[Peter Galea]

Cartoons are eye candy for children.

Bunkers and other features on golf courses which serve only to elicit the WOW! response are eye candy.

[Dandy]

Eye candy is when the length of the licorice that goes around all those bunker edges is greater than the circumference of planet earth.  Perhaps the photo has too much sugar with the cotton candy clouds hovering above.  Perhaps a bit more brown fescue for the main meal would have been appropriate.

[T_MacWood]

Pete
Would you consider the bunker in the middle of the 10th fairway at ANGC eye-candy?

Dandy
Would the bunkers at Royal Melbourne, San Francisco or Seminole fall under your defintion?

If a striking bunker is out of play should it be considered eye-candy?

[RJ_Daley]

Cut the big gash coming from mid fairway to left front in half.  Make sure the right front drains adequately and it is fine.  Leave 1/2 the size of the surrounds bunkers, and let the rest go to the same fescue that we see.  The grass will extract approximately the same penalty for a toppy ball or way wide right or left shot or one way beyond, for far less cost to maintain.  The edging is nice, but it is "over the top". I agree with Jim, why artificially boost costs to play because you stick too much extraneous features from real playability into the "look".

[Peter Galea]

Tom, I'm not sure about the 10th at ANGC.
I have seen photos and tv of it. I know it's historical, does it serve a purpose? Does it affect judgement on tee or second shot. Is it really a WOW?

Back to my original statement.
If the bunker serves no purpose in the game except for photo ops, etc. it's candy. You look at it and ask the question, why?

[T_MacWood]

Pete
I haven't played there either, but the bunker at the 10th is out of play for the most part. But would you suggest they remove it? I'd say it is 99% WOW, which in this case is a combination of psychological and aesthetics. Psychological in that it is very intimidating structure and it has to played over, which adds a certain amount of excitement. And aestheticly it is quite beautiful and natural in appearance.

RJ
Would you give the same advice to Cypress Point, County Down and Shinnecock? If 99% of all bunkers on golf courses are artificially constructed, would you suggest they should be constructed to appear artificial or have a natural 'look'?

[Dandy]

Tom MacW:

Those you listed not eye candy as the length of the licorice would be less the circumference of world in relationship to this sea of craggy edges in the photo and the website array.  But I do have a sweet tooth lurking in my soul.

[TEPaul]

I'd love to see what it looks like on the peripheries of that photo. I'd love to stand on that tee in person and see what the surrounding countryside looks and feels like. In other words if all that bunkering looks like an entity unto itself in a very different landscape then all that bunkering is too much. It is beautiful looking work though.

That's the secret of PVGC if they were to take out almost all the trees. All the bunkering that's there and some that couldn't last for weather and maintenance reasons just fit so well with the rugged natural sandy terrain the way Crump found it when he went by on the train dreaming of a golf course.

This point of mine is somewhat like the one I sometimes make about Hurdzan & Fry's "airdropped" look. Some of their courses look fine in and of themselves and play great but they look like they belong in some other part of the country.

This kind of consideration might stem from the answer I once got from Bill Coore having asked him what he was looking for on a raw piece of land. He said "the little twists and turns in front of us and how they blend and meld with other twists and turns farther out in the perspective and on and on until you see that distant tree line framing the sky miles away probably in another town. Apply that perspective to this land from every angle and vantage point on this property. That's what I'm looking at right now."

If architects would or could do such preliminary work (I'm sure many don't have that luxury) I'm sure one would never feel that some courses look OK in and of themselves but look strange in their general neighborhoods.

Again, I'd love to cast my eye around about 360 degrees and then remark about the bunkering on this hole. It looks like it plays fun though.

As far as confusing the golfer or being too much for the eye-great! I think the designer should get into the player's head and unsettle him. Then the player has to just suck it up and concentrate better and look at the hole and see what's important and necessary for the shot on that hole and what's not. I'm sure the original look of PVGC must have been a little overwhelming to the golfer trying to concentrate on the specific target but if he were to lose his concentration and cast his eye all over the place everything he would see looked like it belonged together and in the same place.

[Steve_Curry]

Tom P.,  Wasn't PV fairly thick when Crump found it?  I though they did a lot of work to get it wide open?

Steve

[Steve_Curry]

I would add to the definition of Eye Candy that it is too prettied up.  If a lot of the foreground bunkering was left un-edged, save the edging for right around the green, and the fescue, as well as other grasses bled into the sand, it would be a better hole.  In short this is Eye candy to me as its to organized.  It certainly isn't out of play in the sense that it is in your line of flight and hence in your mind.

Steve

[T_MacWood]

Dandy
Do you consider the bunkers above eye-candy? If so, how do they differ from Melbourne, SFGC and Seminole?

[Tony Ristola]

Let's say the bunkers are in the same quantity, slightly rearranged but grass faced... they are also deep and steep and the course has Pete Dye's name on it... would it be considered over kill?  Or would it be accepted as another Pete Dye par-3 which visually terrorizes the players into submission?

[Dandy]

Tom,

Melbourne, SFGC and Seminole = school cafeteria candy cart

The above photo = the candy warehouse

I'll take a stick of Tom's Taffy, and a Resses? Butter Cup

[John Morrissett]

Just further proof that Indianapolis (home of Purgatory GC) is the hub of modern golf  . . .  

[T_MacWood]

Dandy
Your metaphors are very clever, but could you explain the difference in clear and specific terms -- without the candy analogies -- so even a diabetic might understand.

I haven't come to conclusion one way or another on these bunkers, but I am very curious what you think differenciates these bunkers from what you find at Melbourne, SF and Seminole. Is it their shape, their number, their size, their position? Please expound.

[Perry Mason]

The judge just hammered the gavel on Tom MacWood's direct examination. Now it's time for the cross.

Tom MacWood

what do you think of this golf hole, the bunkers in this golf hole?

Perry

[TEPaul]

Steve Curry:

You're right Pine Valley was fairly thick when Crump found it-I looked back through the beginning of Warner Shelly's book for a few photos and some early description.

What was there, though, looked far smaller and more scraggily then what is there now. He did do a ton of clearing for the holes which were and still are real wide. He cleared 22,000 stumps to be exact and the landscape in the beginning was dubbed "Crump's folly". It looked like such a wasteland that even C.B. MacDonald remarked, "Here is the makings of one of the greatest golf courses-if grass will grow".

A far more interesting question would be what would Crump think of the "look" of the course today? Would he like the enclosed look or not? My sense is I have no idea but I feel like he might be pissed that some of his design and its elements are today in the woods.

There isn't anybody around anymore to know what Crump was thinking long term and what he did he put on the ground and not on paper, unfortunately.

Writing with golf architecture really is a wonderful thing and it would be great for  great courses like that to have opened with a comprehenive master plan.

[RJ_Daley]

Tom McW:
I think that when you sculpt out this much to "add" sand and emulate what might be found on a linksland-sandy dunes like sight, it is over the top artificial.  More so when half of it isn't relative to playability.  Cypress was very much like this as a natural site.  (see pictures Shackelford has in his book of places like #8 before and after construction, p145-146).  Though I haven't been to Royal county Down or Shinnicock, I suspect they also are sites that if you dig it, it will blow out and take on the "look" almost by natural process without alot of hand and tool work.  Having just returned from this country's greatest land for natural blowout processes, Sand Hills, NE., one can see if a course designer goes our and roughs out a scarred outline in a hillside or scoop out of a hummock, nature will do the rest and you will get something that looks on the edges relatively like what the picture depicts. Heck, as you drive around cattle grazing country there, you find some of the most natural blow out bunkers you ever saw and it makes you want to take a ball and sand wedge out there and just hit some shots out of the pastures.  But, where bunkers are shepparded into the strategy of design to emulate natural forces is not that free flowing to the point of "eye candy" look we see above.  Like the commerial says, "that ain't natural".  

[Jeff Reel]

OK, no one bit on the name question... but I got a chuckle out of it, here's what their web-site states:

"The seventeenth hole is named Hell's Half Acre. This is a par three that is completely surrounded by two acres of bunkers."

So, shouldn't it be named "Hell's Two Acres"???  

[Mike_Cirba]

Is subtlety a completely lost art?

I have to admit that I am not familiar with Kern's work, and at first glance, Geoffrey C is correct...there is some close resemblance to Rulewich's bunkering.  Or perhaps, Rulewich on speed.

I just visited the course website, and it seems that everything at Purgatory is "overkill".  From the tips the course is 7754 yards, par 72.  From the next set of markers, we get the fun and playable 7268 yards.  The copy boasts that Purgatory is "the longest non-mountain par 72 course".  Super!  Just what we need.  

Does anyone doubt that the first 8,000 yard course by a major architect is coming within the next two years?  Worse yet, does anyone doubt that the course will be heralded by the major publications?    

[Ron Kern]

Thoroughly enjoying the commentary...!

[Steve_Curry]

Tom P.,  I think Crump was either lucky or had tremendous vision to realize the potential of that land given the fact that it was over grown.  I remember crawling around the site of the short course to see what it was going to be like!  
I totally agree that if a constructed feature is in the woods then it has to be brought back, but I also cherish the feeling of isolation felt on each hole.  I can picture the skyline brought back on nine and the left hillside bunkering exposed on 18 and think those would be great.  Also it sounds great to have brought the fairway bunkering on 2 back out of the jungle.  Trees to me are a travesty when they interfere with the look and play of a hole but are important in parkland to give contrast and definition.

Steve

[Steve_Curry]

Ron,  Why the edged bunkers?  For me they create a busy look and must be a costly aspect of the maintenance.

Steve  

[TEPaul]

Steve:

I completely agree with what you say about PVGC and the trees. I too very much like the isolated feeling of the holes (on that course anyway) but that attitude is very unpopular on this particular site.

I also feel that Pine Valley should cut back on some of the shot angles that have come to be encroached on in modern times. They are doing just that as we speak. They are not rushing into anything though.

The point is that they have the room for the perfect compromise. The space between the holes is sufficient to clear out the shot angles and give the course a greater feeling of width and still preserve the isolated hole feeling. If that were done they would uncover some really neat old design features and also some strategies that Crump designed. The perfect candidates are the right side alternate fairway on #17 and the open elbow hole look at #12 (there are beautiful bunkers in them thar woods on the left!). The skyline #9 would be very cool too but might have a bit of a tunnel look to it if they just cleared out behind the hole. Andrew Bernstein thinks they should cut back the trees on the right side of #13 in the approach angle and I disagree on that. It has always been that way and I think that forces the golfer more toward the dangerous left side (Holman's something) and that's good stuff. If you want to bail out way right off the tee you have to hit a fade or a cut or whatever to get back at the hole and you have a problem as you should. If you're way over there you might have a little peek at the left of the green but you're really looking at the bunkering on the left side going into the green which by the way is probably the greatest looking and greatest bunkering I've ever seen in my life.

[T_MacWood]

RJ
So as long as the site is naturally sandy, then bunkering of this type would be appropriate. I'm not familiar with the site, are sure it isn't naturally sandy?

Would you consider the numerous 'Sahara' bunkers that Tillinghast constructed in parkland settings as artificial 'over the top'? What about Thompson's bunkering at Banff in the Canadian Rockies, would that be considered eye-candy?

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