[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Where there's a WILL, there's a WAY.

Where there is no WILL, daily beatings can change that.  

Rich Goodale,

Then you'd be disappointed in GCGC, on which many neat bunkers have somehow had the rough come out to meet and surround them.

You'd also be disappointed with the abandonment of a wonderful, huge, trench or coffin bunker on # 7, where the rough has been allowed to engulf it, almost to the point of making it unfindable and unrecognizable to most golfers.

Yet, the cost to recapture it would be minimal and the benefits for its re-introduction...... tremendous

[A_Clay_Man]

Texture texture texture!

At Banff, the course is built on relatively flat ground, save for the cauldron. Understanable since the sharp up thrusted rock outcrops (mountains) are in such close prox.

The fairway bunkering was superb and a majority of it was built-up onto the land. These moundish type features all had some hairy nastiness to them, and most of it, was green. The added grasses length gave the complexes texture, for the eye, and a greater satisfaction when challenged and negotiated successfully. Just ask Jefferey Goldman.

Also: in keeping with randomness and unpredictability principles, perhaps courses (supers) could distinguish between the bunkers entrances that can handle both the maintenance issue and the playability issue and come to some form of compromise. At the least it would take away from any standard presentation, offering variety in both visuals and play.

[Kelly Blake Moran]

Andy Hughes,

I am not certain where you live and if you can visit examples first hand but the first example where I have done it is a green side bunker where the fairway is up to the sand on the 5th hole at Laurel Links on Long Island.  Probably the best example will be on a course I have under construction where fairway will meet sand on the majority of bunkers, although the course will only have about 37 bunkers.  I have a picture of the 5th at LL and if I have time to figure out how to post a picture I will do.  It makes persent sense from a strategic sense, and if you research the maintenance ramifications, debate it among the experts, you'll never do anything like this, I mean you ask a few people and you get all these reason why it might not work, what the problems could be, and so on, and really you just have to do these things for yourself and see how it plays out, I mean I hate to say it publically but certain elements that are introduced on a client's course are experimental because most people do not fully understand the ramifications of things like this either because it is rarely done or they have no clue what you are talking about.  If you believe in it and give it reasonable thought, maybe consult a few trusted people, then you must act, because if you depend on members, clients, superintendents or committees to give you direction you will never grow your design ideas, you'll just fall into a comfortable, conservative rut, you might as well ask the three blind mice when it is safe to cross the street.

[Jim Thompson]

There is one real world reason for it, although I wonder if it is ever intentional.  In the world of golfers who are given carts the edge or corner of a bunker becomes a point of greater traffic and rough takes the localized beating / wear better than fairway.  I must say we maintain the "forward" edge, that which regularly faces the origin of the line of play as narrow and short and narrow as possible, while keeping the outer sides flared out to bear the traffic.

I wish the GP would fall in love with golf again and abandon this game of chase.  But the GP does pay the enough of the tab to keep the game affordable for the rest of us.

Something to think about...

If the sand of the bunker were still maintained as a hazard, we wouldn’t need excess rough and slope to make the bunker a scary feature.  Where’s C.B.’s troop of Cavalry when we need them???

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