Changes in Bunker Maintenance at Shinnecock Hills GC

[wsmorrison]

The two photos posted below of the 6th hole at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club demonstrates the difference between intent and practice.  Initially, Flynn deliberately had plantings and undulating sandy waste areas that were to evolve much like the waste areas at Pine Valley and Atlantic City CC previously and Boca Raton South and Indian Creek later on.  BRS is NLE but the maintenance practices at all the other courses have changed in the same general direction with Pine Valley the best holdout.

The first photo was taken in 1938 (courtesy of C.D.) and the second was taken from Terraserver and represents the course in the mid 1990s.





 

[TEPaul]

From Adam Jessie's "Looking for All Stars in England" thread;

"Adam Jessie, I've heard some very fine things about you! There're some people on here who can probably give you some great answers to the questions you're asking them on this thread but you should give some of these contributors on here some pointers on what maintaining really cool bunkering and such on one of the great courses in the world is all about. All of us on here could use more education on something like that.

Here's what I'd like to see you do Adam. Either tell Mark you're going to do this and then go do it or else don't tell Mark you're going to do it and just go do it on your own anyway. First go get a copy of Geoff Shackleford's book "The Golden Age of Golf Design", turn to page 109 which is the aerial of Shinnecock in 1938. Turn the book so page 108 is pointing down and page 109 is pointing up---carefully analyse all that sand area on the left and right of #5 that looks like a big scorpion from the air and all the area on #6 that looks like a big scorpion from the air with its right claw pulled off as well as that cool 15 bunker set on #8 that is presently only a few bunkers. Once you've completely committed the sand look on those holes to memory I want you to go out there and pull about two acres of vegetation out so those areas look just like they do in that 1938 aerial!!

Once you've done that come back on here and ask me what England's PV is, what England's Oakmont is or what England's Prarie Dunes is and I'll gladly tell you!

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

I'm going to post the picture comparisons you mentioned, first I've got to drive the boys to school.  They missed their bus.

[wsmorrison]

#5 1938



#5 1990s



#8  1938



#8 1990s



#16 1938



#16 1990s

[Patrick_Mucci]

Wayne,

It would seem that the survivability of the plantings is solely dependent upon Mother Nature and that perhaps the difficulty in maintaining these island like plantings was responsible for their demise.

[wsmorrison]

Pat,
I think you're right about the cost of maintenance being a prohibitive factor, especially after the depression.  But something tells me that they could do it today with a little convincing.  Tom Paul and I have discussed this with David Goddard, the club historian.  He is incredibly knowledgable about the architectural history and the membership history.  Mark Michaud knows the added cost to maintaining some of the areas as undulating sandy waste as they once were.  What's wrong with having a team (plenty of interns at some points of the year) just get in there and hack away?  Heck, I'd volunteer one weekend a year to help with the effort.

In any case, there's a lot of lost hazard space (short of the pond on 6 for instance) but suprisingly little difference on 16 though this was the first hazard area to be altered in the 1930s.  Flynn's original plan was to have a sandy waste area much like HHA, it was then modified to have interrupted fairways with a smaller bunker field.  As you can see in the photos, the bunker scheme on 16 is relatively consistant but fairway expanses are dramatically different in nearly every case.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Wayne,

Lack of water may be the inherent problem.
And, the cost to get it there, to such small areas, would be prohibitive.

[wsmorrison]

"Lack of water may be the inherent problem"

Not on 6    I'm not sure I understand why this is may be the significant reason for the formalization and loss of certain waste areas.  

I think it is more a matter of time and effort required for upkeep.  However, in relation to southern climes where Bermuda and other grasses are much more aggressive, the NE isn't nearly as bad, or so I've been told.

[Andy Hughes]

Wayne
Looking at your pictures (thanks by the way!), it seems that 16 used to have fairway bunkers that actually intruded into the fairway, whereas now the bunkers are in the rough. Is that accurate, and has that happened to many of the bunkers there?
Andy

[wsmorrison]

Andy,

They certainly were drawn that way at one point, although a later iteration didn't have it all the way across but did indicate an interrupted fairway.  The coloration difference you see in the middle of the fairway may be due to a natural depression in that very area.  

I can't locate some of my older aerial photos of Shinnecock to see how it was constructed, maybe Tom Paul is better organized.  The construction era ground photos I did locate are from the tee on 16 and the height of the shot does not show the area between the fairways very well.

[Tony Ristola]

Towards formailty for a few reasons:

Augusta National...they, like the keepers of many links (Birkdale for example) saw Augusta on TV and forgot all about their roots, and what made them special.  The fed and watered to achieve The Green and Formal is good school of maintenance.

Polish everything...isn't it human nature to have things clean and polished...it's also easier to measure if someone is doing their job.  With time, you can forget about your roots, and evolve towards something else.

Could be due to reduced resources from the war, but wouldn't ragged be easier to maintain on the large sandy wastes? And easier to restore when the club had funds?  Then again, it would have been easier to just mow the areas which grew in...hence shrinkage of waste areas.

Bunker reduction could have been the result, like on 8, of the need to reduce maintenance.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Wayne,

How would you get the water to the individual plants without affecting bunker conditions, on # 6 and elsewhere ?

[SL_Solow]

Pat; doesn't that depend on the nature of the plants?  I am ignorant with respect to the species which would be used at Shinnecock.  When we remade our bunkers, several were enlarged and islands of vegetation were established.  Longer grasses native to the plains (we are in the Chicago area) were used which exist on rainfall in the wild.  After a some hand watering during the grow in stage, they are doing very well.  The look can be somewhat scruffy but that was the intent.  Admittedly, the amount of space covered does not compare to that considered in the pictures shown.

[Craig Disher]

Wayne,
What is that large circular area to the left of the small fairway bunker nearest the green on #16? Do the drawings indicate that it is a raised mound - or a natural depression? The recent photo doesn't show it clearly nor does the photo of 16 from the course profile.

[TEPaul]

Pat, what the hell are you talking about? They don't need to get water to vegetation in what used to be those sand waste areas, what they need to do is start ripping out most of the vegetation and formality that's already there in those defined rough/bunker areas and return it to the rougher sand waste look Flynn actually constructed. That kind of vegetation does just fine on Nature's own irrigation. What do you think would happen to that ground if the club decided to just walk away tomorrow and leave it? Do you think the course would turn into some kind of Sahara Desert? Of course not, the course would begin to vegetate over with tough plant life. What they need to do is not water it but rip out some of that vegetation that they've now sort of formalized. How do you think Flynn constructed that area in the first place? He obviously ripped out vegatation and sort of undulated that ground probably not unlike what they origianally did in HHA at PVGC!

[T_MacWood]

What year did Dick Wilson return to Shinnecock? Is he responsible for formalizing of the bunkers...they remind me of his early work (NCR and Meadow Brook)?

[TEPaul]

Dick Wilson returned to Shinnecock in the early 1960s. We have a report that includes some of his recommendations, what was done and not done from it. The devolution of those sand waste areas was not Wilson, it appears to be more neglect that resulted from lack of understanding of what they were or that Flynn actually made them for a purpose. Their devolution was also the result of maintenance between 1934 and 1948 that was so minimal as to have almost threatened the entire integrity of the golf course (according to Shinnecock's historian).

[Jeff_Lewis]

Great stuff, Wayne.  A phenomenon repeated all over.  

[wsmorrison]

"How would you get the water to the individual plants without affecting bunker conditions, on # 6 and elsewhere ?"

Pat,
How do they do maintain plants in bunkers at Merion and elsewhere?  I think these are hardy plants that don't require their own Japanese gardeners to carefully maintain each plant.  I think it best to let nature take its course.  Also important in the look and playability of the bunkers is the less-defined bunker edging and undulating bases of the hazard areas.  I wouldn't have any rakes anywhere around them either though that would be hard to get accepted.  I'd keep the surrounds irregularly defined by mounds and margin grasses.  I know there are some issues as to where the hazard begins and ends but I think that is a surmountable problem.
 
 

[wsmorrison]

"Wayne,
What is that large circular area to the left of the small fairway bunker nearest the green on #16? Do the drawings indicate that it is a raised mound - or a natural depression? The recent photo doesn't show it clearly nor does the photo of 16 from the course profile."

Craig,
The topo map of Flynn's final plan of the course that shows a circular depression (natural?) that is about 4 feet deeper than the fairway height just preceeding it.  This depression also appears on the topo map Flynn had made of the grounds prior to his designs that shows the Macdonald/Raynor holes.

[wsmorrison]

Tom MacWood,

Tom Paul is correct about Dick Wilson returning in the 1960s.  We have a letter dated Aug 31, 1964 from Wilson to the Green Committee at Shinnecock that describes the bunker work that he and Joe Lee proposed.  Interesting to note that Wilson wanted to remodel the 11th green saying it was too difficult for the poorer player and that a shot a few feet off line would wind up nearly unplayable.  Good thing they didn't do that!

[SPDB]

Leaving aside for a minute, the playability from the hazard.

To intentionally mix a metaphor - if a bunker formalizes but still presents the same risk to the player trying to avoid it, did the hazard evolve (and did it make a sound)?

[TEPaul]

I don't know what's become of this young Adam Jessie (who I've heard such good things about). Perhaps he's afraid to reappear on here because we're being a bunch of "old architecture revealing" maniacs but if he does reappear and since he does work on Shinnecock's bunkering among other things, I have the following proposal for him.

That would be that Wayne and I organize at least two or three dozen fanatic GOLFCLUBATLASERS and in the spring time when the moon is full, we'll all marshall below the clubhouse, Adam Jessie will lead us to holes #5, #6 and #8 and we'll proceed to annihilate the vegetation and formalized bunkering on those holes and by morning have it all returned to the look on those 1938 aerials.

At that point we'll all hide like belly-crawling Marine Recons and take a few digital photographs of the looks of stunned intimidation on the faces of the first golfers who stand on those tees and face all that sand waste area that looks like scorpion claws and such!

At that point we'll all cross over the road and run screaming around NGLA and startle the hell out of Bill Salinetti and his maintenance crew and eventually vanish to whence we all individually came!

Are you with me Boys?

[TEPaul]

I'll even inspire you further! We will be considered a virtual research and restoration swat team and we will henceforth be known as;

"The Architectural Recons and Deformalizers"!

[wsmorrison]

I'm in.  Can we do an amphibious assault?  A beach landing would be cool!  Of course, we'll have to crawl a ways to get to Shinnecock, but we're tough in the The Architectural Recons and Deformalizers!