat
A pretty cool looking hole. You can find the original photo in Geoff Shackelford's 'Golden Age'...there is another photo of #16 in Doak's MacKenzie biography. Looks in play to me.

Looking at the slope of the ground and severity of the green....one of the options must have been a knock down away from the stream letting the ground fade it around...just beware of the sand.

Is this green a mirror image of #9 Crystal Downs?

rg
Please let the dead rest. Everytime you mention the pond on 16-GCGC Travis and Emmet start spinning in their respective graves. Have some respect.

[rgkeller]

>>Please let the dead rest. Everytime you mention the pond on 16-GCGC Travis and Emmet start spinning in their respective graves. Have some respect.<<

Maybe Emmet but not Mr. Travis who would never have forgiven Emmet for screwing up Travis' redesign of GC.

I can see the Old Man happily feeding the baby  ducks in the little pond on Sixteen (while fishing out the day's sacrifices of golf balls.)

[rgkeller]

rgkeller, you are a wry wag...

Tommy, take the baited hook out of your lower lip.

I do enjoy watching them flop about in the boat.

[A_Clay_Man]

To the original question: I can see the merit of this bunker immediately. Look at that slope towards the creek. The challenge is accentuated by placing the bunker there. It brings distance control in, along the preferred or safe line.

The one to the left on 16 at CPC, is in a similar spot, but without the slope. It's placement was key in competition because without it, the lay-up was too evident and without as much risk. Same for ANGC,


Who here thinks the look of this one shotter is better in it's original than the current? Aces notwithstanding.

[Mike_Cirba]

Was one of Mackenzie's original 13 principles that hazards should only be situated where they would influence the play of the expert golfer?

George;

Good question.  

In my mind, not one of the classic architects of the Golden Age believed this because the courses they built in the teens and 20s reflected a completely different philosophy.

It was only after the depression that such thinking took hold, culminating in the dubious crescendo of RTJ Sr. removing almost all of Ross's scattered bunkers (for anyone in doubt, please see the Ross drawing of the original Oakland Hills South in Geoff Shack's "Golden Age" book) and replacing them with wasp-waisted, pinching bunkers in the expert's driving zone.  

 

[TEPaul]

Rich Goodale said;

“even those superfluous ones which are largely out of play can serve "camouflage", "framing" or other eye-candy purposes. MacKenzie was one of the more accomplished crafstmen of this school of "art."

Rich is certainly right about that. Many to most of those architects whose famous holes are depicted by Mike Miller in the “Art and Architecture” section of this website considered themselves artists. Art principles which include Harmony, Balance, Rhythm and Emphasis are applicable to golf course design. Rich Goodale may not consider the golf architect to be an artist and has said so on here a number of times. Rich Goodale does not consider golf architecture and design to be a form of art and has said so on here a number of times.

Many contributors to this website tend to call bunkering used for purposes other than for strictly and directly strategic purposes (basically to be directly challenged by the ball) “framing and “eye candy” and they tend to use those descriptions pejoratively or semi-pejoratively. Perhaps they tend to do that simply because they don’t understand the use or the function, strategically or otherwise of some basic “art principles” that have long been part of golf design and very much part of some of the best of the “Golden Age” designs of those architects which include Mackenzie, Maxwell, Colt, Alison, Crump, Tillinghast, Thomas, Flynn, Egan and a number of other “Golden Age“ designers.

Most of the examples of famous holes in the paintings by Mike Miller section of “Art and Architecture” show bunkering and sand areas in some massive scale. What some on here call “framing bunkers” or “eye candy” bunkering is basically a use of large “Scale” to produce a purpose and function in golf architecture and in the mind and decision making of any golfer.

What is that purpose and function those massive scale bunkers produce? Certainly it can’t be said those enormous scale sand areas are all to be directly challenged by the golfer with his golf ball. Look at those paintings again and imagine if all that “large scale” sand and bunkering and the formations of some of them was removed. What would the target look like and how would it be different? The TARGET (the green) would clearly appear larger and less intimidating. The large scale sand and bunkering tends to make the target (the green) LOOK smaller and far more intimidating to hit to the golfer. Good artists and good artistic golf architects understand this, some better than others and some do it and use it more effectively than others.

This technique of using this type of sand area and bunkering in this type of “large scale” is psychological--albeit perhaps not directly challenging to a legitimate and well executed golf shot. Does psychological and visual deception and distortion of this “large scale” type have a function in how the golfer thinks and feels and plays holes and shots?

What do you think?

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom Paul;

Very well-stated observations.

Would you agree that bunkers of any type in the "Duffer's Range" might serve the same purpose of "altering the frame" for all levels of golfers?

[TEPaul]

George Pazin;

In Mackenzie's "13 essential features of an ideal golf course" which has probably become known as his 13 principles he never actually mentioned hazards or bunkers or the placement, size or scale of them. The only one of the 13 points where one may consider they were implied would be #8 but very vaguely so and only in the context of heroic shots and alternative choices. Of course most any feature could be used for those purposes.

[THuckaby2]

Re 16 CPC, Compare Miller's painting with the Ran's modern-day photo (the latter is in the Cypress course profile).

Ran's photo is taken from the tee.  Miller's painting is coming from an angle walking down the path, looking up the peninsula... it's closer to the angle you'd have in if God forbid you ever laid up on the hole.  

In any case, try to then picture that old bunker as it looked from the tee.... which would be back to the right of the painting angle...

Wouldn't the bunker in question have been a "saving" bunker, sparing well-struck but slightly pulled tee shots from plummetting down to the beach on the other side?

And isn't that a useful purpose?

TH

[T_MacWood]

rg
You need to brush up on your Travis history. Using the word 'happily' and Travis in the same sentence is an oxymoron.

Seeing that Travis completely revamped Emmet's GCGC I don't see him having a problem throwing a small bone to his old friend....especially considering Emmet's redesign of the 16th was universally praised.

If Travis wanted a pond on 16, he would have put one there (same with Emmet for that matter).

Fishing by the pond...no way, drowning architrecturally inept committeemen in the pond...yes.

[TEPaul]

"Would you agree that bunkers of any type in the "Duffer's Range" might serve the same purpose of "altering the frame" for all levels of golfers?"

MikeC:

Definitely! There's no question whatsoever in my mind!

However, the larger and more important question is and should be---do most or many golfers agree with that and with them? Do they understand that and want them---or at least enough to think to preserve and maintain them? That's pretty much the nub of all this and to truly understanding what and why it is that truly permanent golf architecture just might be, don't you think?
 
 

[A_Clay_Man]

Huck, I can state emphatically that the bunker at CPC doesn't stop balls from going to the beach and iceplant ,long left. Perhaps in the day, but I doubt that too. It does have  purpose, I just don't think containment is one of them.

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