[Matt_Ward]

One of the things I noticed on my recently concluded mountain time zoe trip was the practice of inserting sage bushes and other items within the confines of a hazard.

I think this aspect is long overdue because far too often when you play out of perfectly manicured clean-as-a-whistle bunker the penalities -- short of a plugged lie or steep face --really do not exist. It's simply an inconvenience of a minor sort.

I'd like to suggest that hazards include separate items which are there to interfere and cause mental anguish for the player contemplating in dealing with such items when playing.

I visited for the second time Rochelle Ranch in Rawlins, WY (a separate thread will follow) and I can recall several bunkers where architect Ken Kavanaugh included the items in question that I just referenced.

A good example being the gigantic fairway bunker at the long par-5 6th hole. Those players tempting fate need to realize that landing in this huge bunker are not guaranteed of a clean lie, stance or even that such a lie may even be playable.

Frankly, I'm not advocating such a situation be repeated in every single instance but I do believe that the role of bunkers needs to use all tools that an architect can provide.

Be curious as to the thoughts of others who have sampled such a design ingredient.

Thanks ...

[Tom_Doak]

Matt:

How did you feel about them taking all the broom bushes out of the bunkers at Merion?  That was the first example I ever saw.  And of course, there are lots at Pine Valley.

[Matt_Ward]

Tom:

It truly saddens me.

Unfortunately, I have found that far too often the people advocating the removal are the better players because they believe that total fairness must apply when landing in such locations.

That is simply nonsense IMHO.

A hazard is not a guarantee of anything except uncertainty.

If one wants certainty then they should have stayed on the fairway where the odds increase on the player's side.

I doubt what I am advocating would be included on many public courses -- but I can remember the clumps and other items of this type one could find at the former Bethpage Black layout before they "cleaned" up everything.

Architects need to keep this tool at their disposal and make the meaning of hazards be exactly what it represents.

[wsmorrison]

Tom D,

The broom bushes (I didn't know that's what they are) are currently in some of the bunkers at Merion.  They are in the bunkers fronting the greens on 10 and 13 as well as the bunker on the left fairway on 18.  Of course there are hazards galore in the quarry fronting 16 green.  At one time the quarry was mowed grass, at another time fully sanded and in its present state with bunkers, sandy waste areas, Scottish Broom (brilliant gold in Spring) and other vegetation.  This was probably done after Wilson and Flynn completed the final 4 holes at Pine Valley (12-15) in 1921 prior to the 1924 Amateur at Merion.  The influence of PV is evident in the way the quarry is maintained.

[JESII]

Matt,

Why are you not condemning the "perfectly manicured clean-as-a-whistle bunkers" that eliminate the intended penalty that hazard was supposed to bring in the first place? Planting shrubbery in bunkers seems like overkill to me, but not because of a fairness concern.

[Doug Braunsdorf]

To take this a step further, what about if a golfer is in a bunker, and has a tree to contend with on the shot as well?  

JES II, one specific example you would know of would be the fairway bunker at HVCC-Toomey #2.  

When I played, I was in the bunker, and my wedge to the green nicked a branch coming out and came up short.  I shouldn't have been in the bunker in the first place, admittedly.  

What do you think?  

[Kyle Harris]

Doug,

In that instance did you feel forced into that particular trajectory based on the green contour and hole location?

Why not hit a lower shot?

[JMorgan]

Brahms prolix

[Doug Braunsdorf]

Doug,

In that instance did you feel forced into that particular trajectory based on the green contour and hole location?

Why not hit a lower shot?

Redanboy,

  I was trying to keep it lower; I had 40 yards or so, and was trying to shoot something out with 52 deg wedge that would land 5 yards or so short and scurry back to the hole location.
It came out too high--I admit that.  Hindsight, maybe try to clip a little 8 or something, but then there's the danger of going over, which I didn't want to do either.  

  But I had no business being in there in the first place--had I hit my fair-way ir-on shot more crisp  

[Mike_Cirba]

Matt,

Are you sure this Ken Kavanaugh fellow is related to that other guy?  

Wayne,

Some of the grasses have been re-added at Merion, albeit in a bit too hair-transplanted fashion for my taste, but I think Tom Doak is talking about the gorse that used to live in a number of bunkers, such as the ones that adjoined the 14th green, or some up around the right side of the 10th fairway.  I'm pretty sure those don't exist any more, although I'm hoping you can show me differently.    

[Ryan Farrow]

If vegitation is introduced to a bunker I feel it needs to be done right. What I mean by not right is a single shrub planted in the middle of the bunker. Some effort needs to be made to make it look natural where the vegitation continues out of the bunker and into the rough

[TEPaul]

Matt:

This is a good thread---eg "hazards within hazards" (broom and such planted in the sand surfaces of sand bunker hazards).

JES asks you why you don't just condemn the cleaning up and sanitizing of the sand surfaces of modern bunkers compared to the old days. I think I can probably answer that. It's because any campaign to make sand surfaces of bunkers today more penal, more iffy and less raked and maintained is just a lost cause these days to the mindset of consistency and fairness. The last great golf course in America to basically not rake the sand surfaces of their bunkering was Pine Valley and in the last 6-8 years unfortunately even that changed there.

I have no problem at all philosophically with broom or grass of that type within bunkering---it merely adds to the "iffiness" of the potential for recoverying from a bunker in the mind of any golfer, philosophically that's a good thing to put upon them, in my mind.

But I'm going to ask something and propose something here;

What is considered to be the sum total and the dimensions of a bunker? Is it only the sand surface or are the grass surrounds included too, particularly the grass faces?

The reason I ask that is there are a number of bunkers today that are forcing that question and perhaps the best examples are the new bunkers of Merion East.

What I mean by that is the grass surrounds, particularly the grass faces are now about ten times more potentially penal than the sand surfaces of those bunkers.

Is that acceptable?

In my mind it most certainly is, particularly since golf today seems to insist on fair and consistently maintained sand surfaces in bunkering.

[ForkaB]

The troubles with hazards within hazards are twofold.

Firstly, by significantly increasing the risk of hitting the ball into the hazard (who wants to take an unplayable from some broom?) you tend to take that hazard out of play, reducing the strategies available to the golfer.

Secondly, it looks ugly and unnatural--gorse bushes just do not grow in pits of sand in the wild, at least in what I have seen.

[TEPaul]

"The troubles with hazards within hazards are twofold.
Firstly, by significantly increasing the risk of hitting the ball into the hazard (who wants to take an unplayable from some broom?)"

Ricardo the Magnifico:

I do and I have. Matter of fact by doing so it created one helluva Rules flap.

It was in one of the later matches of the Philly Amateur one time and I hit my tee shot on the 8th hole at Philly CC into one of those huge broom things in the middle of a bunker that the club affectionately called "Simpsons" (after Bart Simpson's hair).

My opponent was a guy from the Atlantic City CC that ironically used to have those things in their bunkers.

We'd just had a real Rules flap about two holes previous and things were sort of less than back-slapping cordial at that point.

I told him I was going to take an unplayable and drop my ball behind the bunker keeping the spot in the Simpson between me and the hole.

He said that I couldn't drop a ball BEHIND the bunker because my ball was in the bunker. I said it wasn't in the bunker because any grass covered area in a bunker is not considered to be part of the bunker.

He said of course it is becaue that Goddamned Simpson was right in the middle of the bunker.

I said I didn't give a damn where it was in the bunker because grass covered ground anywhere in a bunker is not considered to be in a bunker.

Well we weren't arriving at any consensus and another match was coming up behind us so he suggested I hit a second ball and we could resolve the issue later.

I said you can't hit a second ball in match play and he said of course you could and it was done all the time. I said I didn't give a damn if he or others he knew did it all the time it wasn't allowed in the Rules but he insisted it was.

And so to keep things going I said; "Look Ace, it's not allowed in the Rules but if you, my opponent, are asking me to do it to keep things going then fine I will hit a second ball", and I did.

When we came around to #10 we reported all those facts to the "committee" and they rolled their eyes in amazement and set about pow-wowing over all that. They told us to just keep going and they'd call the USGA and report the resolution later in the match.

I ended up beating that guy, but they really didn't do anything about that entire situation.

Of coruse I had every right to use the Unplayable Rule the way I did out of the Simpson in that bunker but the second ball things remained hazy and got just dropped.

I suppose the correct ruling should have been lose of hole to me for hitting a second ball in match play even if I did it only because my opponent insisted on it to keep things going or perhaps even the DQing of both of us since he asked me to hit that second ball and I agreed thereby both of us agreeing to waive a rule of golf which is DQ to both players.

They took those Simpsons out of the bunkers at PCC and I'm sorry they did because now players don't have the opportunity to go through all that crap that I did with that player from ACC in the Philly AM.  

[Paul Payne]

One of my all time favorite small courses is the Highland course in Aiken SC (Also known as Aiken CC). It is a great old course with wonderful greens which makes a nice pairing with the Palmetto located about a mile away.

There they use a lot of what I believe is called "Pampas grass". It is a grass thet grows in tight tall tufted bunches and is very attractive. They have successfully used this throughtout the course in fairway bunkers and waste bunkers. I think their use of this grass is not only attractive and natural looking but it adds to the danger of the bunkers. Given that it is a fairly short course (6300 yds) it certainly helps defend the course as well.

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Any  variation on the theme or variety is exemplary in my book. Not only gorse or broom but also old tree stumps or bedrock have also appeared in sand bunkers.

An interesting rules case and another great yarn from TEPaul.

What would the case be if the sand area is a « waste area » infrequently raked with a  few weeds growing now and then – would it officially NOT be a sand bunker according to the rules of golf.

[TEPaul]

John C-S:

Interestingly, the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf do not recognized this thing that some people call a "waste bunker" even if a rather healthy number of clubs and courses now put them on their score cards as a "local" condition or designation.

And even more interestingly and following an query about that on my part to the USGA Rules Committee recently, they don't plan to recognize or define such a thing within the Rules of Golf any time soon.  

[TEPaul]

John C-S:

And even more interestingly, why do you suppose all these clubs and courses put that "local" condition or designation known as the "waste bunker" or "waste area" on their scorecards, even if they all obviously know the Rules of Golf does not contemplate such a thing?

Well, obviously it's to let people know that there are areas (and generally some very very large ones) out there that look like bunkers, feel like bunkers, smell like bunkers, and probably play like bunkers too but they aren't really bunkers despite all that.

But why do they need to let golfers know all that? For the simple reason golfers need to know that they can ground their club in them because even though the R&A/USGA doesn't recognize or define them per se what they actually are in the Rules are "through the green" areas where one can ground one's club before a stroke.

And why do you suppose one can ground one's club in something that looks like a bunker, feels like a bunker and smells like a bunker, plays like a bunker and essentially is a bunker in everything other than name, definition or designation?

Well, obviously because all these clubs and courses that have them understand there is no way in hell they can rake those sand areas or afford to rake them daily and keep them perfectly maintained like actual bunkers. And we all know, at this point, that not raking bunker sand areas and also not allowing golfers to ground their clubs in them simply IS NOT DONE MY DEAR! That would be far too unfair, far too unstandardized and far too inconsistent.  

[Matt_Ward]

Rich:

You missed my point -- I am not talking about having an arboretum planted within the confines of a bunker. I'm just suggesting that the 100% all the time clean and manicured look needs to be a bit altered -- especially on short holes where the distance equation is less so.

Having brush grow within the confines of a hazard is acceptable -- ditto the desire to decrease the size of certain points within a bunker that will effect stance and lie.

JES II:

C'mon man - get real. Better players always howl about fairness when dealing with hazards -- it's like they want everything to be on their side.

When did the words "fairness" and "hazard" become linked in some sort of partnership ?

The issue is that better players are the ones who usually play a heavy hand in what happens at many clubs and from my own direct experiences I can see where bunkers today are nothing more than impotent ornaments that dot the landscape.

The fierce nature of what they should be doing is lost.

One other thing -- when players today have at their disposal such clubs as 60 and 64 degree wedges the issue of what a hazard should be doing is rendered obsolete. Give a decent player anywhere near half a lie and the opportunity to up and down the shot is a very high percentage one.

I'm not suggesting that bunkers be filled with all sorts of brush or be unraked to the point of looking like a child's bedroom -- yet bunkers today need to be what the original courses in Ireland & UK meant for them to be.

I also believe that stances need to be influenced by what a bunker is about. Too many bunkers are the huge circle situations where all lies and stances are the same.

That is rubbish.

Stances should be effected by certain positions within the bunker. The Kavanaugh layout at Rochelle Ranch features such situations and I am speaking about a public course that is open to the masses. There's plenty of room to avoid them and like a rattlesnake that inhabits the Wyoming landscape they should be heeded with caution.

Bethpage Black used to feature these items and you ginergly avoided such bunkers because of what they can do to you the player.

[JESII]

So you're saying it's better to have a freakin' scotch broom in your face when in a greenside bunker than to have an unmaintained sand surface? What's random about that? Do you have any idea what these things look like after 10 years or so?

[JESII]

To take this a step further, what about if a golfer is in a bunker, and has a tree to contend with on the shot as well?  

JES II, one specific example you would know of would be the fairway bunker at HVCC-Toomey #2.  

When I played, I was in the bunker, and my wedge to the green nicked a branch coming out and came up short.  I shouldn't have been in the bunker in the first place, admittedly.  

What do you think?  

Doug,

I would say that tree could be limbed up a bit so it maintains it's influence on approach shots but does not directly effect bunker shots from underneath it. That being said, I would not complain about the tree no longer being there at all, especially if Wayne were to get his way and have the green restored exactly (or at least close) to what Flynn put there. FYI, the left side was raised significantly in the 40's or 50's and is somewhat out of character right now.

[Matt_Ward]

JES II:

Get real partner -- when people go across the pond they are positively giddy about such bunkers but for some strage reason when they board the plane back to the States they want the bunkers to be as they are -- flat, ornamental designs which are generally meaningless to the better player as a consideration.

I simply said that variety is the key and that having such interior items within a bunker will give player pause. Where does it say ANYWHERE that landing in a bunker means clean raked sand with a completely level lie and stance.

Uncertainty is part and parcel of the mantra of bunkers. The people who created this game across the pond understand this -- bunkers for too many American courses is nothing more than periphery item for cosmetics -- not fear.

[JESII]

And you're telling me to get real because I say that a better solution is to promote no rakes in bunkers. It's more in-line with the original intent and maintenance practice of golf courses and their hazards.

Again, have you any experience with these things ten years after they're planted?

[Matt_Ward]

JES II:

Re-read what I wrote -- I played Bethpage Black before half or more of the people on this site knew it existed. The course was strong because of the feature I mentioned. Take a look at the land the 10th and 11th occupy on the far left side of each. It used to be imposing -- it's been cleaned-up now to be completely U-N-I-F-O-R-M.

Bunkers are about uncertainty -- I mentioned the gushing and wax poetic that takes place when people go across the pond about bunkers there, but for some strange reason develop permanent amnesia when they return to the States.

I'm just saying that periphery items -- like sage brush, gorse bushes, and the like -- can be adde to certain holes or kept in place if there already. The private clubs can do this much more so because of $$ and manpower -- but keep this in mind a Wyoming public course does it now and has no issue with it.

[JESII]

Matt,

I'm not arguing that these shrubs add uncertainty and flavor to bunkers, what I'm arguin is whether or not they are the best answer to your problem (cleaned-up-perfectly-manicured bunkers). In my experience with them it took about 10 years for them to completely overgrow the area intended for them within a few bunkers.

They had to be removed because of this. How long have these plants been in those bunkers at Rochelle Ranch?

What would be the result at Bethpage if the bunker areas you describe were left as unmaintained (other than a weekly sand protrip) and the consideration of golfers cleaning up after themselves as well as possible.

Don't bother trying to add up the dollar savings, just give me your opinion from a playability perspective. Because clearly in your last post you think private clubs are not concerned about their maintenance costs, and are in fact probably looking for new places to spend a bit of money.

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