[TEPaul]

These areas are seemingly becoming more prevalent in golf and architecture. Despite that the USGA/R&A Rules of Golf has not defined a "waste area" and has no plans to do so. Consequently, waste areas are considered to be "through the green".

To most golfers waste areas look like bunkers and sort of act like bunkers but they aren't bunkers in the rules. Is it this way because "waste areas" are basically undefined and unmaintained? Or are they?

On the other hand, Max Behr once said that golf began to go down a road towards less natualism and more definition and standardization when the rules of golf began to define various areas as distinct from others in a rules context. Behr felt this simple change in the rules was responsible for the initial change in golf from a sport (a vying with nature as well as a human opponent) to a game (a vying with a human opponent and less with raw nature).

Behr said;

"If we dispose with looking at golf through the binoculars of the rules, the lenses of which are divided by hair-splitting dialectics, we must see that a ball lying upon sand is in no way to be differentiated from a ball lying upon fairgreen or in the rough."

Is there some opportunity to get back down a road to more naturalism in golf and in golf architecture in this interesting situation of unwillingness of the USGA/R&A Rules of Golf to acknowedge a "waste area"?

How did the "waste area" come to be in golf? Apparently it was Pete Dye who created it, perhaps even by accident. Even the etymology of the words or phrase is interesting as regarding how Pete created this somewhat unintentionally? At first Pete called it a "waste bunker" but apparently at some point since it may not have fallen into the USGA/R&A's definition of a "prepared area" they must have told him it wasn't a bunker (and therefore not a "hazard").

[TEPaul]

redanman:

As usual your question is relatively inscrutable. Are you asking me why we should ground our club anywhere "through the green" or are you asking me why we can't ground our clubs in hazards?

[JESII]

Because that's where the ball is.

[TEPaul]

"Why are we allowed to ground our clubs at all?"

redanman:

Believe me, I did realize when I posted this thread there'd likely be a few ridiculous questions and you certainly didn't disappoint. The simple answer to why we're allowed to ground our clubs at all is because the rules have never disallowed that "through the green". The reason why the rules have never disallowed that is obviously because no one ever saw the point and purpose of disallowing it. Not until you came along apparently.

Do you also think it'd be a good idea for the rules of golf to disallow the golfer from touching the ground with his stance??  

Sully:

For Christ's Sake, will you please tell me how on earth the game of golf has come as far as it has if it's had to deal with people like redanman?

[Jeff_Brauer]

I have personally noticed an expanding waist area, but, like me little run in with airport security, when I mentioned that a baby "had a bomb in her diapers" I am not sure we are talking about the same thing.

[Bob_Huntley]

Tom and Bill,

Jack Nicklaus never grounded his club, through the green or anywhere else. Perhaps we would all play better if we did the same.

On the subject of waste areas. We have plenty of them on our Strantz course. Visually stunning, strategically placed and expensive to maintain. I think they are over done, there, I've said it and I expect thunderbolts to be hurled my way.

Bob

Bob

[Norbert P]

I have personally noticed an expanding waist (hee hee!) area,

Jeff, I've run into 'furniture problems' myself - my chest has fallen into my drawers.

[Don_Mahaffey]

IMO, manmade waste areas on the perimeter of golf courses are used by architects who don’t have the skill to tie in with the natural surrounds. The only exception I can possibly imagine is when a course is limited on how much turf can be used and the natural surrounds are too rugged to allow any type of recovery. Other then that I think waste areas are used way to often and are useless, expensive eye candy, and demonstrate a lack of ability on the part of the architect to fit his course with in the land it is built on.  

[TEPaul]

"Doesn't it give one an advantage to ground the club?"

Jeeesus redanman----an advantage over who? If a player and his opponent or all the rest of his fellow competitors can ground their club who's it an advantage to or over? An advantage over what? Of man, the golfer, over nature??  

The rules of golf in the context of the lie of the ball don't even mention anything about advantage----all they speak about is that a golfer must not "IMPROVE" his lie!

As Gary MacCord says; "If you're going to play this game you should know the rules."  

[TEPaul]

BobH:

Do you know why Nicklaus says he never grounded his club "through the green"?

[Anthony_Nysse]

Don,
  Tell Pete that!!

[TEPaul]

Other than have redanman prattle on endlessly about one ridiculous thing or another about advantage or God knows what, the question in the initial thread was;

"Is there some opportunity to get back down a road to more naturalism in golf and in golf architecture in this interesting situation of unwillingness of the USGA/R&A Rules of Golf to acknowedge a "waste area"?"

[TEPaul]

Actually it seems the original "waste area" (Pete initially called it a waste bunker) I believe happened at Crooked Stick (if I heard her correctly) when Pete was trying to get something done around a residential section of the course.

The construction crew couldn't figure out where to drain some disgusting waste water on or off the course so Pete said just drain the stuff right into that area I just mentioned. And so the etymology of "waste" in the context of a "waste area" (or waste bunker) was originally not some wasteland area but an area that actually had waste water drained into it.

[Norbert P]

 TEPaul said "And so the etymology of "waste" in the context of a "waste area" (or waste bunker) was originally not some wasteland area but an area that actually had waste water drained into it."

  I cannot agree with you, Tom, until you present, with burden of proof, that no golf architect used that term prior to Dye. Without checking my Hawtree, Low, Simpson, et al, auld books, I can't imagine that Pete was the first to originate the term and corner the market on its definition.

Consider yourself flogged by glove to a duel.  Textbooks at dawn!

[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

Actually it seems the original "waste area" (Pete initially called it a waste bunker) I believe happened at Crooked Stick (if I heard her correctly) when Pete was trying to get something done around a residential section of the course.

The construction crew couldn't figure out where to drain some disgusting waste water on or off the course so Pete said just drain the stuff right into that area I just mentioned. And so the etymology of "waste" in the context of a "waste area" (or waste bunker) was originally not some wasteland area but an area that actually had waste water drained into it.

It was at Harbour Town...  See page 95 in Pete's bio, "Bury Me in a Pot Bunker."  Here's the section:

The term waste bunker was originated at Harbour Town, but I’m not certain whether I or a member of the construction crew coined the phrase.
   During construction, I was checking the course one day and spotted the local sewer patrol fighting a losing battle with a broken pipe near Harbour Town’s border.  With raw sewage about to pour over the area, I suggested the workers pump it into a long, narrow depression that was to be used for a bunker.  As the waste water filled the bunker, somehow the term waste bunker was born, and it has been used to designate such areas ever since.
   I tried stacking sod strips as bulkheads around bunkers as they do in Scotland, but with little success.  Unfortunately, the sod in our climatic conditions won’t sustain the banks like the fescue grass or the hard sand found in Scotland.
   Maintenance crews on Scottish courses have to replace the sod only every six or seven years, which is cost feasible; replacement here is required every year.  I therefore used weathered boards, telephone poles, and railroad ties to bulk up the various hazards.
   The low country had no streams, hills, or other natural elements necessary to guide the player.  Bunkers and waste areas were positioned to steer golfers in, around and through chutes toward the greens.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
It was actually at Harbour Town not at Crooked Stick that Pete first used that term.  The story is interesting.  Also a  "waste bunker" is defined as a hazard in the rules of golf.  

The term waste area was used long before Pete used the term.  Any area that was left unkept was often classified by some of the old architects as a waste area or waste rough.  I have examples on some old drawings in the notes section with the term used.

Finally, Nicklaus did not ground his club because that was one less rule he needed to worry about  
Mark  

[TEPaul]

" Also a  "waste bunker" is defined as a hazard in the rules of golf."

Mark:

It is? Where is that? Have you seen any definition for "waste area" in the Rules of Golf?

"Finally, Nicklaus did not ground his club because that was one less rule he needed to worry about.  "

What one less rule was that?  

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
No I have not seen a rule regarding waste area.  

Nicklaus didn't ground his club so if the ball moved for example, there would be no penalty.  

[A_Clay_Man]

Bob Huntley, I hope the irony of having a waste area cost too much too maintain, isn't wasted on you or your board. Stop spending a dime and make them "real" areas to be avoided.
Ala, the inside elbow of The twelfth hole at Pacific Grove is a sandy dunesland.  The only time it gets "maintained" is when Mother nature drizzles on her and  the soft footprint challenge is minimized.

As for the original posit, Sure there's an opportunity. Lose the definition of a hazard and throw all the rakes in the garbage.
I wonder if the fear of a lawsuit, from the rake maufactuers, isn't the biggest obstacle to Tom's (or is it Max's?) idea?

[wsmorrison]

The waste area in American architecture did not begin with Pete Dye.  It started with Pine Valley GC and was used subsequently at Merion East (the evolution of the quarry on 16 is an interesting one) and a number of Flynn courses including:

Shinnecock Hills
Kittansett
Boca Raton North
Boca Raton South
Norfolk CC
Atlantic City CC
Sunnehanna
planned for Denver CC
Indian Creek
Opa Locka

Flynn created undulations with hills and hollows in many of these areas referring to them as "undulating sandy wastes."  I don't know how the rules applied to these areas, that would be an interesting finding.  All I refer to with Flynn's work is the architectural element.

[Mark_Fine]

If you look long enough, you will find references even before Pine Valley but the real point is that the term was used long before Pete Dye raised it at Harbour Town.  

[Don_Mahaffey]

Wayne, Mark
Did Flynn's idea of a waste area look anything like the modern waste area?

[TEPaul]

Don:

Flynn's "sandy wastes" (we call them that because that's what he wrote on some of his plans) were constructed. If something is constructed (man-made) or even "prepared" in any way by having soil or turf removed and replaced with sand or the like then it technically becomes a "bunker" and a "hazard" in the rule's opinion of the USGA/R&A. No matter what it looks like, if it fits that definition the Rules of Golf say one must not touch the ground or sand with one's hand or club.

I think you can see the point of some of this when Bob Huntley says the areas designated as "waste areas" at his club are becoming more "prepared" and "maintained" even if they're designated as "waste areas" by the club in which one may ground the club as in "through the green" areas. The point is the USGA/R&A has nothing to say about a club's local designation of a "waste area". At what point in the USGA's eyes does a "waste area" become a hazard or bunker? Obviously, in their eyes it becomes a hazard and bunker when it fits their definition of a bunker--eg " A "bunker" is a hazard consisting of a prepared area of ground, often a hollow, from which turf or soil has been removed and replaced with sand and the like.

At PVGC all sand areas other than areas designated as obstructions (sand roads and the like) are considered to be hazards (and not the more modern version of "waste area" in which some local rules consider to be "through the green").

[TEPaul]

Max Behr's point, quoted in the first post, is far simpler. He felt that whatever the rules require (to ground one's club or not ground one's club) it is more natural (more preserving of the element of naturalism in golf) to make no distinctions between any areas of a golf course---eg they should all be treated the same, as, in a manner of speaking, that's nature's way---she makes no distinctions in these things. Behr felt this continous defining of things in golf, including the initiation of an allowance and prohibition for the lie of the ball depending on the particular area was just another unnecessary attempt at definition, demarcation and standardization that served to take golf in a rules context farther and farther from what he referred to as "Natural Golf". In his mind "Natural golf" was a sport (a vying against Nature) while continous rules and definitions were more of the "game mind of man" (to try to define everything like a tennis court) at which point golf would become more the "game" and less the "sport".

I asked the USGA's Rules department if they planned to consider defining this modern version of the "waste area" in which under "local rule" only, a player can ground his club. They said they had no plans to do that. I also asked them if a golf club could designate all sand areas of a course as "waste areas", particularly if they decided not to maintain them, and they said a committee (a club) had no authority to do that if they fit the definition of a bunker.

What we are attempted to do here is to determine if there is a way in this situation where less definition can be used in a rules context. We feel this may be a way where sand areas can become less maintained regarding "lie" in the future.

To Behr's point, obviously he felt this differentiation went too far as to become almost moralistic---eg hazard=bad or evil, and fairway=good or salvation. Obvously he thought all areas should be treated the same so less definition was possible as well as less moralizing about good and bad areas.

Behr was no fan of constantly encroaching rough and narrow fairways either---he believed in extreme width, and obviously more frequent hazard features within that area (lines of charm) for the golfer to use his intelligence and his own selection to play in front of, over, or to the right or left of.

[wsmorrison]

Mark,

Where in America do waste areas pre-date Pine Valley?  What are earlier examples worldwide?

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