The Bunkering at The National

[DMoriarty]

Sure I have if you weren't so incapable of listening and understanding that I've known that course for fifty years and I know its architectural history, its evolution and nuances better than you do by a factor of about 100! But that reality is something an argumentative light-weight like you just doesn't want to hear or ever will. Don't worry about it, I've known a few people over the years who act something like you and particularly after the phenomenon of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com let people on it like you! 

[DMoriarty]

Sure I have if you weren't so incapable of listening and understanding. I've known that course for fifty years and I know its architectural history, its evolution and nuances better than you do by a factor of about 100! But that reality is something an argumentative light-weight like you just doesn't want to hear or ever will. Don't worry about it, I've known a few people over the years who act something like you and particularly after the phenomenon of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com let people on it like you!  

It's too bad some people are so resistant and adverse to learning about some golf architecture from others who have been around it long before them. In your case your resistance is petty jealousy, plain and simple. Get hysterical again about that fact----it doesn't matter---it's the unvarnished truth!

Watch his reply amigos----something like----"That's the most PATHETIC......"   

[TEPaul]

Hmmmm! If I knew it was that interesting I would've said it twice. 

Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

[Bradley Anderson]

To answer your question, which of the pictured bunkers do not look as intended because of grow-in issues? Here goes....

This photo weighs heaviest against my theory. The mound in the middle of the bunker is looking pretty healthy, and the grades on that mound are steep enough to dry out. There is an eyebrow of healthy turf at the top of the sand sweep, and it too appears to be growing well on an area that would be inclined to dry out.


Here again we see healthy mounds inside of the bunker, but there is a lot of are you in the hazard or out of the hazard confusion going on in there. Now I'll grant you that that may be by design, but it can't be ruled out as a grow-in issue. As with the photo above, I find it curious that so much plant material is left to grow inside of the hazard. I would suggest that the volunteer grasses, and the seeds that feel inside the hazard may have been left to grow for stability.


Clearly the wind is having it's way with this bunker and the grass is struggling. I might want to rebuild this one so that it doesn't bury my green with sand on some windy winter day. Yikes.


This bunker looks remarkably like the bunker that is there today. Except that now it has a grass face on it rather than a flashed sand face. The face may have originally been seeded to have grass on it but the grass didn't fill in, and subsequent seedings where made. Or the face was originally intended to be sand flashed but was grassed later for aesthetic or practical reason reasons.


Not much to see on this one.


What is this a Van Gogh?


This photo supports my theory. There is a wind swept face to the left of the grass face, with tufts of grass inside of the sand indicating that it may have been seeded along with the grass face to the right, but the seed didn't take. I'm not saying that I know that is what happened, I am only saying that it could have happened.


This looks like intentional sand flashing to me. The foreground bunker has a grass face, and behind it there is a bunnker with flashed sand. This picture shows that there were different styles of bunkering at NGLA. And there still are. Let's think about that for a moment. Is it possible that there has been some allowance for grass movement in to bunkers, and some edging of grass out of bunkers for the sake of uniformity?


Hard to see what is going on here, but these have the shape of the bunkering at NGLA today.


This looks like a grass faced flat sand bunker to me. Here again there is a lot of stuff growing inside the bunker, and it does not appear to be turfgrass. Was this vegetation planted or was it volunteer? Is it there to make the hazard more hazardous? Is it there to help stabilize the sand? Is it there because the rules that touch on am I in the hazard or out of the hazard are not clearly defined at this time in the game?


The Redan bunkers. I think there would have been a focused effort on stabilizing this grass face because the entire concept of the hole depends on the fall away angle of the green that is so closely tied in with that bunker. So we shouldn't be surprised to find that this grass face is in pretty good shape. You were right to call me on this one David. There is some clumping that looks like it could be erosion, but now I think a better explanation is it hasn't been cut in a while and some tufts of fescue are growing higher than others.   


The Short Hole. One can say that the timbers are there to protect the putting surface from falling in to an eroding bunker problem. But one could also say that CBM wanted that timber look, and that there were no grow-in issues or banks stabilization problems here. I am more inclined to favor the former, because CBM doesn't seem to have been big on artificiality.


Bermuda grass - if you fertilize it and water it it will grow.


Sahara bunker. Clearly wind swept and blown out with weak edges. But I think that's what they wanted here. However, even this bunker would need to be contained at some point. You can not rule out that there is more wind erosion here than what is wanted. Nor can you rule out that this is exactly what they wanted.

The water tower to the left would have provided all the water for the whole course. The elevation of the tower provided pressure to the sprinklers so the water would throw some distance, but it wouldn't have been very much water that's for sure.


[/quote]

[Bradley Anderson]

David,

This photo shows some interesting aspects of bunker evolution that we don't see on the surface.

This bunker had white sand installed in it 10 years ago, to replace the original brown sand. In only 10 years there has been a 6 inch layer of sand tossed up on the the bunker bank from golf shots and wind erosion.

The next layer of brown sand is 3 inches thick. That layer was tossed and blown up over a 10 year period. We know this because there is a black soil sod layer beneath it from when this bunker hummock was sodded with bluegrass sod in 1989 or thereabouts. This illustrates that the white sand, which is all the rage right now, seems to accumulate twice as fast on bunker hummocks as the old brown sands did formerly.

Below that 1989 sod layer we have two feet of sand before we hit the original grass perimeter of the bunker, circa 1926.

Now this bunker does not by any means illustrate what happens on all bunkers. But it does illustrate how difficult it is to understand what happens to a bunker over time, when we are only looking at the surface or at photos. The fact is, bunkers evolve very fast. Much faster than we realize. And you don't really know what has happened to a bunker until you get in there with a shovel and start peeling the layers back.  

[Tom MacWood]

Bradley
Where was that picture taken?

[TEPaul]

"The Short Hole. One can say that the timbers are there to protect the putting surface from falling in to an eroding bunker problem. But one could also say that CBM wanted that timber look, and that there were no grow-in issues or banks stabilization problems here. I am more inclined to favor the former, because CBM doesn't seem to have been big on artificiality."



Brad:

As to why Macdonald originally put boards ("sleepers") into that fronting bunker face at the Short at NGLA we will probably never know for sure unless and until we find something in which he wrote about that specifically.

But we need to remember that Macdonald was pulling the look of his architecture from actual famous holes abroad and some of those famous holes abroad had that kind of feature (boards into bunker faces or sleepers) in the early days. A good example of it is the photo of the massive board sleepers supporting the big redan bunker on the original redan----#15 at North Berwick.

Some people seem to think of all linksland courses and holes as wholly natural looking but the point is back in that early day when Macdonald was studying those famous courses and holes abroad many of those holes had a lot of real artificialty to particular parts of them.

I doubt that kind of thing had much of anything to do with aesthetics to those people back then. It was likely more of what you've said----eg they were just trying to maintain some architectural features in such a way as to prevent them from collapsing and falling apart. 

[Patrick_Mucci]

David Moriarty,

I've only got a minute and hope to respond in depth later this evening.

But, if one examines the 1938 aerial, an aerial taken while CBM was alive, one could conclude that whatever existed in 1938 probably had CBM's blessings.

Now it's possible that there are exceptions to that premise.
CBM was in the waning stages of both his life and his influence at NGLA.
However, I don't see an architectural "palace coup" taking place at NGLA prior to his death.

I think the points I made earlier may have accounted for any bunker "morphing"

Experience, affects on playability, the weather and the aging process may have all combined to alter some of the features.

What would interest me is an analysis of the architecture from 1909 to 1938 and from 1938 to current date.

If the photo you posted is of # 2, the position of the green is a substantive distance from the green in the 1938 aerial.
The location was changed, dramatically.
So the question remains, when and why ?

Certainly, the terrain fronting the 1938 green is dramatically different from the terrain fronting your photo, hence, that difference in terrain would automatically change the bunker design to the degree that the bunker immediately fronting the green gets eliminated.

I don't view that as a change in style.
I think CBM's bunkers mostly fit the terrain and the downslope leading to # 2 green doesn't lend itself to the insertion of a bunker, for a number of reasons.

Yet, on the following hole, he did just the opposite, a total contradiction of the conclusion I drew above.

That leads me to believe that his bunker placement wasn't solely determined by the terrain, but rather, by the aspect of playability.

I'll continue later.

I'm still in doubt with respect to the location of the bunker in your picture.
The terrain surrounding that green does NOT lend itself to that bunker being below the level of the current fairway plateau

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bradley Anderson,

I know why CBM placed sleepers to shore up the 6th green.

He did it because sleepers were used on several holes, in a similar fashion, at Garden City GC, a club at which he was a member.

[TEPaul]

"One thing that I have not mentioned is I still don't entirely agree with those who call the look we associate with Mac/Raynor bunkering as "engineered". I have always observed that nature is loaded full of things that are strait and square. Bodies of water lay flat. Trees grow strait. What makes those Mac/Raynor courses so pleasing to look at is the ease with which the eye connects all the lines. You are aware that these features are block like, and yet they feel natural and so comfortable to look at."



Bradley:

I have been thinking about the above remark of yours for a few days.

In a real way what you said there basically goes directly to the nub of what so much of golf course architecture is about----eg essentially aesthetics, what does it look like to any golfer and observer? Of course that is certainly not all there is to golf course architecture because golfers must be able to play a relatively structured game on golf course architecture. Nevertheless, aesthetics, what a course "LOOKS LIKE" to golfers is obviously extremely important to golf architects, perhaps more than half the entire deal of what they do and what they create and what they think about!

Obviously the next question that does and perhaps should follow from that first question is what SHOULD the aesthetics and look of a golf course be like?

Well now, after taking into consideration what Behr referred to as those "4-5 necessities" of the game of golf we are pretty much into the world of "ART" aren't we when we consider that next question?

The specific reason your remark above caught my attention is we have covered this fascinating question about golf architecture and even about the aesthetics of NGLA's architecture on here before. (One thread was entitled something like "The NGLA Dichotomy" or enigma or dilemma or some such word. I think Tom MacWood started the thread and it was some years ago).

The point and question came up that even if some of the man-made features of some of the architecture of NGLA may look glaringly "engineered" (perhaps the meaning of that being the prevalence of straight lines) to some golfers and observers can we not still say that those types of lines are or can be found in nature and made by NATURE too? (you of course noted that they could and you also said they (straight lines) somehow make you feel comfortable!).

Ah, of course we can find a prevalence of straight lines somewhere in Nature but the point is can they be found on the site (actual ground) of NGLA naturally (pre-construction)? (For the moment I'm basically talking about lines that are formed at NGLA basically by earth (what Behr called the "medium" of the golf course architect) and not the flat and straight lines that are formed by the bodies of water and such somewhat surrounding NGLA.

To me that is the rub or one of them. Personally, I think I prefer man-made golf course architecture that somehow matches the types of lines any particular site has naturally (preconstruction). I guess I came to that particular preference because it was sort of explained to me that way once by the man I still consider my primary mentor in all things to do with golf architecture, and particularly my mentor with a type of aesthetics in architecture----when I asked him, half out of frustration, what in the hell he was doing or looking at or looking for when we walked around a raw site one time for about half a day without him saying hardly a single word to me.

What he said to me in answer to my question was undeniably the biggest revelation and eye-opener in all my years studying golf course architecture. I think it only took him ten minutes to explain it to me but he just kept using the words "twists and turns" over and over again!  

That wasn't all he said in that important and seminal ten minutes to my understanding but it surely was what hit me the most!

[TEPaul]

Brad:

I think I may've discovered with your remark quoted above in the last post that you just may be a sort of "straight line" type of guy. I think I'm a sort of "curvilinear line" type of guy ("twists and turns" ).

What was Raynor? Being the professional engineer he was that's probably pretty obvious.

What was Macdonald?

AND, what were the people who actually made some of the man-made architecture on those famous holes abroad that he essentially used as his "models" for NGLA and perhaps his entire career long "aesthetic?"

What is anybody?

In my opinion, it is only for them to decide, each and every one of them, and each ON HIS OWN!

[TEPaul]

Let me ask you something Bradley. Which do you prefer in interior design or interior decorating-----a room that combines a lot of different types and styles of things such as furniture or art etc (such as a combination of antiques AND modern art or furniture) or do you like it with something that is pretty consistent one way or the other?

[TEPaul]

 Should a man who makes a tennis court be considered an artist? Perhaps he should in the quality of the work he does given the formulaics and standardization necessary with the structure of a tennis court but it would be hard to say that the man who makes a tennis court has much if any ability or latitude to get into what Behr called "the freedom to fancy" (the freedom to really "interpret" his ideas given his particular "medium" and the structure of the game with which he has to do).

But a golf architecture sure does have the latitude and freedom to fancy (to interpret) given he understands some of the natural realities of what can and cannot happen to or be done with his particular "medium"-----eg EARTH!

Behr said the medium of the paint artist is paint, and he can be its master, but the medium of the golf course architect is earth, and he can never be its master; that only the forces of Nature (particularly wind and water) can be its master.

[Bradley Anderson]

Mr. Paul,

As far as home decor goes, I'm pretty much ok with a tv and a couch. No actually we have 7 kids, and my wife and I joke about how we won't even bother getting new furniture till they're all grown up and out of the house one day. But then we'll have grandchildren to mess it all up again.

You look at those pictures of Sleepy Hollow and there are not too many curvilinear lines out there. But it is just as beautiful and natural looking to my eyes as anything that nature has ever presented. Actually I think it was Brad Klein who first suggested to me that rectilinear golf course architecture is pleasing to look at because the lines are easy for the eye to connect and tie in with the surroundings.

The idea here is that if you want to build something that looks natural, you begin by connecting it to it's surroundings, and that means simplicity.


 

[DMoriarty]

Bradley,

Thanks for going through the photos . . .

To answer your question, which of the pictured bunkers do not look as intended because of grow-in issues? Here goes....

This photo weighs heaviest against my theory. The mound in the middle of the bunker is looking pretty healthy, and the grades on that mound are steep enough to dry out. There is an eyebrow of healthy turf at the top of the sand sweep, and it too appears to be growing well on an area that would be inclined to dry out.

This photo was published in 1926 and is identified as yet another photo of the Sahara bunker.   I think it is safe to say from this and the older photos of the Sahara that it was originally intended to be a wild looking sand faced bunker.


Here again we see healthy mounds inside of the bunker, but there is a lot of are you in the hazard or out of the hazard confusion going on in there. Now I'll grant you that that may be by design, but it can't be ruled out as a grow-in issue. As with the photo above, I find it curious that so much plant material is left to grow inside of the hazard. I would suggest that the volunteer grasses, and the seeds that feel inside the hazard may have been left to grow for stability.

CBM wrote that in larger bunkers he planted/allowed tufts of grass to grow to stabilize the bunker.   So one should expect the larger bunkers to have tufts of grass going in them.  For example, see the photo of the Sahara above from 1926.



Clearly the wind is having it's way with this bunker and the grass is struggling. I might want to rebuild this one so that it doesn't bury my green with sand on some windy winter day. Yikes.

This is again the Sahara bunker (at least labeled as such) this time from 1910.  I don't think that was the green . . . if it was it was moved shortly thereafter.   See photo above (and below) for indication that a wilder look for this bunker was intentional. 


This bunker looks remarkably like the bunker that is there today. Except that now it has a grass face on it rather than a flashed sand face. The face may have originally been seeded to have grass on it but the grass didn't fill in, and subsequent seedings where made. Or the face was originally intended to be sand flashed but was grassed later for aesthetic or practical reason reasons.

We have a 1926 photograph of this bunker posted above (in the dual photo with the Sahara) that shows a sand face, thus answering your question about the intent. 



Not much to see on this one.

I disagree.   Those are NOT grass faced bunkers.


What is this a Van Gogh?

Franklyn Booth.

This photo supports my theory. There is a wind swept face to the left of the grass face, with tufts of grass inside of the sand indicating that it may have been seeded along with the grass face to the right, but the seed didn't take. I'm not saying that I know that is what happened, I am only saying that it could have happened.

This bunker is Mid Ocean, from the mid 1920's.  There is grass on the flashed part, but again, this was Macdonald's preference.   Also, there are other photos of early Macdonald bunkers that appear to have had faces that are partially flashed and partially grass.  For example, in the Levick photo of the the Redan, one can see this style on one of the fronting bunker.  Also in one of the bunkers below the clubhouse you can see a similar style.  So again I think this may have been intentional on the part of Macdonald.   It is reminiscent of some of what I have seen in early photos of links courses. 


This looks like intentional sand flashing to me. The foreground bunker has a grass face, and behind it there is a bunnker with flashed sand. This picture shows that there were different styles of bunkering at NGLA. And there still are. Let's think about that for a moment. Is it possible that there has been some allowance for grass movement in to bunkers, and some edging of grass out of bunkers for the sake of uniformity?

I agree that this bunker shows different aesthetic styles present, and would emphasize that this was obviously intentional, and not just a product of erosion or grow-in.    But while I agree that there are still different styles of bunkering at NGLA, this old look is not represented, at least not to the degree it once was.   This goes for both the rough edged sand face look and sand faced bunkers like the one highlighted in this photo. 

THE SAND SPLASHED-FACE BUNKER STYLE VISIBLE IN MOST OF THESE PHOTOS IS NO LONGER PREVALENT AT NGLA.


Hard to see what is going on here, but these have the shape of the bunkering at NGLA today.

They may be the shape, but again at least one or two of these are sand faced or partially sand faced..


This looks like a grass faced flat sand bunker to me. Here again there is a lot of stuff growing inside the bunker, and it does not appear to be turfgrass. Was this vegetation planted or was it volunteer? Is it there to make the hazard more hazardous? Is it there to help stabilize the sand? Is it there because the rules that touch on am I in the hazard or out of the hazard are not clearly defined at this time in the game?

This is a strange one and very early; 1909 I think.  It could be a bunker representing the Eden River behind Macdonald's Eden Hole, but I can't remember the details.  To be honest with you, now that I look at it again, I am not even sure if it is a bunker or just the turf as it existed off the course at this time.


The Redan bunkers. I think there would have been a focused effort on stabilizing this grass face because the entire concept of the hole depends on the fall away angle of the green that is so closely tied in with that bunker. So we shouldn't be surprised to find that this grass face is in pretty good shape. You were right to call me on this one David. There is some clumping that looks like it could be erosion, but now I think a better explanation is it hasn't been cut in a while and some tufts of fescue are growing higher than others.   


The Short Hole. One can say that the timbers are there to protect the putting surface from falling in to an eroding bunker problem. But one could also say that CBM wanted that timber look, and that there were no grow-in issues or banks stabilization problems here. I am more inclined to favor the former, because CBM doesn't seem to have been big on artificiality.

It was apparently important in CBM's scheme for his short holes that they sat up abruptly around the surrounding terrain.   This is a situation where I tend to agree with your explanation.   He may have been building up here, instead of cutting into, so it makes sense to be that these ties might have been to stabilize the edge.   I believe the timbers were gone by the mid-1920's further indicating that he did not intended the look to be permanent.    TomP wants to give Garden City credit for inspiring this look but the reality is that there were RR ties used on many of the links courses at this time to stabilize bunkers and ground.


Bermuda grass - if you fertilize it and water it it will grow.

Yep.   Mid Ocean from the mid 20s.


Sahara bunker. Clearly wind swept and blown out with weak edges. But I think that's what they wanted here. However, even this bunker would need to be contained at some point. You can not rule out that there is more wind erosion here than what is wanted. Nor can you rule out that this is exactly what they wanted.
Whether this was the exact amount of eroded look they wanted is debatable, but we agree that generally this is what they wanted here.

The water tower to the left would have provided all the water for the whole course. The elevation of the tower provided pressure to the sprinklers so the water would throw some distance, but it wouldn't have been very much water that's for sure.

[/quote]

 Thanks again for taking a closer look at the bunkers.   I think we are in agreement that there were a number of sand faced bunkers that were intended to be so, and that CBM was going for a natural look.   

Will respond to your other posts soon . . . 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick,

Here again in the photo in question, from the August 1910 AG article on the early tournament:



Here is a photograph of the hole from the 1914 Article on the hole by M&W, from short and right of the bunker:



Dave,

These are NOT the same bunker.

Just look at the topography.

Look at the size of the two bunkers

Look at the configuration and ask yourself, if you were standing at the tee, would the bunker in the top photo look anything like the bunker in the bottom photo ?  The answer is NO.

Look at the fronting turf in the top photo.

There is NONE in the bottom photo.

These aren't the same bunker.

[Sean_A]

"NGLA's early bunkering looks very much like the bunkers in Scotland in the early 20th century. Pick up a copy of British Golf Links and it becomes obvious."

So it would seem you lot have come full circle.  The bunkers do have an altered aesthetic today in both Scotland (call it all of GB&I) and at NGLA.  I am curious why folks would not accept the idea that for cheaper and easier maintenance, it better to contain sand within the designated area for a bunker - regardless of original architectural intent for playablity or aesthetics?  Haven't we seen the "natural lines" of bunkering which are ill-defined become more regimented at course after course?  I don't believe this epidemic is coincidental.  I think most courses which maintain the "ill-defined" look either don't get regular strong winds, are willing to pay for regular serious maintenance work on bunkers and/or they have enough property that the blowing sand essentially doesn't cause much of a problem.  

I look at a course like Sand Hills and notice that many of the bunkers are the frilly style which imitate nature fairly well, but compromise in that there is an attempt to contain the sand.  I also see free flowing sand from areas that look to have much less intervention.  Some of these are in areas that aren't an immediate threat to the quality of the greens and fairway turf, but some look to be right next to the turf.  My question is, do archies who want this sort of natural blowout look as part of the bunkering scheme take into account the prevailing winds or is it just accepted that eventually these areas will have to be dealt with?  

BTW Pat, I have asked two supers, neither seemed keen on using nature to top dress their courses.  Have you had any luck finding supers who do advocate top dressing au naturel?  

Ciao

[TEPaul]

"These are NOT the same bunker.

Just look at the topography.

"Look at the size of the two bunkers

Look at the configuration and ask yourself, if you were standing at the tee, would the bunker in the top photo look anything like the bunker in the bottom photo ?  The answer is NO.

Look at the fronting turf in the top photo.

There is NONE in the bottom photo.

These aren't the same bunker."



Pat:

It is definitely the same bunker; it's just really huge, and we're just looking at it from two completely different angles and places. There is no other bunker on that hole that big and there never has been.

If you'd like you can enroll in my GCA photographic analysis class----I'll teach you how to do it just like I've taught you everything else you know about golf course architecture.

[TEPaul]

Bradley:


Regarding your post #238, there you go----eg you really are a straight line or rectilinear line guy with architecture. Nothing at all wrong with that; that's what pleases your eye obviously!

Others just don't have an appreciation for rectilinear lines in architecture, obviously preferring curvilinear lines and perhaps because those kinds of lines generally match the lines of big and small natural landforms on most sites. Frankly, it just may be that most golfers and observers don't even really notice these kinds of things-----eg it may be more subliminal than actually concsious.

Apparently to some golfers and observers the straight or rectilinear lines of some architecture makes them view it as "engineered" and man-made looking and therefore not particularly natural looking on some sites. Apparently Wayne Morrison feels that way and plenty of others do as well. I guess I fall into that camp because of my own eye but the straightish and rectilinear lines of the National School of Architecture do fascinate me anyway. I look at it as a sort of odd and gutsy juxtaposition of man-made lines against the curvilinear natural lines of various sites and their natural landforms.

It's all about "art" and art can certainly take many many forms and expressions!

But the thing that really interests me about Macdonald and some of his straight-line architecture is that he may not have even been thinking of this kind of thing much at all other than he knew he was imitating some of the engineered straight lines of the early man-made architecture from even the famous linksland holes abroad.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bradley,

Thanks for going through the photos . . .

To answer your question, which of the pictured bunkers do not look as intended because of grow-in issues? Here goes....

This photo weighs heaviest against my theory. The mound in the middle of the bunker is looking pretty healthy, and the grades on that mound are steep enough to dry out. There is an eyebrow of healthy turf at the top of the sand sweep, and it too appears to be growing well on an area that would be inclined to dry out.

This photo was published in 1926 and is identified as yet another photo of the Sahara bunker.   I think it is safe to say from this and the older photos of the Sahara that it was originally intended to be a wild looking sand faced bunker.


Dave, I would disagree with you with respect to the Sahara bunker.  
The Sahara bunker is different from other bunkers in that it occupies a huge expanse, one without sharply defined boundaries at every border.
The Sahara bunker also occupies a unique portion of the terrain, a fairly steep hill.
In light of the early difficulty with grassing NGLA, I wonder if the Sahara Bunker wasn't the product of a grassing default.
It would seem difficult to grow in and maintain a grass faced "Sahara Bunker" in 1909.


Here again we see healthy mounds inside of the bunker, but there is a lot of are you in the hazard or out of the hazard confusion going on in there. Now I'll grant you that that may be by design, but it can't be ruled out as a grow-in issue. As with the photo above, I find it curious that so much plant material is left to grow inside of the hazard. I would suggest that the volunteer grasses, and the seeds that feel inside the hazard may have been left to grow for stability.

Bradley, stability for what purpose ?  These are mounds, sections of earth in the middle of the bunker, not at the perimeter where the bunker meets the turf.  If those interior sections of earth/grass were removed and the entire bunker was an expanse of sand, why would you need interior stabiilty ?

CBM wrote that in larger bunkers he planted/allowed tufts of grass to grow to stabilize the bunker.   So one should expect the larger bunkers to have tufts of grass going in them.  For example, see the photo of the Sahara above from 1926.

Dave, I think you have to be careful in interpreting what CBM meant.
How does growing tufts of grass in the interior of the bunker, stabilize the bunker ?



Clearly the wind is having it's way with this bunker and the grass is struggling. I might want to rebuild this one so that it doesn't bury my green with sand on some windy winter day. Yikes.

Bradley, I disagree.
Have you ever seen this bunker in person ?
The wind isn't having its way.
This bunker is sheltered from the prevailing winds


This is again the Sahara bunker (at least labeled as such) this time from 1910.  I don't think that was the green . . . if it was it was moved shortly thereafter.   See photo above (and below) for indication that a wilder look for this bunker was intentional. 

Dave, go to Google Earth and look at the 2nd hole.  Rotate the view so that the west is at the top of your screen and the east at the bottom.
If this is the 2nd green, it would have to be 60-80 yards closer to the tee, and still, the topography wouldn't fit the photo/configuration.
Yet, that island in the bunker fascinates me since its at a similar location and angle as the island in the current Google Aerial, however, if the green was to the left of it, the terrain behind the green doesn't gell with the topo in that area.  If you look at the gree and area to the right of the flagstick, it looks very similar to the 3rd green, and, if you were standing on the hill short and left of the third green, that's the view you would get.
But, as Tom Doak said, the hill behind the green doesn't jive with what's there currently, so, was the green moved back, offset from the bunker, which is the way it is today, or, is this photo from another hole, another golf course ?


This bunker looks remarkably like the bunker that is there today

I would disagree with that.
Look how steeply that bunker falls from right to left.
There is NO such slope in today's bunker.
Are they both large bunkers ?  Yes.  Do they have a turf island in them, Yes, but their lines/borders/perimeter is dramatically different.

Except that now it has a grass face on it rather than a flashed sand face. The face may have originally been seeded to have grass on it but the grass didn't fill in, and subsequent seedings where made. Or the face was originally intended to be sand flashed but was grassed later for aesthetic or practical reason reasons.

Brad, you're making the quantum leap that these are in fact the same bunker, which I dispute.
If you look at the bunker above, the line of demarcation is sharp.  I submit, that on that slope, it would be impossible to maintain that sharpness without erosion and the bunker encroaching further and further into the green.

We have a 1926 photograph of this bunker posted above (in the dual photo with the Sahara) that shows a sand face, thus answering your question about the intent. 

Dave, it would be impossible to maintain the large bunker on # 2 with a sand face as opposed to a grass face.
As you know, the top of that bunker would sit high, on the crest of the hill, subject to all of the elements, INCLUDING golfers trodding the fairways and extricating themselves from that bunker.  There's NO WAY a sand faced bunker could survive without serious encroachment into the fairway and green, thus, function and maintainance dictate the style



Not much to see on this one.

I disagree.   Those are NOT grass faced bunkers.

Dave, again, I think the topography dictated the bunker style on this fairway bunker.

This bunker is Mid Ocean, from the mid 1920's



Non-NGLA photos have no bearing on the bunkering at NGLA



This looks like intentional sand flashing to me. The foreground bunker has a grass face, and behind it there is a bunnker with flashed sand. This picture shows that there were different styles of bunkering at NGLA. And there still are. Let's think about that for a moment. Is it possible that there has been some allowance for grass movement in to bunkers, and some edging of grass out of bunkers for the sake of uniformity?

I agree that this bunker shows different aesthetic styles present, and would emphasize that this was obviously intentional, and not just a product of erosion or grow-in.    But while I agree that there are still different styles of bunkering at NGLA, this old look is not represented, at least not to the degree it once was.   This goes for both the rough edged sand face look and sand faced bunkers like the one highlighted in this photo. 

Dave & Bradley,

I think the mistake you both make is that you're evaluating bunkers from an angle OTHER than the angle that the golfer sees them from.
Sand flashed bunkers are ONLY sand flashed bunkers if that's what the golfer sees.
You're viewing bunkers from the side, not the front, and that impacts your evaluative process.
You have to evaluate the bunkers from the golfer's view, not a particular photographer's view

THE SAND SPLASHED-FACE BUNKER STYLE VISIBLE IN MOST OF THESE PHOTOS IS NO LONGER PREVALENT AT NGLA.

That's because it wasn't a sand flashed bunker in the first place.
The photo is taken from the hill to the left of the green, well above where the golfer would take his stance in the fairway to the right.


Hard to see what is going on here, but these have the shape of the bunkering at NGLA today.

They may be the shape, but again at least one or two of these are sand faced or partially sand faced..

Again, I"m not so sure that the photo is taken from the "golfer's" angle.
What hole is this ?



This looks like a grass faced flat sand bunker to me. Here again there is a lot of stuff growing inside the bunker, and it does not appear to be turfgrass. Was this vegetation planted or was it volunteer? Is it there to make the hazard more hazardous? Is it there to help stabilize the sand? Is it there because the rules that touch on am I in the hazard or out of the hazard are not clearly defined at this time in the game?

This is a strange one and very early; 1909 I think.  It could be a bunker representing the Eden River behind Macdonald's Eden Hole, but I can't remember the details.  To be honest with you, now that I look at it again, I am not even sure if it is a bunker or just the turf as it existed off the course at this time.

The problem I have with this photo is the object/structure/building above the horizon.
It would have to be huge.
The 1938 Aerial shows no such object/structure/building.



The Redan bunkers. I think there would have been a focused effort on stabilizing this grass face because the entire concept of the hole depends on the fall away angle of the green that is so closely tied in with that bunker. So we shouldn't be surprised to find that this grass face is in pretty good shape. You were right to call me on this one David. There is some clumping that looks like it could be erosion, but now I think a better explanation is it hasn't been cut in a while and some tufts of fescue are growing higher than others.   

The bunker face looks pretty much the same today.
Golfers who climb the face of that bunker help erode the steep face.
In addition, a great deal of sand splash coats the grass face, creating that look.


The Short Hole. One can say that the timbers are there to protect the putting surface from falling in to an eroding bunker problem. But one could also say that CBM wanted that timber look, and that there were no grow-in issues or banks stabilization problems here. I am more inclined to favor the former, because CBM doesn't seem to have been big on artificiality.

The use of timber/sleepers was quite common.
Garden City used them and CBM was a member at GCGC.
They serve several purposes.

It was apparently important in CBM's scheme for his short holes that they sat up abruptly around the surrounding terrain.   
This is a situation where I tend to agree with your explanation.   
He may have been building up here, instead of cutting into, so it makes sense to be that these ties might have been to stabilize the edge.   I believe the timbers were gone by the mid-1920's further indicating that he did not intended the look to be permanent.   
TomP wants to give Garden City credit for inspiring this look but the reality is that there were RR ties used on many of the links courses at this time to stabilize bunkers and ground.

Dave, I was the one who cited GCGC.
There are a great number of photos of timbers/sleepers at GCGC.
They provide a penal situation.
In addition, I'm sure that CBM saw their use in his travels to the UK.


Sahara bunker. Clearly wind swept and blown out with weak edges. But I think that's what they wanted here. However, even this bunker would need to be contained at some point. You can not rule out that there is more wind erosion here than what is wanted. Nor can you rule out that this is exactly what they wanted.
Whether this was the exact amount of eroded look they wanted is debatable, but we agree that generally this is what they wanted here.

Dave & Brad, you can't ignore the topography in conjunction with the wind, rain, etc., etc..
When you add in golfers traipsing in and out of these bunkers, you can understand how they would rapidly deteriorate.
They NEED grass facing to stabilize them.
Don't forget that sand splash makes grass banked bunkers look sparse or weather worn.

The water tower to the left would have provided all the water for the whole course.
The elevation of the tower provided pressure to the sprinklers so the water would throw some distance, but it wouldn't have been very much water that's for sure.

With cool, moist air off the Ocean and Sound, I'm not sure how much water NGLA needed.  If it was an enormous volume,
it's doubtful that an adequate supply came from the water tower.

 Thanks again for taking a closer look at the bunkers.   I think we are in agreement that there were a number of sand faced bunkers that were intended to be so, and that CBM was going for a natural look.   

Dave, how can you claim that CBM was going for the "natural" look when he surrounded the 6h green with wooden timbers ?

I don't think CBM was going for any look.
I think he viewed the bunkers primarily in the context of playability, function and maintainance.
[/quote]

[TEPaul]

"My question is, do archies who want this sort of natural blowout look as part of the bunkering scheme take into account the prevailing winds or is it just accepted that eventually these areas will have to be dealt with?"


Sean:

The course that I'm aware of that has to deal with that question of yours to the max is Sand Hills GC. We should talk about that one in the context of your question. I had a couple of conversations about this with Bill Coore and some of the maintenance guys out there and at first they really didn't know which way to go with that question. But they did know right up front they were going to have to deal with it somehow (such as their unique irrigation system) as apparently the winters and the winter winds out there are just beyond belief. Actually Bill said he was out there enough without his sunglasses that he damn near went blind! 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat:

It is definitely the same bunker; it's just really huge, and we're just looking at it from two completely different angles and places.

Tom, please, look at the bunkers, they're nowhere near the same size.
Also, please look at the severe right to left slopes in the top photo.
Do you find anything like those slopes in the bottom photo ?

Look at all the turf fronting the bunker in the top photo.
Where is it in the bottom photo.
They're not the same bunker.
The bottom bunker goes from the crest of the hill to the bottom of the hill.

The top photo doesn't.

And, it's substantially smaller than the vast, expansive bunker in the bottom photo.

There is no other bunker on that hole that big and there never has been.

What are you talking about ?

I'm not disputing that the bottom photo is the 2nd hole.
I'm disputing that the top photo is of the 2nd hole.

If you'd like you can enroll in my GCA photographic analysis class----I'll teach you how to do it just like I've taught you everything else you know about golf course architecture.

TEPaul, aka Mr. Magoo.

Please, see an oculist, then take another look at that top photo and tell me where you think the green.
Then explain the topography in the photo, the slopes, etc., etc.. in the context of the actual terrain on that hole

[TEPaul]

"How does growing tufts of grass in the interior of the bunker, stabilize the bunker ?"


Come on Pat, you can probably answer that one all by yourself. If you can't I'll take you down to Talbot Island State Park along the dunes on the coast and old A1A north of Jacksonville and south of Amelia Island, Florida. We'll go out there when the wind is really blowing and you can watch how it works in nature for yourself.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Look at that photo just above where you can see that water tower on the left. How far away from that water tower do you think that photographer was standing? Now look at that photo with the golfers in the bunker with the caption that the green is to the left (that photograper was standing up in that water tower.

The point is that bunker is really long. What you see in that first photo (that shows the water tower on the left) is the front end of that huge long bunker. The part of it you see those golfers in is not even visible in the one that show the water tower----eg it is way up there through that middle slot (in the photo with the water tower on the left). One of the keys are those steps you can see in both photos from totally different places and angles.

[Bradley Anderson]

I just want to say:

There is no way in hell that the sandy windy environment of the Shinnecock Hills region could have had any effect whatsoever on how the bunkers at NGLA looked during their first several years. Everything about those bunkers was under the complete control of CBM and his associates.

Let me add that the irrigation and agronomy practices of those times were entirely adequate for having absolute dominion over every whim and caprice of nature.

I feel like such a fool for ever even suggesting anything otherwise.