Royal Melbourne bunkering

[Tim Taylor]

I remember watching the 1998 President's Cup at Royal Melbourne and being intrigued by the way some of the deep bunkers had very hard walls and the balls would always funnel down to the fluffy sand at the floor of the bunker. I've never seen a course like this. Is this a common Mackenzie technique? Where else has it been utilized?

TimT

[Chris Kane]

Tim,

Those bunkers have become a standard feature of the sandbelt (inspired by the success of the ones at RMGC).  Characterised by very hard walls and fairly bare lies, even when in the middle of the trap.  The lies in the middle generally aren't too fluffy at all: golfers from elsewhere have been known to have difficulty adapting to them.

There are some olds threads on this board (dating back to January when the Heineken Classic was at RMGC) debating the merits of this bunker system.  Have a look in the archives.

I don't know if its a common MacKenzie technique, although photos I've seen of his other courses suggests that he builds his bunkers in a similar style.  I don't know if they're all maintained the RMGC way though.

[Peter Goss]

I would contend there are a number of subsets to Melbourne sandbelt bunkering, ranging from the Metropolitan heavily manicured look to the much more rugged Kingston Heath look with variations of the theme in between.
Those of you who own Paul Daley's magnificant book "The Sandbelt" should try flicking open a page and not orientate yourself to the particular hole from memory but rather guess the course from the bunkering. It is not that difficult to recognise a style very quickly.
Should we be talking about subsets of styles rather than the generic "sandbelt" term?
 I think the variation between sandbelt course bunkering provides a very healthy  contrast, but I particularly love the KH style.

[Matt_Cohn]

TimT,

If you have a few minutes, look back to about 6 or 7 weeks ago, at least...there was a pretty in-depth thread about sandbelt bunkers, how they are built and maintained, and the possibility for building them elsewhere. Tom Doak had a post or two in that thread.

[TEPaul]

Whatever you fellows are doing with your golf courses down in the sandbelt is impressive to me!

Some of us here in the US Northeast have talked about some of the maintenance features you do down there like the green surfaces seemingly melding into the greenside bunkering and such!

However, many to most of our supers seem to say that's a "no can do" here! I haven't exactly figured out why though! We'll figure out how to do it one of these years, I hope, or something similar enough but in the meantime we have bigger obstacles to deal with like how to generally firm up some of our courses around here!

[Tim Taylor]

I suspect part of the reason that some supers don't like greens that "meld" into the bunkers is because it makes it hard to drive riding mowers in there to cut the greens and the collars.

The only course that I've played in the past few years where you could literally putt off the green and into a bunker was Cuscowilla.

Just one of the many things I loved about that course.

TimT

[johnk]

This topic is an illustration of how TV and "signature"
architect styles can affect everyone's course set up and
strategy.

In the US, the predominant idea of how bunkering
should look derives a lot from Fazio, Augusta, Nicklaus
type courses.  Non-descript PGA tour white circles
around the green are what people expect.

If everyone watched Australian tour golf here every
week, we might have different ideals.

At my home course, Shorline GL in Mt. View, bunkers
that were getting quite deep and generally tan have
been mostly rebuilt into shallow, circular, puffy white
saucers.   There were some maintenance issues
with the old shapes, and for a muni, some were a bit
severe, but they had way more strategic and visual
impact than the redesigned bunkers.

It's really no use complaining, since the majority of
people think the new ones look better.  To me, they
recall snow white blobs at Shadow Ridge or Bali Hai.

The only saving grace is that I do own "The Sandbelt"
and will be in Melbourne in two weeks!  Still trying
to arrange a game at RM-west, however

[Matt_Cohn]

Just a quick bit to add,

Chris is right - I mean, shouldn't he be?! - sandbelt bunkers are not fluffy at all! They are difficult to get used to coming from the States. It's just a thin, very settled, dense layer of sand...you get the feeling that you're clipping just a little bit of sand from under the ball. It's hard to think of greenside bunker shots here as "explosions!"

[Glen_Fergo]

The bunkers at both Royal Melbourne courses are attributed to the first greenkeeper, Claude Crockford.

The bunkers were done with horse and scoop. Hence the hard walls. There is then no problem withwash away of sand in heavy rain or plugged balls in the faces. With the depth of the bunkers and always quick greens ( they usually fast to frightening) there doesn't need to other qualities.

Also because they on the sandbelt you just need to dig a hole to find replacement sand.

[Mike Clayton]

Glen
The first greenkeeper at Royal Melbourne was Mick Morcom and it was he who did most of Mackenzie's work.
Claude Crockford took over when Morcom retired