I can't figure it out. Can you ?

[TEPaul]

"With all the advances in I&B why haven't courses with extensive bunkering, as cited above, been built ?
Why is the trend away from that style when the golfer and his equipment have improved ?"


Patrick:

It's pretty simple really. Bunkering was generally removed beginning years ago because it was considered to be economically unfeasible to maintain and the way it was maintained years ago was nothing like the maintenance care it is given today which is far more expensive.

This is why many of those old courses do not have as much of it today as they once did. This kind of thing is reflected in the meeting minutes of many clubs including my own. In some cases the line item on bunker maintenance is 20-30+ percent of the annual operating budget. In the case of one significant course it was up to 40% for a while!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

The large bunkers/waste areas weren't maintained, they were left natural, much as those areas at PV are left.

So, cost wasn't a significant line item.

I think Tom Doak hit the nail on the head, it was the advent of irrigation that signaled the end of those expansive bunkers.

[RSLivingston_III]

As an experienced hickory player, I can tell you with certainty that the sand wedge is not required for extricating ones self from any of those bunkers. There were niblicks made that did the job quite well if you learned how to do it.

I think "fair" started to raise its ugly head about the same time as the depression.
The most extreme version of bunkering in the US might have been Brook Hollow. Too bad that bunkering was wiped out.

[Craig Sweet]

Garland.....the one thing golf has going for it, sadly, it tends to be an individual sport rather than a family sport...

[paul cowley]

I just did a mental inventory of many of the courses I've built and if the bunkers were left to grow in and become natural and unmaintained, well....it wouldn't really bother me.

The shapes and contours would still be there and in many situations the resulting grass or unmaintained waste/natural areas would still be challenging.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

When you talk about those areas of massive bunkering such as at Pine Valley or at Shinnecock on the 5th and 6th holes what do you mean the advent of irrigation was responsible for their demise?

I doubt either club has ever had artificial irrigation in those areas! 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat:

When you talk about those areas of massive bunkering such as at Pine Valley or at Shinnecock on the 5th and 6th holes what do you mean the advent of irrigation was responsible for their demise?

I doubt either club has ever had artificial irrigation in those areas! 

Are you telling us that those clubs had such sophisticated irrigation systems that when they watered their fairways/roughs, the system was so precise that it was calibrated to not allow one drop of water into those massive bunker areas ?

That's amazing.

I never knew those clubs were 80 to 100 years ahead of their time.

What ever happened to those "olde" precision irrigation systems, the ones that were operational at these clubs decades before automation, computers and high tech ?

[TEPaul]

Pat:

What I'm telling you is artifical irrigation had little to nothing to do with the demise of the Flynn constructed sandy waste area bunkering on #5 and #6 and nothing to do with the demise of bunkering at Pine Valley. What bunkering demise are you even referring to at Pine Valley anyway? If you are speaking of the massive sand areas originally on #3, #4, right #6, #10, #18 as examples and how they became sort of terraced with vegetation that had to do with another situation and problem entirely and nothing to do with artificial irrrigation. With Shinnecock it was basically just a matter of the club either forgetting or neglecting to maintain it at all and over the years it just vegetated in naturally, particularly since those areas never were naturally the way they were on those holes even if the club may've misunderstood that.

[Patrick_Mucci]

What I'm telling you is artifical irrigation had little to nothing to do with the demise of the Flynn constructed sandy waste area bunkering on #5 and #6 and nothing to do with the demise of bunkering at Pine Valley.

I disagree.
If you'll look at the aerials of PV circa 1925 and compare them to the course today, you'll see a dramatic difference in the massive bunkering that's been allowed to vegetate, reduce or disappear.

As to the bunkering at Shinnecock, please take a look at the 1938 aerial and then compare it to the course today and you'll see the difference.

While you're at it, take a look at NGLA in that 1938 aerial and then compare it to today and you'll see a dramatic difference as well.

The photographic evidence is indesputable.

What bunkering demise are you even referring to at Pine Valley anyway?


Examine the 1925 aerials and you'll see what I'm refering to.

If you are speaking of the massive sand areas originally on #3, #4, right #6, #10, #18 as examples and how they became sort of terraced with vegetation that had to do with another situation and problem entirely and nothing to do with artificial irrrigation.

Then it's your position that irrigation had nothing to do with the shrinkage, vegetative growth or extinction of bunkers at PV ?

With Shinnecock it was basically just a matter of the club either forgetting or neglecting to maintain it at all and over the years it just vegetated in naturally, particularly since those areas never were naturally the way they were on those holes even if the club may've misunderstood that.

I don't see how you can casually dismiss the photographic evidence circa 1938. 

Those bunkers have clear lines of demarcation and are almost pristine in terms of the absence of vegetative growth.   To state that after 10-20 years of what appears to be meticulous maintainance that the club forgot about them or neglected them is illogical.  What evidence do you have to support that position ?

And, in what year did the club develop maintainance amnesia ?