JohnK and JeffB:

Do you realize that the basic fairway bunker right/greenside bunker left as explained in Max Behr's "indirect tax" philosophy in golf architecture doesn't really have that much to do with a bunker right and a bunker left? All it really has to do with is giving the golfer the sensation that if he gets in one of those bunkers it's his own fault and not the architect's fault because he can see there's enough room elsewhere that he could've avoided either quiet easily.

This is the primary reason I'm a big fan of most of William Flynn's so-called "Reverse" doglegs.  

John:

Weiskopf always included one bunkerless hole per course and I hated that about his formula of holes ... you could usually feel it coming about two holes in advance.  I hate it when I can feel the formula.

You must have been referring to The Renaissance Club in Mass. or somewhere, since our course in Scotland has a bunker at the left front of the 17th green.  I don't think any of the holes are bunkerless there.  On the other hand, the first two holes at Quail Crossing are bunkerless and we sure didn't win any awards for that!

Would this qualify as textbook? I saw this diagram and it looks like Chambers Bay was laid out through a pretty elaborate formula for direction and length, BUT when you get on the course you don't feel it. Also, I saw the chart prior to playing and still did not feel the course was formulaic or textbook.

Chambers Bay has six 5's, six 4's, six 3's ?

Jeff -

First, and contra your last point, I see no evidence, zero, that the preponderance of golf courses being built today overuse strategic bunker placement. Quite the contrary. So I don't get the whining of our friends from the Midwest.

Second, on the inside/inside thing, we've had this discussion before. I remain unconvinced.

I tend to start with the notion that great strategy involves tempting people to take risks that are not imposed on them by the design or set-up of the course. John Low's "elective risks" will not be elected unless there is a clear payoff.

Let's go to the tee of an inside/inside hole. Let's pretend that I am a pretty good player with pretty good length.

Yes, an option is to try to carry the bunker. Yes, it will shorten the approach. But approaching the green from that side means I have to deal with the greenside bunker on that side. So the payoff for the risk I take in trying to carry the inside fw bunker is diluted by the location of an inside greenside bunker.

The alternative is to play wide of the fw bunker, which leaves a longer approach, but to an open green.

Bottom line: The payoff for the aggressive line is diminished by the greenside bunker still on your line. The safer line affords advantages of an open green. All of which suggests to me that taking the aggressive line off the tee doesn't make much sense. Whatever temptation it may have is reduced by the bunker up at the green.

On an inside/inside set up, the strategic message is so mixed, that I find it hard to think many people would be actually tempted to take the risk of the inside route. Which is why I think holes designed along those lines are somewhat dull. I'm almost always going to play wide of the fw bunker.

I don't think such holes work very well because the strategic options aren't sufficiently tempting. The return for taking risks is reduced. That, in turn, reduces my willingness to voluntarily take on that risk.

You are in the business. You are out there every day, but my sense is that Dye likes inside/inside holes not because of their strategic virtues. I think those virtues are very, very limited.

My guess is that Dye likes those holes because they cater to the weaker player.

I also think such holes can be a nice change of pace on an otherwise good, strategic golf course. But as I noted above, I must be out of things. Who would have thought that we have too many good (traditionally) strategic holes?

Bob      

Any other type of golf design besides strategic is largely "forced" design.

If there is no reward for challenging a hazard successfully in terms of positioning, then unless one is playing Shivas's version of Gonzo golf and purposefully taking on hazards for some type of adrenaline rush, it's fool's gold.

In the past, I've called it anti-strategy.   I have tremendous respect for Pete Dye, but when he claims that his new method is to make the entire "inside" portion of a hole fraught with trouble from tee to green so that the hole plays longer, it tells me he's run out of ideas to stop the touring pros, his major focus.

For the rest of us, that's just "forced" golf.   Hit it here or else.

I played a "forced" golf course yesterday, which was target golf all the way around.   I'm sure John K. would have been delighted watching me get my due punishment for slightly and severely errant shots, and would have been in glee all day long knowing I'd lost about two sleeves of balls while I drove about 8 miles in a cart to any non-wetland, dry land the architect could use for something resembling golf on a swampy piece of property absolutely horridly ill-suited for the game.  

Kyle,
Your sketch is somewhat pleasing to the eye.
I haven't sketched a hole on a flat piece of paper in a long time.
I find no use as I can make any hole look nice on a piece of paper - it is a big transistion to make any hole look good on the ground.
I'd suggest you spend your time around construction.

I don't think your green style will look like you think it will if it were built.
It will be a whole lot rounder and the differing heights of cut will look swoopey - I wouldn't like them anyway.
Have you seen C&C's green shapes from above?  
They are all ovals.

Bob and Mike,

I read more emotion than discussion in your replies.
You also jump to the conclusion that varying a bunker pattern amounts to penal design of hit it here or else!

I am with Jeff D - what does it take to make a par 4 template for bunker placement really work?

I note both your responses focused on your own games. My question was one of competition and competitive balance (as was Pete Dye's) for "the other guy" which might be you at times!

My point is, the good player may not care so much about the frontal opening, AND the "standard" pattern hurts the shorter hitter too much, whereas you are thinking in terms of giving the advantage to the better player for taking risk.

Specifically, I believe the distance differences are more pronounced now, and the advantage of the frontal opening is reduced for the best players, but still viable for the average ones.

Face it, if better players must negotiate a greenside bunker at worst they club up if in between clubs, and face a downhill putt, or club up and try for more backspin to take the bunker out of play.  They rarely miss short and they even more rarely use a run up option or hit grounders.  

In fact, bunkers are really the average guys strategy dictators, while the green contours suggest shots to better players.  They would more likely be thinking in terms of using the wind to avoid trouble (ie hook or fade to shape shot around the bunker)  and using the green contours to get it closer to the hole.  Suggesting shot pattern with green angle, hazards, etc. is a more viable strategy than leaving an opening for a run up shot these day!

I have taken to contouring greens - both the base slope and the little spikes or rolls to face on way or the other to create optional carry hazards on the approach, and in the green. If you have to carry a spike, or ridge, and it is across your line rather than parallel to it, its a bit tougher. I think those are more strategic dictators for good players, who don't even let themselves think of missing the green entirely.  

Meanwhile, the average guy can't carry the bunker and is better off steering well clear.  And, the inside-outside bunker pattern leaves them with a longer carry with less or no run up room.  Or to reflect Mike's words, does the inside outside pattern nearly force shorter hitters to take the risk, rather than give them a a viable option?

BTW, I am not saying GA guys weren't right most of the time or right for THEIR times.  But, times do change, and it pays to never accept what is just because it is......

And, I hinted at my proposed solution - more variety in the layout of "textbook bunkering."  I believe that used in the right places, as mentioned previouly, that holes would be better in course context.

Some scenarios can work either way.  Think of a hole where the fw bunker pinches the outside and upwind side at or just beyond the normal LZ.  Golfers may play short of that bunker anywhere in the fw or elect to work the ball into a narrower fw near the bunker for added distance.

If the crosswind and green bunker is to the inside, the shorter shot has the frontal opening.  The longer tee shot puts a shorter club in the hand, and also allows the player to ride the wind by aiming at the outside of the green and bringing it back to the hole, even if near the bunker, which is a safer shot, actually.  If its on the outside, then he has a frontal opening, but more likely cancel the wind rather than ride it to avoid going over the bunker.

Either way, the presence of hazards in a variety of locations - almost to the point of being random - do make every player think and play the holes differently.  No design theory is so good that is can be used almost exclusively, at least in my opinion.

I'm afraid I have to side with Jeff on this one, at least with regard to skilled players with plenty of length. Absent wind, they are looking to overcome distance first and then avoid bad angles into (contoured and/or angled) greens as at most a secondary "strategy". That's just how the game is played today by anyone who can hit the ball 200+ yards with an iron, 280+ yards with a driver and has at least a modicum of control over their shot shape and trajectory.

And as far as bunkering goes, the mere presence of a (modern, manicured) sand bunker is not particularly a hazard unless it's hella deep or possibly offers a severe short-side situation to the hole location of the day. It's hard to use a  greenside bunker of modest, practical scale to induce a player to take something other than the shortest line to the hole. If they need to go over the bunker, number one they have the aerial game to do it and number two if they fail to execute they still have a good chance of getting down in two and a certainty of getting down in three.

Now take a player with a less than 100mph clubhead speed and a handicap index of 8 or more and we're talking a different game. But for better or worse, a modern course is judged by the criterion of how it challenges the low-handicap big hitter. So the challenge is finding a design that works for the modern power game and offers meaningful strategy for the rest of us. John K's bitching aside, there's nothing wrong with using classic strategic holes nowadays but cunning placement of sand traps to force the player to tack his way thoughtfully around the course is not a sure route to acceptance by the big boys.

P.S. By the way, if you can arrange for the wind to blow and the greens to be rock-hard you can challenge even the best players in the world with nothing more than classic strategic golf (cf. Opens at The Old Course). But I assume we're talking design principles that are applicable even to overwatered parkland courses in the US where neither of those conditions typically obtain.

Brent,

Why are you afraid to side with me? Has some gca fanatic put out a hit on me for questioning the masters?

But, if I hear ya right, shallower fw bunkers and deeper green bunkers (or at least one deep master bunker) would encourage more to challenge fw hazards and enhance the challenge.

With a deep greenside bunker, and a string of flanking rather than carry bunkers on the other fw side, we could create the same angle to the green dilema for different length players.
Mike,

Yes, the shortish par 5 could be made to play longer with an inside inside bunker combo.  For the rest of us, would that be inside-inside-inside, or inside-inside-outside?

And, variety is the key, as is occaisionally pushing the envelope into so called "new" ideas, whether any of them are really new or not.

Jeff/Brent -

No one doubts these days that strategic features are irrelevant to the pros and good collegiate golfers. They don't see greenside bunkers. That's equally true of other strategic features. So let's get past that issue.

Strategic stuff does matter to the rest of us schmos. The quality of a hole for us schmos is usually a function of the quality of the strategic choices.

I think the quality of the strategic choices in Dye's inside/inside holes is pretty weak tea.

None of that would matter much if these sorts of holes were thrown in for a bit of variety now and then. But that's not what I see.

Contrary to Barney's silly premise - I find that inside/inside bunkering schemes predominate on new courses. Based on the new courses I see it is the bread and butter play for a shocking number of modern architects. Especially for the big name guys.  

On these new courses it's the tradtional strategic bunker arrangements that provide the variety.

The prevalence of these inside/inside holes suggests to me that they were built not for their limited strategic virtues, but as sops to the developer and his concerns about weaker players.

I fully appreciate the economic pressure brought to bear in these situations. We all have to feed our families.

But the price paid is too often the quality of the golf course.

Bob  

 

Brent -

I did note your disagreement. No more gift certificates to The Red Lobster for you.

Now if you change your tune....

Bob