[Patrick_Mucci]

If not, why don't we see more of them ?

Is it possible that the trend toward narrowing fairways will/has cause/d their extinction ?

Wild Horse and Hidden Creek use this feature extremely well, but, why isn't this feature almost a universal ?

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Pat,

You need a visit to KBM's Lederach in Harleysville, PA. This course has been discussed here at length and isn't too far from your home base. Moreover, the senior weekday rates are very attractive.

I don't think centerline bunkers are popular with the average recreational golfer for one reason: They make the golfer think. That can be dangerous. I don't know if Lederach is part of a trend but the concept may be growing.

Steve

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I don't think so and if one did a real comparative study they just may find they are being used today (by some architects) more than they ever have been in golf architecture.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Pat i think they should be a more common feature. It brings  wonderful strategic value to any hole that incorporates it.

[Andrew Summerell]

Mike Clayton has been designing a few with some of his re-design & renovation work in Australia.

I would be interested to see if clubs would be inclined to reinstate a centerline bunker that was in the original masterplan. My home club (Newcastle GC) is looking to reinstate, where practical, the original Eric Apperly masterplan. From memory (and it’s been a few years since I saw it) Apperly designed the 11th (the approach shot can be seen in the Courses by Country section under Australia) with a centerline bunker that has only ever been used as a right side fairway bunker. The room is there to widen the fairway to the other side of the bunker, but it wide be extremely wide.

That is the problem with most courses with regards to centerline bunkers. There is just not enough width to design a good hole.

[Jon Wiggett]

Pat,

I think a lack of land combined with the amount of work required to maintain the extra area is mainly to blame. Also, the bunker is seen by many as a punishment for a wayward/bad shot and so does not belong in the middle of the perfect line of play for them.

[Adam Clayman]

Wouldn't Pat's general questions about courses being built today if he'd make an attempt to go out and see the newer stuff? I can certainly understand not wanting to give up all the great venues he does play but why all the q's on what's going on in the design world if he doesn't?

[Jimmy Muratt]

Centerline bunkers are one of my favorite features on a golf course.  I love it how a tiny little pot bunker in the middle of a 50 yard wide fairway can present you with so many strategic options off the tee.  

If anything, I'm happy to see that it is a feature that is being used more these days.  Wild Horse utilizes the centerline hazard as well as any course that I've played.  The fairways are wide, as necessary with the wind, but the centerline bunkers are very well placed.   They make you think, and when most golfers have to think, that's when the real trouble begins.....

[Bill_McBride]

Even Johnny Miller made the comment on the Ryder Cup broadcast that the short par 4 (#5?) that was birdied more than parred, would be a whole lot better hole with a little pot bunker in the center at 290 yards.

Johnny gets it! 

[Mike_Cirba]

Wouldn't Pat's general questions about courses being built today if he'd make an attempt to go out and see the newer stuff? I can certainly understand not wanting to give up all the great venues he does play but why all the q's on what's going on in the design world if he doesn't?

Adam,

I love Patrick, but it's a little like complaining about modern music and claiming that nobody sings it like Sinatra when the only record album he's bought in the past 50 years is Wayne Newton's Greatest Hits.   

[Ken Moum]

Are they deemed to be unfair?

Absolutely, outside of GCA.com, I can't think of a time when any golfer I know has commented positively on a centerline hazard.

Virtually EVERY time I hear a comment on centerline hazards, it follow the same pattern. They say "That's a stupid/unfair/goofy hole there's a bunker/tree/rock outcrop in the middle of the fairway!"

For reasons I cannot understand, the golfers I know think one 25-yard fairway bordered by deep rough is reasonable, but a 40-yard fairway split by a bunker or tree is not.


And, YES, i think narrowing of fairways on traditional courses has an effect on their elimination.

But I also think that the best modern courses are more likely to have such hazards.

K

[Patrick_Mucci]

Wouldn't Pat's general questions about courses being built today if he'd make an attempt to go out and see the newer stuff?


I think you left out a few words in the above sentence.
Could you fill them in.

Do you mean courses like Liberty National and Bayonne ?
Courses that just opened.

I can certainly understand not wanting to give up all the great venues he does play but why all the q's on what's going on in the design world if he doesn't?

How can you make the assumption that I don't ?

What new courses have centerline bunker COMPLEXES, and not just a centerline bunker ?

[Joe Bausch]

I've grown to really like centerline bunker complexes.  And the most recent place I played, Twisted Dune, had a couple of neat examples of them.  Here on the par 5 4th hole, just short of the green:







And also on the par 5 12th hole, the first pic looking toward the green, then back down the fairway to these bunkers about 75 yards short of the green:

[Patrick_Mucci]

Joe,

Despite Adam's erroneous claim, I've gotten out and played Twisted Dune.

I liked it and I especially liked the centerline bunkers.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I think real estate courses diminished the viability of some of them. Hard to make someone aim closer to the houses to avoid a bunker.  I agree they are making a comeback, as I see more of them and I use them at least once per course, where land allows.

I think most golfers would like to see ample room (at least 25 yards) either side of the bunkers, so wider fw corridors are a must.  Without that room, isn't it really just a cross bunker?

[Adam Clayman]

Pat, Yes I did leave off some key words. Sorry, but I was posting from my phone and it's just not as easy as the computer.

My point remains, you've started a lot of threads that call into the question "why not more" as it pertains to modern designs. Even from my easy chair, seeing pictures of newer courses in this forum, and the aspect that sticks out is how main stream designers are using center line bunkers more and more. Hurzdan and Frye, Brauer, and of course Hanse, Doak, C&C, Devries etc. are building them.
 So when you ask your general questions about the design world, without frequently leaving the cramped quarters of the east coast, it just seems myopic. That was my point.











As TP, states, they are likely being built more today, than any time in the past.

If you want to talk about the improper use, you need look no further than the size and scale than Jacks' on the 9th at Sebonack.

[Jason Topp]

I think real estate courses diminished the viability of some of them. Hard to make someone aim closer to the houses to avoid a bunker.  I agree they are making a comeback, as I see more of them and I use them at least once per course, where land allows.

I think most golfers would like to see ample room (at least 25 yards) either side of the bunkers, so wider fw corridors are a must.  Without that room, isn't it really just a cross bunker?

Jeff -

One thing I have focused a lot on lately when trying to evaluate the quality of golf courses is the interest they provide off the tee.  Almost universally, it seems to me that a course that rewards placing the ball on the edge of a fairway is far more interesting than one that rewards placing the ball in the middle.  Most courses do not do that, or in the case of courses with a lot of water, create a risk balance that really demands a conservative approach.

I have always blamed fairness and framing concerns for how unusual it is for courses to truly reward tee shots that tempt edges.  

Based on your post and my experiences, I am not sure that is in fact the case, at least with respect to centerline bunkers.  I have heard people complain about blind centerline bunkers (13 at Big Fish for example) but have heard few complaints about centerline bunkers that are visible.  

Housing is an obvious factor I have never considered.  I presume safety and the desire to reduce fairway acerage are equally to blame, given the need to have sufficient width around such bunkers.

[Anthony Gray]

  Centerline bunkers make great targets for those of us that don't hit the ball where we are aimed. Plus they add aesthetic appeal.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Lederach GC

17 tee shot



18 tee shot

[Phil McDade]

Were centerline bunkers ever conventional?

It seems to me that their use in the Classic Era was rather sporadic, at least as it applies to U.S. courses.
For every NGLA that used them, lots of courses avoided them, notably Oakmont, Winged Foot, Merion East, Augusta. The list of courses not using them appears longer than those that did.

[Michael Moore]

Mr. Clayman -

How is the aforementioned Sebonack bunker "Jack's" and not attributable to Nicklaus and Doak?

[Jon Wiggett]

Phil,

isn't the fairway bunker on 10 a central hazard?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mr. Clayman -

How is the aforementioned Sebonack bunker "Jack's" and not attributable to Nicklaus and Doak?

Michael,

I believe it was added at Jack's insistance.

Adam Clayman,

A few photos aren't evidence that centerline bunker complexes populate all or most new courses.

They remain a rare feature as opposed to a common feature.

[John Moore II]

I haven't read the entire thread, so I am not sure if this has been said before. But I think that many golfers do consider them unfair. I recall playing PGA-Dye that some of the players I would be grouped with thought the centerline bunkers there were silly and penalized good shots. I don't think they are unfair, but I suppose that many people do.

[Bill_McBride]

If not, why don't we see more of them ?

Is it possible that the trend toward narrowing fairways will/has cause/d their extinction ?

Wild Horse and Hidden Creek use this feature extremely well, but, why isn't this feature almost a universal ?

Patrick, are you saying that no architects today but the neo-classic, neo-minimalists like Doak, C&C, KBM, Mike DeVries, Gil Hanse feature center bunkers?  Those guys and I'm sure others of that ilk include at least one if not more in every course they design.  I don't know about Fazio, don't play enough of his courses.

A feature I think you see even less of today that I admire is the diagonal cross bunker that rewards a gutsy line.  Those are few and far between, too bad.

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