[Mark_F]

Amongst the few controversial holes at St Andrews Beach, the 10th draws fire because it is a small green on a medium length - 384 metres - par four with, apparently, nowhere to miss.

There is, however, a bunker front right arounde 10-15 yards from the green, as well as two side-rear bunkers, none of which are particularly deep, and allow for more than just a full on blast with a sand wedge to escape.

Is designing a hole so that the best miss is in a bunker fair game?

Are there any other great holes on great courses that have this feature?

I, perhaps obviously, think it is fair game.  But where has the notion that a bunker is for misdirected or poorly played shots, rather than deliberate misses, surfaced from?

[Mark_F]

I am not specifically referring to St Andrews Beach with this query.

I am just interested as to whether any thinks this is a legit tactic.  

Bunkers are normally thought of as a hazard to be avoided, a penalty for a loose shot, but can/should they be employed for the purpose of providing a good miss too?

I think Tom Doak discusses something similar to this in Anatomy of a Golf Course when he describes the 1st at Pinehurst Number two.

Would this be accurate?

[ed_getka]

Mark,
    I don't think a bunker should EVER be a good place to miss, otherwise it is not doing its job IMO. Without having seen the hole you mention I would say my first thought is there is something wrong with it when you can't keep a ball on the green and you are figuring a bunker is the best place to miss. However, it is hard to imagine Tom and Mike designing a hole that can't be played to land on the green.
    I'm too tired after working all day to look at Tom's book, but I look forward to hearing more about why #10 is so controversial.

[Doug Siebert]

Ed,

It doesn't sound to me like Mark is suggesting that the green is so difficult to hit you have to choose where you will miss because you won't hit it, just that it is a small green that is apparently pretty well surrounded by trouble, and the bunkers there are the lesser of the evils when you do miss.  A picture would be nice to have though.


Mark,

I don't see it as a problem at all.  There's more than a few of us who think that bunkers are a better place to miss on many holes as it is anyway, designing that in perhaps a more explicit fashion might unbalance a few people's perceptions, but that can only be a good thing.  I agree with Ed that bunkers are in general not penal enough, at least in the US.  Otherwise I wouldn't wish my ball would go in them instead of deep rough next to them on many occasions!

I think good architecture leaves a broad continuum of difficulties.  You have easy holes and hard holes, easy bunkers and hard bunkers, etc.  When you get people playing formula golf and just thinking "bunkers = bad" and trying to avoid them and not noticing they are ending up in a worse spot because they tried to avoid the bunker, the architect is punishing golfers who don't think, and I'm 100% in favor of that!

[TEPaul]

Mark:

I'm not sure what you're asking.

What do you mean by 'the best miss'?

And then you say this;

“Bunkers are normally thought of as a hazard to be avoided, a penalty for a loose shot, but can/should they be employed for the purpose of providing a good miss too?”

Again, what do you mean by a ‘good miss’? Generally and in a philosophic sense regarding the strategies of golf, bunkers are there to be challenged for a reward. Obviously they’re to be avoided but the ideal in golf is to challenge them, to come as close to them as possible for the thrill of dealing with their existence and placement, and yes danger, and to be rewarded for your success in just avoiding them.

As Max Behr mentioned in his excellent article “The Nature of Penalty" (in golf and architecture), bunkers or other hazard features should be there to encourage the golfer to do his best to take them on, to ‘shoot the bones for the whole works’, as he said. Behr also mentioned that bunkers and other hazard features (penalty areas) should not be there to remind a golfer when he has played badly---that, in Behr’s article, is the job of the golf professional and not the golf architect.

The golf architect should inspire the golfer to do his best, to challenge hazards and penalty situations. That creates greater interest in the game through architecture, and it creates greater interest in the shot at hand and it creates greater exhilaration in the achievement.

According to Behr this is architecture and golf from the positive side and not from the negative side of penalty for punishment’s sake only. To Behr, approaching the concept of hazards as simply penalty areas to punish poor shots is the architect acting too much the role of the “moralist”, and in his opinion that approach would tend to depress the golfer as it only reminds him of his short-comings.

Obviously, it’s clear to see that Behr’s explanations of the correct use of penalty in golf and architecture are somewhat of the “glass half empty/glass half full” type of analogy but given the choice why shouldn't the architect act the part of the optimist rather than the pessimist for the benefit of the golfer---eg to work to inspire optimism and not pessimism in the golfer?  


Some occasionally seem to forget that in the end golf is supposed to be enjoyment and not an eternal penance.

[Joe Hancock]

Wouldn't the answer to the original question be entirely dictated by the capability of each individual golfer?

The only way to really make the premise true is to make the bunker benign....flat, perfectly groomed, no lip, etc. Then most golfers would have options on how to play out.

Joe

[Anthony Butler]

Wouldn't the answer to the original question be entirely dictated by the capability of each individual golfer?

The only way to really make the premise true is to make the bunker benign....flat, perfectly groomed, no lip, etc. Then most golfers would have options on how to play out.
Joe

A combination of things (beyond architecture) can make a bunker a good miss.

1) You are a good bunker player.
2) Likelihood of plugged lie is low
3) Green does not slope dramatically away from player towards pin.
4) Player is not radically shortsiding themselves.

In those terms pretty much any bunker along the sandbelt in Melbourne is a good miss–no matter how deep it is. The Road Hole bunker, on the hand. is not a good miss. And it's very possible that was designed by a bunch of sheep!

[Tom_Doak]

Mark:

Back when I worked for Pete Dye, and Tom Weiskopf was still playing on Tour, Tom grilled Pete one afternoon about the 11th hole at the TPC at Sawgrass and how he thought the original green contours were unfair because a long iron shot could hit a downslope and skip through the green.

Pete replied that Tom should just miss the green hole-high in the bunker on the right and he would make birdie most of the time from there.  Weiskopf clearly thought that was not a legitimate form of design.  Pete hadn't designed the hole with that in mind, but he thought that good players were silly not to employ such a tactic in the interest of returning the best score.

It was nice to be a fly on the wall for such conversations.

[Mark_F]

Generally and in a philosophic sense regarding the strategies of golf, bunkers are there to be challenged for a reward.

The golf architect should inspire the golfer to do his best, to challenge hazards and penalty situations. That creates greater interest in the game through architecture, and it creates greater interest in the shot at hand and it creates greater exhilaration in the achievement.

Tom Paul,

The above quote encapsulates exactly what I mean.  

Insofar as the hole I am talking about is concerned, missing in a bunker has a reward in that you have a relatively simple bunker shot, as opposed to a 50 yard pitch back up a steep slope.

Wouldn't that in itself be a reward?

If a bunker is always used to direct or challenge play, but then twisted around on a hole or two to provide almost the opposite, doesn't that also stimulate enjoyment and interest?

We can't always be optimists.  Even tour players don't hit any more than 75% of GIR.

Tom Doak

That's a fantastic example of what I was trying to get at.

[Tom_Doak]

Mark:

On that hole in particular, you shouldn't be trying to miss in the bunker -- the bunkers are an even smaller target than the green -- but you should be attacking the right half of the green instead of playing out to the "undefended" side on the left which results in a much more difficult up-and-down.

Part of it's just psychological, most people see the open area on the left and just lean that way.  That's why I seldom bunker greens to both sides, I like to get players leaning.

[Anthony Butler]

Mark:

On that hole in particular, you shouldn't be trying to miss in the bunker -- the bunkers are an even smaller target than the green -- but you should be attacking the right half of the green instead of playing out to the "undefended" side on the left which results in a much more difficult up-and-down.

Part of it's just psychological, most people see the open area on the left and just lean that way.  That's why I seldom bunker greens to both sides, I like to get players leaning.

But which way will they lean, Tom?

Depending on the penal nature of the bunkers and each golfer's respective short game skills, I imagine the answer could be either way, especially after they know which side of the green favors their preferred recovery shot. At least you have expanded their options... miss a green at Winged Foot West on either side and 8 times out of 10 you'll have a bunker shot where you can't see the bottom of the flagstick.

BTW-You are right about the 11th at TPC... Sergio and others were taking deam aim at the pin on the right side of the green today because the only thing they had to worry about is the occasional soft lie in the bunker.

[Dan Moore]

Bunkers are often used to avoid much more penal fates for weaker players that have problems controlling their shots.  An example is a bunker that protects against bounding down an enbankment into a forest. Another is one that protects against entry into a water hazard.  So yes I think a bunker can be used strategically to provide an option for a missed shot that serves a legitimate purpose of not overly penalizing a weaker player.  Where the problem comes in is when the bunker is intentionally used by the better player to obtain an advantage to protect against missing somewhere that is more penal.  After seeing Adam Scott and Tiger having problems today from grassy knolls (I mean knobs) you have to wonder why they aren't used more often these days.

[jim_lewis]

It may just be semantics, but I say that a shot hit deliberately into a bunker is not a "miss". Neither is it that unusual for a good bunker player. I do it fairly often. At my club there are a few long par fours that I have trouble reaching in two shots if I don't hit a good drive. If the pin is tucked behind a bunker, I would rather play my third shot from the sand than leave a short pitch over the bunker. Besides, "sandies" pay better. In that situation, I consider it a "miss" if I don't hit the bunker. I get a shot from my opponents on most of those holes, and the worse I am likely to make from the bunker is a bogey, net par, which just might win the hole. On a related topic, this just illustrates that "strategy" is more often defined by the player and the situation than by the architect.

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