Courses with Different Bunker Styles

[Adam Clayman]

Tim, I never said aesthetic be damned. The C&C boys still manage to make the interior bunkers work by not building up the feature so that it jars the eye.

What I implied was that allowances can be made considering the differing styles, especially considering pace of play and maintenance costs.

Tim, When you mentioned your bunkering style, it made me wonder if you could identify where your style differs from your Dad's? Since I've only seen Harborside and Foxford Hills of yours, I don;t have a lot of samples to compare. However, I did immediately get the "Kemper sense"( a nod to your dad) when seeing those two holes set more into the trees at Foxford.

[Tom_Doak]

We have thrown a lot of different bunker styles at Old Macdonald ... much more eclectic than normal for us, in part due to the historic precedents for some holes.  (I didn't see how we could NOT build a sod-wall face for the Strath or Road bunkers, but obviously we're not going to build 100 of them.)  I'm sure some will like the course MORE for that variety and others will criticize it, but I'm not at all sure what the overall verdict will be.

I can't imagine ever mixing them up as much as the sharp contrasts at Eagles Nest or Fancourt, based on the pictures posted ... but in the end it's strictly a matter of taste, and the more important factor is how those bunkers actually come into play.

[Tim Nugent]

Adam,  the Foxford Hills are more typical.  Met Dad halfway at Harborside (although the last nine -the back of Starboard is more me).  Congradulations on picking up that #15 and 16 at Foxford are a tribuate to #11 and 12 at Kemper - well done.

As far as differences from Dad, well he went through several phases when it came to bunker styles but tended to use them much in the same way throughout his career.  Kemper/Forest Preserve (Dunne) National/Sand Creek were the big Fla. bunkers made with straight blade D-6's.  Big lobey things.  I never liked them - perhaps because I had to hand edge the ones at Kemper as a teen.
In the eighties, sites got smaller and so did the bunkers.  More and tighter lobes coupled with lower/ flatter "Ross" style sand lines in response to super's tired of "pushing up sand after a rain". However, found that mowing banks was an unintended consequence.  In the 90's when I came back, we started building more into the ground (something I pick-up from working on Desert Highlands) rather than on top of it.  This lead to Dick's "closer/steeper/deeper" phase.  Also, began depressing the fronts to allow for better vision as the bunkers were deeper.  Had to fight contractors that wanted to keep fronts high to prevent water from draining in.  Began creating basins out in front to solve that issue.

Currently, I use more but smaller (under 1,000sf) bunkers than Dad did.  Also, I tend to have the sand between 1/3 and 2/3 up the face with more undulating sand lines.  I personally paint all of them myself - never leaving it up to the contractor. (White Deer Run being the exception).  Now with the new Sandtrapper/SandDam type bunker liners I can get higher flashes if I need.

Also, Dad tended to want to follow the contour of the bunker cavity with the sand line while I tend not to.

As for placement, He tended to bunker more around greens.  I like to leave open areas around greens where I can leave for a bailout and use tight hollows and grass bunkers instead.

In fairways, his were more adjacent to the fairway while I push mine into the fairway to defend the line of charm.

If you live around here, I have a 9-hole course opening in Munster, IN called Centennial Park.  That should give you a pretty good indication of my bunkering.  One day I'll figure out how to use photobucket and post some.

Tom Doak, given that Old Mac is a tribute course, do you feel that it gave you more latitude to mix/match styles than you would have otherwise done? 

[Robert Thompson]

Eagles Nest in Toronto and Graham Cooke/Wayne Carleton's Dakota Dunes are probably the best examples in Canada. Eagles Nest is odd, for the same reason Dakota Dunes is -- a mix of traditional bunkers and blowouts. The only difference is Dakota Dunes' blowouts are natural and are stunning, making the oval pot bunkers seem very odd in comparison.

[TEPaul]

"TP - would that spirit need to be released from it's bottle?"


Timothy:

Oh God no. That's not The "Spirit", that's GENIE, and she looks remarkably like Barbara Eden did at her best.

The "Spirit" is semi-ineffable (hard to explain). It's always around somewhere but to greater or lesser degrees at various times. Sometimes it helps to reread some Max Behr to bring it out or bring it on. I'm working on a response for you though; at least I'm working on the mood that creates the response but The "Spirit" needs to be a bit more apparent to me than at this very moment.

But here's one other question for you, Tim. Do you think you are capable of simply allowing your EMOTIONS to dictate your impressions of what is good or bad or indifferent with architecture, and then sort of just leave it at that, or do you feel you must actively analyze all the potential reasons why you like something or not?

Personally, I think, in the last few years, I've been getting more into the emotional side with my reactions to and impressions of golf course architecture and getting somewhat away from the excessive analytical types of reactions and impressions. And I even think that's happening more these days with me in the way I feel about both the way things play as well as how they look. For me, anyway, it feels pretty good to get away from the feeling of over-analysis.

[Tom_Doak]

Tim:

Absolutely, our approach to most of the features at Old Macdonald has been a bit different than our other courses.  I would have loved to build even more bunker features that looked like the stuff Macdonald saw in Scotland in 1875 or 1900, but we had to weigh that thought against the volume of play which the new course at Bandon will receive, and the long-term prospects for maintaining any particular "look".

There are a few REALLY cool "scabby" features alongside certain fairways (for example, left of #6 fairway before Hell bunker, and on the right past Hell but short of the green).  I am pretty sure that these will not last more than five years looking like they do today ... they may not last even til Opening Day, seeing as how that hole will be open all summer.  But we thought it was worth trying them out, anyway.  If they do better than we expect, we'll do a whole course like that somewhere else.

[Ian Andrew]

Eric Smith:

I would love to see a preconstruction contour map of that course you posted on Reply #5 just to compare it to what's there now.

Tom,

The ridge on the far left was there, you can kind of see the different and simpler shape. The rest of what you see was an old gravel and sand extraction area used to service the landfill that is just beyond the photo(and just in the process of closing).

The ownership group was paid for every ounce of fill that entered the site since it was in the centre of a major housing expansion and losing fill was an issue for many projects near by. The mounding tends to run anywhere from 20 feet through to 35 on the opening holes. For the most part, other than this tee, you are down between the mounds/dunes on many of the holes.

I'm nut sure what your getting from that but I hope it helped.


And before you ask - I did not work on that job.
The course may not be my style but it is definately is fun to play.

[TEPaul]

Ian:

I can only see the one hole but it looks like it's fun to play. The mounding reminds me of comprehensive J.H. Taylor "Mid-Surrey mounding" or sometimes called "Alpinization" but on at least a 5X scale.

[Brian Cenci]

Two courses came to mine on this topic and to be honest I like the contrasting styles on one of the courses and the other I did not care for as much.

The first course with contrasting bunker styles is Tennessee National and IMO I did not like the contrasting styles.  I found myself focusing on the issue that they were different and it detracted from the course.  The darker bunkers were paisted with some kind of stucko material on the faces to give it that sod wall look.








The second course with contrasting styles is Arcadia Bluffs and I really like the different looks.