Why no love for the bunkers at Bandon Dunes?

[Peter Pallotta]

I asked a while back if any architects had tried to design hazards so that time (and the effects of wind, over time) would serve to make those hazards more of what they were intended to be, not less.  An architect responded that no one has ever been that clever, or at least demonstrated it.
Which is to say, since all bunkers exist only because maintenance crews are continually bringing Mother Nature to a halt, the only question (in this context) is whether that frozen moment in time is of a naturally-occuring feature (a dune in the middle of the erosion cycle) or not.

Peter 
   

[Brent Hutto]

So Adam, let's say the the design intent of a hole calls for a small, steeply-faced bunker that can not be implemented or maintained in the available terrain and soil at the site...

Would you rather see the bunker made wider, shallower or in another location? Or just omitted altogether? Or would you rather see a non-naturalistic bunker with stack sod or other obviously manufactured appearance?

[TEPaul]

"As for my own value system, I love a good illusion of nature as much as the next guy but then again some of the courses I most enjoyed playing have had sod-walled bunkers with a patently manufactured appearance. But in a pinch, I want the course that plays properly and am willing to sacrifice some naturalism to that end if necessary."

Brent:

I hear exactly what you're saying and I believe I know just what you mean. I believe I'm just the same way you are. I like that sod-walled or revetted pot type linksland bunker and its unnatural look hardly even registers with me anymore. I might even try to offer a logical explanation of why I like it, and why my perception of it may've changed over the years even if naturalism in architecture is my bag.

In a truly objective context, I think I'm at the point now where I can look at those sod-walled or sharp edged revetted bunkers and revetted pots that have been part of linksland architecture for so long now and completely realize they are just not very natural looking or something that ever could or has occured naturally. But they've been around so long they're just an integral part of linksland golf and architecture now, and for that reason alone they've probably taken on new meaning or perspective to me not the least reason being all-in-all I love linksland golf and the whole idea of it.

Here are two analogies that might help explain it:

45-50 years ago when I first heard about the label POLO for Ralph Lauren's clothing line I thought it was about the stupidest name imaginable. But now, after POLO has essentially become a fashion institution, and also one I think has maintained a lot of style and taste, the name and the perception of the name is completely different to me now and it means a lot and something vastly different than it did to me 45-50 years ago.

When I first heard the name Secretariat when he was a weanling I thought the name was about the oddest or dumbest imaginable.

But now, after seeing him perform and move into the pantheon of thoroughbreds that name means something entirely different to me now. That name now and it's very connotation means power, and greatness and everything that race horse was on the track.

See what I mean and how perceptions on things can change for various reasons?

[Tim Pitner]

If naturalism/minimalism/whatever it's being called these days doesn't have a place for classic, links pot bunkers, then I'm not on board that agenda. 

I believe one of the patron saints of minimalism--Tom Doak--is using traditional links bunkering at Renaissance Golf Club and the photos I've seen look great. 

As Sean Arble noted above, pot bunkers lend themselves to an economic use of bunkering (Lytham aside), which is exemplified well by Bandon Dunes. 

[TEPaul]

If naturalism/minimalism/whatever it's being called these days doesn't have a place for classic, links pot bunkers, then I'm not on board that agenda. 
As Sean Arble noted above, pot bunkers lend themselves to an economic use of bunkering."


Tim Pitner:

On your point that if pot bunkers don't have a place in naturalism/minimalism/whatever then you're not on board with that agenda, I hear you, and I guess I agree with you. But we're sort of talking two different things here----eg naturalism in architecture and then something like pot bunkers and I don't think things ever need to get to the point where they will actually be mutually exclusive.

But you say that Sean Arble noted that pot bunkers lend themselves to an economic use of bunkers. Of course they do. Basically pot bunkers are pretty economic to make, to maintain and they really are an economic feature in the strategies of playability.

But often things that are natural or made to look natural and particularly the maintenance of them for golf do not lend themselves to easy economics, and that fact is just part of the dynamic between naturalism and the forces of nature and some of the exigencies of golf.

We'll never totally come to grips with that dynamic. The fact is that some of the ways and look of things natural on a golf course just aren't very conducive to efficient economics simply because the forces of Nature, wind and water, really are always altering things and basically in the process of devolving them or even destroying them.

In my opinion, it would be interesting to see a golf course where in many ways we may not be even thinking of now the club just let the forces of wind and water work on some things and change them randomly. Then just let golfers play them that way in their always changing and evolving state.

The organized and ultra-efficient "game mind" of man doesn't take easily to that prospect---I realize that.

[Tim Pitner]

Tom,

By "economic use of bunkering," I meant that a few pot bunkers go a long ways; I was not referring to the economics of bunker maintenance.  While not as militant as Mr. Arble on the subject, I'm wary of the tendency toward overbunkering, sometimes sought in the name of naturalism.  Often, one strategically placed gathering bunker is more interesting.  Bandon Dunes #12 is an excellent example. 

Sorry for the confusion. 

[Tom_Doak]

John:

I love sod-wall bunkers when they are beautifully constructed, which seems to be very rare nowadays -- so many of the famous links are just making them as steep and as high as possible, instead of letting a shaved bank work its magic from the top down.  Muirfield is one of the few courses that still does them right -- it's about the shape more than the wall.

Bandon Dunes' bunkers are not sod wall bunkers, of course, but medium- and small-sized grass faced bunkers.  To me they look more like Gleneagles' bunkers than Muirfield's, but they're fine.  They still have their own sand-erosion issues (I've seen liners exposed on them), but there is not as much sand surface to erode.

Blowouts are fine, too, although I'd agree they are becoming overused.  Not in Bandon, though.  We'll likely have some more of them at Old Macdonald, because once you get them started, they ARE natural there.  As at Ballyneal, we're making them as shallow as we can to start, so it will be a couple of years before the sand erosion requires much action.  Which does make me wonder about the restoration work we did at Pasatiempo -- the opening-day pictures of their bunkers looked quite shallow in many places, but perhaps MacKenzie was planning on Nature making them deeper.

[TEPaul]

"Which does make me wonder about the restoration work we did at Pasatiempo -- the opening-day pictures of their bunkers looked quite shallow in many places, but perhaps MacKenzie was planning on Nature making them deeper."

TomD:

I have a question for you about that even if I realize the answer to it will have to be total speculation on your part.

Do you really think Alister Mackenzie thought as much about playability (recovery) out of bunkers within even a factor of five as much as you might today or other architects today?

And don't forget what he was looking at with bunker recovery was probably something about as effective as one of our 9 irons.

Maybe he was and maybe that's why he tended towards the shallow side of things. 
 

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

Some of MacKenzie's bunkers look as though you could have putted out of them when first built, and I believe he might have intended that as a possibility, though he never said so directly.  (George Thomas is the only architect I know of who mused about that in print.)

You are certainly right that MacKenzie would not have expected people to get up and down out of bunkers anywhere near as often as today's golfers expect, but I do think he paid a fair amount of attention to the average player not spending all day in them.  If he was around at all by that point, that is!

[Adam Clayman]

Brent, My only issue with the sod walled bunkers pictured is their uniformity of line and shape. A perfect curve with str8 edges seems too Americaninzed for my liking. If they perhaps had a more rugged rough look, I wouldn't associate them with the saucer like pits of the typical mass appealing shapes found on many courses.

Now if the Erosion look JK's speaks of, is similar to the way the top side turf, on the left fairway bunker on the 18th at Sand Hills looks like, I disagree with him wholeheartedly.

[JohnV]

Tom,

Would it be nature deepening them or the process of sand being piled up on the lip from the golfers that Mackenzie was counting on?  Or both probably.

I believe that Sarazen (or whomever) had invented the sand wedge by the time that Pasatiempo was built, but having found out how difficult it is to get out of the deep bunkers around Poppy Hills with old hickory niblicks and the like, I can see why the old architects might not have made them as deep as everyone does today.

[Sean_A]

John:

I love sod-wall bunkers when they are beautifully constructed, which seems to be very rare nowadays -- so many of the famous links are just making them as steep and as high as possible, instead of letting a shaved bank work its magic from the top down.  Muirfield is one of the few courses that still does them right -- it's about the shape more than the wall.

Bandon Dunes' bunkers are not sod wall bunkers, of course, but medium- and small-sized grass faced bunkers.  To me they look more like Gleneagles' bunkers than Muirfield's, but they're fine.  They still have their own sand-erosion issues (I've seen liners exposed on them), but there is not as much sand surface to erode.

Blowouts are fine, too, although I'd agree they are becoming overused.  Not in Bandon, though.  We'll likely have some more of them at Old Macdonald, because once you get them started, they ARE natural there.  As at Ballyneal, we're making them as shallow as we can to start, so it will be a couple of years before the sand erosion requires much action.  Which does make me wonder about the restoration work we did at Pasatiempo -- the opening-day pictures of their bunkers looked quite shallow in many places, but perhaps MacKenzie was planning on Nature making them deeper.

Tom

I have the impression that nowadays, many courses are less economical in terms of space used because they don't need to be economical.  I am guessing that the courses which use proper blowout bunkers these days have space for sand to blow which doesn't effect vital grass in play.  If this is the case, I spose its a bi-product of higher maintenance expectations.  Does any of this bear out in your experience?

Tim P

I may come across as a militant concerning bunkers.  In fact, I should be characterized as the opposite.  I am a militant (well not quite as my guns are still in the States) about a variety of hazards which include hollows and humps etc.  Personally, I think the bunker has become a fix all for archies who won't or can't create interest using other methods.

Ciao

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
Would it be nature deepening them or the process of sand being piled up on the lip from the golfers that Mackenzie was counting on?  Or both probably."


JohnV:

I don't know whether you're asking me or TomD but no matter. On that particular subject, even if I could never possibly prove it, I have this somewhat sinking feeling that kind of thing may've been something those architects back then, even the greatest of them, even all of them, may never have even considered. Something like that may never have occured to them. We have to remember sometimes how young and immature and even naive both golf architecture and those architects may've been that long ago regarding some of the things we see today after many decades of evolution that they never could've known about.

My sense is that back then for a whole variety of reasons golfers' recovery expectations weren't remotely the same as they are today and for that reason most of those architects back then just weren't as concerned about it as golfers and architects are today.

There is no question in my mind---none--- that the recovery expectation today out of any bunker between very good golfers and the rest is the single biggest difference or differential in any element or area of golf including distance.

[Tim Pitner]

Tim P

I may come across as a militant concerning bunkers.  In fact, I should be characterized as the opposite.  I am a militant (well not quite as my guns are still in the States) about a variety of hazards which include hollows and humps etc.  Personally, I think the bunker has become a fix all for archies who won't or can't create interest using other methods.

Sean,

I agree with you on this and think you've made the case against over-bunkering extremely well.  When I said I'm less militant, I guess I was conceding that I too can be a sucker for a lacy C&C-type bunker--I just prefer less of them than some people. 

[Sean_A]

Tim P

I may come across as a militant concerning bunkers.  In fact, I should be characterized as the opposite.  I am a militant (well not quite as my guns are still in the States) about a variety of hazards which include hollows and humps etc.  Personally, I think the bunker has become a fix all for archies who won't or can't create interest using other methods.

Sean,

I agree with you on this and think you've made the case against over-bunkering extremely well.  When I said I'm less militant, I guess I was conceding that I too can be a sucker for a lacy C&C-type bunker--I just prefer less of them than some. 

Tim

Do you think it is easier for a large site to get away with blowout bunkering because there is more space for sand to blow around without effecting critical areas of grass?

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

Sean:

I know you asked Tim and not me, but my answer would be absolutely, some courses have the space for sand to blow around without worry.

In fact, at both Barnbougle and Ballyneal, we created bunkers in some areas mostly to make it easier for golfers to find and play their balls (as opposed to irrigating the areas, which ain't cheap, or letting the ball find the native roughs which can become quite thick.  We aren't too worried if these blow around a bit if they're not near a green.

[Sean_A]

Sean:

I know you asked Tim and not me, but my answer would be absolutely, some courses have the space for sand to blow around without worry.

In fact, at both Barnbougle and Ballyneal, we created bunkers in some areas mostly to make it easier for golfers to find and play their balls (as opposed to irrigating the areas, which ain't cheap, or letting the ball find the native roughs which can become quite thick.  We aren't too worried if these blow around a bit if they're not near a green.

Thanks Tom.  I have long thought that this is a real problem for GB&I links.  There generally isn't a lot of land for true blowout bunkers.  The areas which seem ripe for it are holes like 4th at Sandwich and the 6th at St Enodoc.  Both have those rather dopey looking boards to preserve the integrity of the hole as allowing those dunes to really go natural would result in them being devestated and sand being all over the place.

Did I tell you that Pennard had an unintential blowout on the 3rd?  From the left side of the fairway one of the dunes gave way and sand was everywhere.  It was quite a sight and it took the club a few weeks to deal with. 

Ciao

[Tim Pitner]

In addition to what you and Tom discussed regarding blowing sand, I think a large site provides a better scale for blowout-style bunkering.  There may be some contra examples out there, but it seems to me that blowouts are more fitting on a bigger canvas--the proportionality is better. 

[Sean_A]

In addition to what you and Tom discussed regarding blowing sand, I think a large site provides a better scale for blowout-style bunkering.  There may be some contra examples out there, but it seems to me that blowouts are more fitting on a bigger canvas--the proportionality is better. 

Tim

I think you are probably right.  It is also probably easier to get away with different styles of bunkering a large sites.  I know many folks don't like it, but I am not too bothered.  I can see where a large site could offer different enough terrain to get away with it.  Though I must admit, this sort of stuff is out of my depth.  I think scale requires a well practiced eye.

Ciao

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