[David_Tepper]

Sean -

There are no burns on the course.

The first 3 holes on the front-9 play heading west along the Moray Firth, similar to the first 3 holes at Nairn. A big, ugly right-handed slice off one of those tees might get you wet. A shot long & right into the 3rd green will do the same.

The first 3 (maybe 4) holes on the back-9 head east along the Moray Firth, so the water is on the left. A big nasty pull-hook might find the beach and/or the water, but I would not expect that to happen very often.

DT  

[Sean_A]

David - cheers.  Does anybody know why water wasn't brought into play?

Paul

I love looking at Hutchinson's book.  But I think different times have different requirements.  Bunkers left to their own devices with people trampling through them tend to grow because its their nature to do so.  With more and more people playing the game at some point bunkers have to be controlled.  Given relatively small operational budgets in the UK, it makes sense to formalize the bunkers rather than to do what could be weekly repair to contain bunkers.  Its a necessary tradeoff.  However, more bunkers like the Lytham example (with heavy grass on its edges) could be used for the sake of variety even though I don't think that style is nearly effective as a well placed pot. 

Ciao

[Paul_Turner]

Sean

As you know, there are a few new courses here in the US that are much more in the spirit of the photos in Hutchinson's book: Pacific Dunes, the Sand Hills courses.  So I think the modern golfer can tolerate it to some degree and I'm glad Gil has taken that risk with some of these bunkers too.

Revetting all links bunkers and making all of them into pots,  just seems a bit unimaginative.  For example, as soon as I heard that Trevose was redoing its bunkers I knew they'd all be changed and revetted.

The only UK architect that I know who resists the revetting trend is Martin Hawtree.  He understands that in Ireland that wasn't the tradition...see his work at Royal Dublin (and I think Lahinch has sand faced too?).

Pete Dye was well ahead of the curve when he stated years ago that the only way to make bunkers hazard again was to leave them un-raked.  I'd like to know when the raking after a shot came became the norm. 

I know that Mark Rowlinson discovered that at Alwoodley they only raked the bunkers once a week for a long time.

[Mark Pearce]

Paul,

we're moving away from CS, I know but I'm interested in the answer to Sean's point about stabilisation.  Given the heavy play that any new links course would be likely to get, can the free form, ragged bunkers you refer to be stabilised or will it be necessary to rebuild them frequently?  Does the heavy grass around, say the Lytham bunkers you produced pictures of, provide significant stability?

Mark

[MikeJones]

Golf courses are part art, part function. Whether you like one 'look' or style over another, makes little difference in the long run. Aesthetics alone will not bring you back to a course if it's no fun to play.

Personally, I like the way it looks and I suspect it would be a lot of fun to play. I can see where some people are coming from when they talk about the 'faux antique' look. I'm sure it's not to everyones taste, but then again - how many things are?

It will be interesting to see how it 'matures' over the next few years. Perhaps we should start calling the course 'Castle Benjamin Button'!

[Ryan Farrow]

Mark,

Nowhere did I say that an architect, or this course in particular was meant to look as though it was not "maintained" for 100's of years. As others have mentioned, sleepers were used to shore up bunkers edges which would require MAINTENANCE.

Which begs the question, why would you want someone to think your golf course was just built yesterday?

I understand your analysis, and I think you are correct. And that "fake" that you talk about is borderline genius. I can't re-call this ever being done, and being done so well.

I just don't understand how you think this is wrong?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Paul

I feel that I cannot agree with you in full because many of the hazards were not natural in I believe the meaning you are advocating.

We need to remember some of the early hazards included stonewalls, railways, roads (paths) and dykes to name but a few. Certainly many early bunkers were natural but with wear and course modification these where either filled in or extended. After the late 1870’s and onwards as the course numbers expanded many bunkers were positioned to match the pace of play on the course and either modifier or the bunkers were added months after the course opened. This being the case they cannot be seen as natural.

Nevertheless, for the most part I follow you point.

AS for CS, I can’t comment how the course plays, but my first sight of the photos (as I said in my initial post) that I felt something was missing and when I looked at the mix match of the sleepers and the random way they have been used, it did not remind me of any old courses. As for the bunkers with sod riveting. I think if my memory serves me correctly these were used by Gil as part of the bunker construction, not necessary to form or hold the bunker in shape but as a decorative purpose to make the bunker look old with what may appear to be the original sod walls laid years ago slowly being exposed.  He, himself said that they were unique to CS. Unless I have totally misunderstood his comments the riveting in parts of the bunkers are just fake and for show while other bunkers have the full faced formed by them .

I understand what he is trying to achieve, but I am surprised that considering the courses in the vicinity, he feels the need to throw some theatre into the equation. There was no need for this certainly in Scotland where most golfers understand golf being weaned upon the course from a young age.

I hope the course is a success, from the photo it looks promising, just a pity that he though the need to fake or if you wish dress the bunkers with useless pieces of sleepers. In addition, some could consider the uneven or stepped formation of the sleeper tops as poor workmanship, not contributing to the quality of the course itself.

Melvyn

[Mark Pearce]

Mark,

Nowhere did I say that an architect, or this course in particular was meant to look as though it was not "maintained" for 100's of years. As others have mentioned, sleepers were used to shore up bunkers edges which would require MAINTENANCE.

But these sleepers have been installed in a way to suggest that they have worn and not been maintained.  New courses (even in the early 1900s) with sleepers had them more neatly and evenly arranged.  As those courses wore, the bunkers were maintained to maintain that neatness.  That's why the sleepers look like they have not been maintained.

Which begs the question, why would you want someone to think your golf course was just built yesterday?

Because it was?  Why the need to pretend it is older than it is?  I can't think of any other construction or manufactured product (apart from "distressed" furniture) where that is done. 

I understand your analysis, and I think you are correct. And that "fake" that you talk about is borderline genius. I can't re-call this ever being done, and being done so well.

I don't think it has been done before, which is why we are discussing it here.  Your genius is my artistic dishonesty.  That's fine, we are allowed to disagree without being called stupid.

I just don't understand how you think this is wrong?

I don't like it because, to me, there's a pretence and a dishonesty about it which detracts from the actual quality of the course.  If it's a great, new course, why try to hide the fact?  If Trump and Fazio had been the first to do this in their development north of Aberdeen, I can't help wondering if the reception would have been so warm.., to me (and this is a matter of personal taste) this faux antiquity is something I would more have expected from Trump than Parsinnen, there's an artificiality to it that I simply don't like.  That's a matter of personal taste and a valid one.  You don't agree (or understand).  That's fine, it doesn't make either of us wrong, let alone stupid or foolish.  I suspect, to be honest, that a lot of this comes from our respective backgrounds.

I do wonder, without any disrepect to anyone, whether this sort of artificial age might not be more acceptable in a country where it is unusual for things to look 100+ years old as there isn't much of anything (in terms of buildings, for instance) that are that old than in a country where it is common to live in a building that is 100 years old and where we walk past buildings older than that everyday.  I don't know, I'm just thinking aloud.

[Niall C]

Niall:

I took Paul T's comment about "the R & A and links trust have steadily stripped the character out of our famous links," as it refers to bunkering, meant that the art of building more natural-looking revetments in bunkers has given way to making the bunkers deeper and more penal on championship courses.  And the R & A has not been shy about doing so ... they seem to stiffen the bunkers for championships as reflexively as the USGA adds tees.

The bunkers at Muirfield and St. Andrews have gotten steadily steeper-faced and less natural-looking over the years I've seen them, and they were the best of the bunch.

Tom

Thanks for elaborating. I can't in all honesty say that I'm familiar enough (or indeed at all) with the bunkers on those courses mentioned, immediately before and after they were altered in the lead up to an Open championship, to pass comment on the outcome of the work.

The reason I reacted to Paul/your comments was to question whether the R&A are the baddies in all of this. I suspect I am in a small minority on this site but I think the R&A generally does a good job protecting the values of the game, and running the Open championship (in saying that, I'm not looking for an argument with those that disagree, particularly on this thread where a discussion on architecture has broken out, which I wouldn't want to interrupt).

My understanding is that the R&A consults with the club/resort/links trust who happen to be hosting the Open on what possible improvements/alterations might be required to host a competition designed to test the best golfers. As I understand it they do it through there own retained specialists and the club/resort etc brings in their own specialists ie. Hawtree, Steel, MacKenzie/Ebert etc. Amongst that lot, there must be a concensus in opinion and I would imagine a lot of the input will come from the professional guys plus the hosting club, after all can you imagine HCEG doing anything they didn't want to do ? The R&A may set the ball rolling by asking the club/resort/links to host the championship but I don't think you can entirely blame them for eveything thereafter, I would respectively suggest that a GCA is at least partially culpable also.

Niall

[Niall C]

Niall

You may find interesting that in the construction team of approx 12 or so, 10 of the people are in fact greenkeepers or former greenkeepers. This includes the project manager who is now general manager and the superintendent who was also a shaper on the project. Jim Wagner is also a former assistant superintendent.
[/quote]

Grant

I do find that interesting. I think it is safe to assume that they were working under direction from the architect/designers. In the old days, when the courses that inspired the designers at CS, were built, the greenkeeper would be responsible for the detailed construction and sometimes the design also. In doing so I would suggest that they took account of practical considerations like maintainance and ease of construction. Can you see either of those considerations in the design details highlighted in some of Brians pictures ?

That is what I think is fake about it. Sleepers which are halfway up a bunker face, doing what exactly ? As I said in another post, courses evolve, and it will be interesting to seee how much of the affectations at CS are retained.

Niall

[Ross Tuddenham]

The way I see it if they had just copied the design features of bunkers from around 1900 then that would have been fine, if the bunkers at CS on day one resembled the bunkers 0f 1900 on day one. 

Why do the CS bunkers look like 1900 bunkers after a number of years instead of brand new?

Further if they had just been constructed like a new set of 1900 bunkers then all the sleepers etc would have been part of the structural integrity to which I for one would have no complaints.

[Niall C]

Questions regarding bunker detailing are so far away from the intent of my original criticism that I feel the need to re-state my position and hopefully better explain where I'm coming from.

Hopefully, one thing we might all agree on here at sunny GolfClubAtlas is that Golf Course Architecture, like its prettier sister, Landscape Architecture and like its more muscular big brother, built Architecture, is an ART FORM. NOT a Science and NOT Engineering. Sure, elements of those fields are involved, but PRIMARILY, golf course architecture is ART.

Do we agree on that?

For that is my initial position on all golf course architectural discourse. If we don't agree on that, we can agree on nothing else.

Now then, if gca is Art, then we can only logically examine and criticise it so. Thus, my contention is that truly great Art can only be ORIGINAL. Truly great Art can only be a product of great creativity. Truly great Art transcends its environment, its time and its place.

Truly great Art might reflect and REFERENCE truly great Art of the Past, but it always does so in the company of new, ORIGINAL thought and with an execution which brings something NEW to the scene.

Lucky me, I had an education which covered Art, Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Golf Course Architecture and I've had a wealth of experience in Occupations which have further strengthened that knowledge with practical experience. I've read the books and attended the seminars. A good few folk around here would do well by themselves in reading some of the tomes regarding 'Truth in Architecture'. There's plenty of them out there from Palladio, through Ruskins Seven Lamps to 'The Fountainhead' and the seminal Charles Bronson's 'Death Wish' Series. SEE, I couldn't be THAT serious for THAT long, now could I...

cheers,
FBD.

Marty

Interesting post, I'm almost scared to attempt a reply but what the hell. Someone once said to me that a golf course is really just an engineering project disguised as a golf course. Whether or not that is right depends on your point of view and what end of the design process you focus on but I don't think it can be denied that the practical does come into it, particularly when you look at traditional Scottish courses. I would humbly suggest that the old boys who designed the early courses were more artisans than artists. Would Old Tom know the difference between a Monet and a Rembrandt ? Who knows (other than Melvyn).

Niall

[Paul_Turner]

Paul,

we're moving away from CS, I know but I'm interested in the answer to Sean's point about stabilisation.  Given the heavy play that any new links course would be likely to get, can the free form, ragged bunkers you refer to be stabilised or will it be necessary to rebuild them frequently?  Does the heavy grass around, say the Lytham bunkers you produced pictures of, provide significant stability?

Mark

Mark

I think the Lytham bunker is adequately stabilized.  It looks very similar to the current bunkers at County Down and those aren't constantly rebuilt.

I guess how often bunkers have to be rebuilt is down to the taste of the people in charge of the course and the public.  It depends on how neat and tidy they need the course to be.  Personally I wouldn't mind a some sand leakage and decay.

[Paul_Turner]

The way I see it if they had just copied the design features of bunkers from around 1900 then that would have been fine, if the bunkers at CS on day one resembled the bunkers 0f 1900 on day one.  

Why do the CS bunkers look like 1900 bunkers after a number of years instead of brand new?

Further if they had just been constructed like a new set of 1900 bunkers then all the sleepers etc would have been part of the structural integrity to which I for one would have no complaints.

Ross

That's not really true.  As you can see from the Royal Dublin photo-a course that was only a few years old at the time- C19th bunkers were raw and ragged regardless of the age of the course.  Even newly constructed bunkers were raw.

[Paul_Turner]

The sod wall peeking out of the turf actually reminds me of Rye and the wooden sleepers on 3,7 and 14.

[Ryan Farrow]

Mark,

All forms of design/construction frequently use materials / design techniques to make products look old.

How about those faded out jeans / T-Shirts / Hats with pre-cut holes or rips in them?

I have seen packaging that is meant to make a product appear older.

How about graphic design? Old School Logos that were brought back by multi-million dollar corporations? Or Throwback Sports uniforms?

Wooden Flag sticks?

Rusted Steel is very big in the Southwestern U.S., I have even seen designers who have purposely placed these materials so the rust would stain the surrounding concrete.

As an Americans perhaps our culture is a bit different and maybe we express our feelings of the past in different ways then other folks. But I would hardly call it "dishonest".


-And again, nowhere did I say that you or your argument was "stupid". Just silly, considering you and several others who have expressed negative views have never even seen the golf course in person! Not to mention the fact that most (all?) of you are from that part of the earth. And I'm beginning to think THAT, has a lot to do with it.  


 

[Mark Pearce]

Ryan,

I'll give you faded denim and ripped/holed clothes.  Can't say I understand the latter, but there you go.  If I want a rip in my jeans I can manage it myself, thanks.

Old school badges and wooden flagsticks, though, I think are different.  Aren't we talking there about new looking but old-fashioned?

As to the rusty concrete  thing, I'll take your word for it, I'm not aware of it over here.

There wouldn't be a whole lot of discussion on many threads here if we were only allowed to post opinions on courses we had actually seen, would there?  Castle Stuart is a good 8 hour drive for me, so I'm not likely to visit unless I'm up that way.  The UK may be small, but it's not that small.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Niall

We still do not seem to fully understand or know the story of individuals from the 19th century, yet many are willing to discuss the design of their courses.

All generations seem to fall into the old trap of underrating their dead forefathers. Yet were they more ignorant that many today, no it’s just our own conceited minds believing that we know more that those long dead generations.

As for Old Tom, he was educated at Madras College in St Andrew, whilst not appearing to show much forward thinking when he was young, his education allowed him to mix with Kings, Princes, Earls, Dukes Lords and Ladies not to mention the Engineers Surveyors, The Clergy,  plus the rest of the GB&I population. Sorry not forgetting many overseas visitors. 

Poorly educated perhaps, although I do not feel that Madras College would agree, but did he not do well in rising to the occasion(s). That I believe shows a little bit more that the average intelligence.

As for the painters, who knows my friend?

PS Monet, is that not a bottle of Champagne – no sorry it’s Moet.

Melvyn

[Niall C]

Melvyn

I just knew you were going to educate me. BTW, was Monet around back in Old Tom's day ?

Cheers

Niall

[Tom_Doak]

Paul T:

I guarantee you that the sod wall surrounded by turf was inspired by the little sleeper-tops at Rye.  When Gil and I were building The Legends many moons ago, we had a grass bunker to the right of the 13th green and Gil suggested using the little sleeper-tops there to make it tougher.  I don't know if it's still there but it was a fun feature.  I am sure those sod walls have the same genesis, though out of context, they do look weird.

Niall:

You are right that the R & A themselves don't build any bunkers, and I have never dealt with them directly.  But I can tell you that I've turned down a couple of consulting jobs at clubs which were due to host USGA events, because it was very clear the USGA would tell the club what to do and the club would feel obliged to do it -- so I would not have the final say in what we were doing.  I just assumed that the R & A operated the same way.  And as hard as it is to imagine HCEG capitulating to what others demand, it isn't much different than seeing Shinnecock Hills do the same.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tom

I believe you are right re the R&A, albeit a request verging on ‘do it’. I have been advised that they do lay down guidelines for clubs to follow.

Melvyn


Niall

Sorry can't remember that far back - could be because I had too much Moet

[Niall C]

Tom

I note your comments regarding the USGA. I suppose it all comes down to the brief given by the client (USGA/R&A) eg. "provide us with advice on how to provide a good challenge for the best players in the world" or alternatively "give us deep, deep bunkers, and lots of them".

It seems to me that the R&A have been a bit more open minded to more imaginative ideas, for instance the re-alignment of the 16th fairway at Turnberry. I'm assuming the idea either came from MacKenzie/Ebert or even Turnberry themselves, either way I thought it was an elegant solution in altering two holes for the better (IMO).

Niall

[Michael Dugger]

Boy, the opinions expressed here will certainly contribute to the notion that gca.com folk are a bunch of blowhards.

Let me ask this question. 

Why are the numerous different bunkers style being employed at Old Macdonald acceptable-even lauded-but those at Castlestuart are being disparaged???

I don't get it. 

[Niall C]

Michael

A lot of it has to do with context, and a lot of it has to do with tradition.

If you are really interested in "getting it" I suggest that you read the thread properly and that way you might appreciate what some people are trying to say, even if you don't agree with it. Otherwise I suggest you move onto another thread.

Quick answer to your question - Old MacDonald isn't in Scotland

Niall

[Mark Pearce]

Boy, the opinions expressed here will certainly contribute to the notion that gca.com folk are a bunch of blowhards.

Let me ask this question. 

Why are the numerous different bunkers style being employed at Old Macdonald acceptable-even lauded-but those at Castlestuart are being disparaged???

I don't get it. 

Michael,

I have not made any comment on the Old MacDonald bunkering, so I can't possibly be accused of inconsistency.  Anyway, I like Niall's answer.

Mark

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