Dump a load of sand in the middle of the fairway. Let a few native weeds grow in it.  Hide the rakes.  Voila - a low-maintenance, penal, visually intimidaing cross bunker!

Is anyone out there building these today?  If not, why?

Mike

Mike,

This reminds me of something I was thinking about the other day.  Why is it that everyone seems to love The Old Course, but yet if many of the quirky aspects are replicated on today's courses, the architect is skewed for unfairness or for not meeting some Matt Ward pre-defined checklist?  

Double Greens
Blind/Semi-Blind tee shots
Hidden fairway bunkers
A road that crosses the course
Inverted Bunkers or Piling Mounds
270yd Par3 and a 290yd Par4...back to back
Narrow cross-bunkers that only allow sideways recoveries
Unraked bunkers


Minimalism is a wonderful genre in today's architecture, but are we every going to get back to a time when creative AND random variety is not going to get an architect blacklisted?

redanman,

Thanks.  Would these not be particularly feasible where drainage is an issue (thought not a problem for either of the courses pictured)?  Not unlike the above-ground graves in New Orleans.  

Mike

Actually two golf holes. Play it out to a green on that cape to the right and then tee off from out on that cape and play it back to one of two greens on either side at the near end of the island!  

"Having played from a couple of inverted bunkers, I can tell you that they are much harder to get out of than conventional bunkers for me. It makes me wonder."

Ian:

That's probably because it's just naturally a little more difficult for a golfer to play off of something convex than from something concave. The reason is probably just that a concave surface accomodates the natural parabola of the golf swing and clubhead better than something convex does. But maybe I'm wrong about that despite my experiences with it in golf because I was flat-ass miserable in geometry in school. Parabolas and such are geometry, aren't they?  

Another contrivance on an otherwise great course is the inverted cross bunker on the 15th at Royal Dornoch.

Bob

Blind/Semi-blind tee shots have become taboo because everyone (or at least 95% of golfers) love the framing style.

I believe all is not lost. Quite a few "Joe Publics" I organise events for think that the courses with a few blind / semi blind shots are awesome, tee shots and approach shots alike. None of them like it as an overall theme (because the framing point is quite true). But as a 2-4 times per round thing, it seems to add to their enjoyment and rating of the course.

Here near Melbourne, I'm getting a lot of love from the regular non-archie inclined golfer for the wild and woolly courses that look like converted paddocks, refuse to be typical modern clones, and whose grass colours reflect the seasons. And being that this group play together a lot in a series that is as competitive as any and yet played entirely in great spirit and among friends, "unfair" predicament tend to bring more gasps of awe and learning than they do scowls of discontent.

Now to the inverted bunker. The "unkempt heap" or inverted bunker has got to be a viable element at quite a variety of sites. Quite a few old threads have raised points in passing that bunkers often don't look in sync with the plot of land the course is on. This is obviously due to the fact that many open spaces of land don't of course have any precedent of cavernous holes filled with sand dotted around. I guess thats why good bunkering is so treasured. Because it doesn't smack you in the face with suspicion, since the archie makes it look more like it should be there (and it helps that they appear on a golf course, a perfectly acceptable place to find sandy holes in the ground in the name of bunkering).

The unkempt heap is a feature that in some form or another, would surely look quite fitting and natural in almost any variety of site. And what's more, it can provide another architectural element (like a raised bunker lip) of blocking or semi-blocking a player's view of a shot from a poor position off the tee, adding more scope to it's value than merely to those who are directly on it. It also therefore provides an element of "blindness", without being arbitrary (because other players in the group in better position may have a better look) on a course where auto-blindness is not well received, and without the same length of walk / ride for the player to go and see what actually is ahead.

Jim Kennedy,

I also found the picture interesting but a bit contrived. I looked up the hole in George Bahto's book on CB McDonald and there have been changes to the hole since it was originally built. If I understood correctly the hole was changed for the construction of the gate that is in the right side of the picture. Also the original hole was 311 yards and is now extended to 375.  Maybe George Bahto can add some additional info or somebody else in the discussion group knows more about the history of the changes at the hole.