[Patrick_Mucci]

Have architects been sleeping at the switch ?

Surely they've been aware of high tech and the impact on distance.

In light of increased distances, shouldn't fairway bunkers have morphed to substantive vertical hazards rather than limited horizontal hazards ?

Wouldn't this have addressed or paritally addressed the issue of unpunished distance off the tee ?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Pat,

Yes, I agree with your premise and its a great question! However, I recently fell out of competition for a major redo at a prestigious club for answering this question honestly - "Mr. Brauer, don't you think I should be able to reach a par 5 in two shots just as easily from the fairway bunker as I would from the middle of the fairway?"

I just finished an article about course length for Golf Course News.  The sad fact is, as you know, that less than 1% of golfers benefit from the ProvI.  No one else hits it further.  In fact, I have recently seen several courses of the 1970's era which ushered in the 7000/6600/6400/5400 yard standard, now remodel tees because the course is not long enough from the back tees, but also, way too long and difficult from all the rest of the tees for members to play it comfortably. I think the ideal split for todays golf is 7500/6600/6000/5400/4500.

So, the question is, are we not aware, or are we simply choosing to design courses in similar ways, because for most golfers, the game is still too hard and deep fw bunkers like you suggest only make it harder?  From the question above, I don't think tastes have changed towards deeper bunkers that much.

As I once related here, as a 12 year old kid loving gca, my first design philosophy, never with a real chance to be implemented was to use few bunkers, but make the ones I did use really mean something - i.e., be crap your pants deep.  Somewhere along the line, I fell in line, although I do try to vary depth.  I think its still fine with most people to have one or two really deep conversation piece bunkers, but most people would limit it to that, and some would limit then altogether.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff,

Perhaps I didn't phrase or explain what I meant by vertical versus horizontal.

By vertical I meant bunkers that were elongated in nature from tee to green, and not bunkers that tended to be wider then they were long.

For club play, deep bunkers can be overwhelming.


Since the ball is going further, why not make the bunkers pursue their flight through vertical expansion.

[Bill_McBride]

Pat, don't you think it's a function of maintenance cost?  The deeper (the more vertical) the bunker, the more hand maintenance is required and the greater the incremental budget.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bill,

Vertical doesn't mean deeper, it means that the confiugation is elongated, effectively retaining the bunkers strategic function for the longer ball.

[Paul_Turner]

Patrick

Was it the recent Morgan Hill (with its long bunkers) thread that sparked this line of thought?

[Bill_McBride]

Patrick, it's sort of the same thing if the bunkers are substantially larger in order to be enlongated, right?  Although I guess the Bunker Pro keeps costs down.  I just hate to see those concentric mechanical rake lines and the abrasion where the machine enters and leaves the bunker.

Elongation does seem to be the only answer if the bunker is to challenge both the member and the elite player.

[Joe Hancock]

Pat,

Would you consider groupings of bunkers that stretch towards and into the intended landing area to be an implementation of your idea?

Joe

[Forrest Richardson]

You focus on bunkers as if they were the "only" hazard in golf. Certainly there are loads of trouble that our dear golfer can be given besides a pit filled with sand.

[Tony Ristola]

Pat:
Pete Dye had done that for decades, and was copied during the 80's and 90's.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Pat,

Yes, I agree that elongated fw bunkers are needed in many cases.  Unless you build tees half way across the county, a bunker at the 265 or whatever yard marker is going to catch too small a percentage of players.

Its always been kind of like that, just not as much as today.  Another way golfers are similar to their forefathers is that we all generally think bunkering should start about five yards past where we hit the ball, to punish the "long guy."  If we slice, we think the bunkers ought to be primarily on the left, etc.  If we hit grounders from time to time, top shot bunkers are an abomination......

As Forrest says, there are other hazards.  Given the current cost consciousness, I think we will see the 70's style trend come back of trying to predict the most frequent landing zones and using other, non "stop sign" type hazards further down the fw.  Ridges, subtle mounds, deeper rough, etc. can do the same job for less money.

[Forrest Richardson]

Here. Here. It is as if Brauer and I were twins.

[Joe Hancock]

..... subtle mounds, deeper rough, etc. can do the same job for less money.

Jeff,

I agree with the ridges, and as much as I dislike deep rough, I would have to agree there as well. But, I don't think subtle mounding presents anywhere near the shot execution challenge that a bunker can provide, for most players. O, wait...unless we're talking about the shallow, perfectly manicured mamby pamby bunkering.....then subtle mounding is equivalent.

Deep rough is not one of my favorite tools.

Joe

[Bill_Yates]

Forrest and Jeff twins?  Jeff has my sympathies.

For the discussion; it seems to me that cross bunkers could be judiciously used to temper technology.  Have they fallen out of favor?

[Peter Pallotta]

Very interesting thread, and great to get the views of designers and superintendents. My view is that bunker 'maintenance' should be curtailed: make them (or allow them to become) messy and gnarly and pock-marked. The kind of amatuer who doesn't benefit from the ProV1 won't be hurt much more than he already is: he'll just have to blast out and send it down the fairway a few yards, just like he's always done. But the good player WILL be affected, maybe not a great deal but more than is currently the case. Even a fine player bashing a ProV1 is not going to hit it flush/great all the time, and if he lands in a gnarly bunker instead of in a perfectly maintained one, he may still be able to advance the ball, and even all the way to the green for that matter, but he's not going to be able to control the ball the way he does now, and if the bunker is 'bad' enough that ball might get into even more trouble near the green. That's okay in my books - a bunker that causes the good player 'some' trouble instead of 'no trouble at all' is improvement enough (or perhaps all we can expect); and besides I don't think that a player with very good skills should be unduly punished unless he hits a poor shot. In short, yes, maybe lenghten the bunkers a little, but also mess them up (a bunch of teenagers with mountain bikes should do the trick).

Peter  

[Doug Siebert]

Patrick, it's sort of the same thing if the bunkers are substantially larger in order to be enlongated, right?  Although I guess the Bunker Pro keeps costs down.  I just hate to see those concentric mechanical rake lines and the abrasion where the machine enters and leaves the bunker.

Elongation does seem to be the only answer if the bunker is to challenge both the member and the elite player.

Does the sand pro really save money?  Even ignoring the cost of the machines themselves and their fuel, if a course has smaller, well placed bunkers rather than half acre monstrosities, I should think that hand ranking would take about the same amount of time.  Just rake the areas that need to be raked, and leave the rest alone.

Just because a course has 100 bunkers averaging 400 sq ft each doesn't mean you need to rake 40000 sq ft of bunkers.  Based on what I see when playing, you probably only need to rake 1/3 of the bunkers, and most of them would need maybe a minute of touch up.

My home course has about 60 bunkers, maybe ten are larger -- 1000 up to 2500 sq ft.  Probably 1/3 are too small or too deep to be raked by machine.  They use a sand pro to do all those they can, and I have never understood why.  Most of the time they are raking the whole thing to catch the two areas where someone played and didn't rake them, and it takes longer for the guy to drive it in at the proper place, circle around the whole way, then get it back out, versus just driving a carryall to the bunker, grabbing a rake, and touching up the spots that need it.  Worst case is one of the well placed larger bunkers after a drunken outing of casual golfers, maybe it takes 10 minutes to rake it back into shape, or 5 minutes longer than it would take to drive the sand pro through the whole thing.

Someone needs to use a hovercraft as a sand pro, then it wouldn't leave those rake lines and it wouldn't damage the edges entering and leaving the bunker!  Might be kind of loud though

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Get your terms correct or most everyone will remain confused. The "vertical" dimension in golf architecture and as referred to by golf architects has always meant height and depth. The "horiizontal" dimension is considered to be length and width. I should quote you some Max Behr on these terms and their application in architecture--he's awesome.

[wsmorrison]

The long sandy waste areas and elongated bunkers that Flynn used at Boca Raton, Kittansett, Indian Creek, Shinnecock, Atlantic City, Norfolk CC, Denver CC and others provided the longitudinal element that I think Pat is looking for.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

I know what Pat is talking about and it's the dimension of length. He shouldn't call it the vertical dimension because that refers to height and depth. He will probably argue the point for the next five pages even if golf architects have been referring to height and depth as the vertical dimension in golf architecture for about 100 years.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick

Was it the recent Morgan Hill (with its long bunkers) thread that sparked this line of thought?

NO,

I've not read the Morgan Hill thread because I haven't played the golf course and don't want to predispose myself.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

Would you consider groupings of bunkers that stretch towards and into the intended landing area to be an implementation of your idea?


Yes, but not preferable, due to difficulty and cost to maintain.

[TEPaul]

Patrick:

Regarding elongated sand areas would you consider the use of what is being referred to as "waste areas" a good use of what you are talking about that also includes lower maintenance cost (than formal designated "bunkers")?

(Incidentally, the term and designation "waste area" does not exist in the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf. It's considered to be "through the green").

[Patrick_Mucci]

Yes, I agree that elongated fw bunkers are needed in many cases.  Unless you build tees half way across the county, a bunker at the 265 or whatever yard marker is going to catch too small a percentage of players.

As Forrest says, there are other hazards.  Given the current cost consciousness, I think we will see the 70's style trend come back of trying to predict the most frequent landing zones and using other, non "stop sign" type hazards further down the fw.  Ridges, subtle mounds, deeper rough, etc. can do the same job for less money.

None of the above perform the same function as a bunker, especially visually, which is a key element in sending tactical signals to the golfers eye.  

Subtle mounds and deep rough are invisible from a tee 230-300 yards removed.

And, 60-100 yards of continuous mounding can hardly be considered subtle. They also present their own, unique maintainance problems.

GCGC has some long trench bunkers paralleling the fairway on holes # 3 and # 7.  It is these type of bunkers that serve as a viable hazard for every level of golfer.

Wayne Morrison,

TEPaul hasn't gotten past basic architecture 101, thus he's not familiar with the other applications of the words vertical and horizontal when it comes to referencing feature configurations.   Hopefully, he'll graduate to advanced studies in a few years and we will no longer have to speak to him in the simplest of terms.

Sean Arble,

Subtle features in the DZ don't work because they're invisible by nature and definition, and, they don't provide a measurable challenge to the golfer, especially, the long, strong golfer.

[Tim Gavrich]

Maybe we could engineer a little experiment...

Alright, someone needs to hijack and hide all the bunker maintenance equipment at Tobacco Road.  We can leave all those areas alone for 2 weeks, and plot out the areas that receive the most play.  We'd also need to ask players what they thought of the unkempt bunkers (after a few hours of brainwashing and vigorous interrogation).  It could be the beginning of a revolution in bunker maintenance--well, non-maintenance .

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tim, et. al.,

You're all laboring under a false impression.

Bunker maintainance is a function of THE culture of the club.

It has nothing to do with sand pros, hand raking, daily raking, monthly raking, random ranking, or on a need to be raked basis.

It's the culture of the club that sets the policy, not the budget, equipment or labor.

One has to change the culture in order to change the maintainance practice.

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