When bunkers were hazards

[Dan King]

Finally got my scanner hooked up, so here are a couple pictures from Horace Hutchinson's collection Golf Greens and Green-Keeping published in MCMVI (1906.)


Redan bunker at North Berwick


Hell bunker at St. Andrews

'The St. Andrews man is apt to be a wild driver. This is easily understood, as it is a green on which there is very little room or, on the other hand, a great deal. By this I mean you have either to keep desperately straight or else very, very crooked: if you wander away just a little bit from the straight and narrow pathway you are often badly trapped, but a riotous, herculean blow, such as Mr. "Ted" Blackwell often hits, lands on some unheard-of place, but lands quite safe and sound.'
 --H.H. Hilton (Golf Greens and Green-Keeping chapter on Championship Courses)

[ed_getka]

Dan,
Now I know where to go with my wayward driver!  

[TEPaul]

Mr. "Ted" Blackwell was not what I would call a particularly strategic golfer; more like a constant dice roller!

Mr "Tiger" Woods, on the other hand, obviously struck a number of riotous, herculean blows, but was either extremely strategic, or had some great dice to have not gotten in a single bunker in 72 holes.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Dan
That fellow at North Berwick looks to playing a shot that may hazardous to his health. What strikes about the Hell photo is not only the wild naturalness, but also the dunes in the background. That book does a great job of illustrating what Hutchinson considered optimum hazards - wild and intimidating.

[Ran Morrissett]

The bunkers on many links in the first decade of the 20th century appeared somewhat similar to the one in the bottom picture of Dan's post.

One hundred years later, which (if any) links still enjoy this wild and untamed look?

Tenby does in some respects - where else?

[Mike_Cirba]

Awesome pictures, Dan.

I fear that even the most famous courses near me that used to favor the wild, untamed, irregular, natural look have either become totally standardized, clean, and manufactured looking, or are evolving towards that end.

Sadly, I can foresee a day when a youngster coming up in the game would look at pictures like this and wonder why the older guys had such trouble maintaining perfectly manicured sand "playing surfaces", and how the hell could they have been FAIR?!

[Evil Lurker]

Were not bunkers more of a hazard before the invention of the sand wedge?

Maybe consideration should be given to revising the equipment rules regarding the design of the sand wedge!

[Paul Richards]

AWESOME!

[Neil Crafter]

Regarding the photo of Hell Bunker. I have a photograph of Hell from the St Andrews Library taken in the 30s I believe from a similar angle. The dunes in the distance are smaller but it seems like the same bunker only quite smaller. The interesting thing is that this photo clearly shows the person in the bunker playing from right to left. As the sea is in the background it means either they have strayed considerably when playing the 5th or as I believe, this photo shows play from Hell on the reverse Old Course. Initially it just didn't look like any photo of Hell I could recall and wondered if it was a mislabeled photo in Hutchison. But I believe it genuinely shows the Old Course played in reverse. I also have an old photo taken from the area of the 2nd tee with golfers playing back to the 18th green - I published this in our latest Golf architecture magazine.
Interesting stuff.
cheers
Neil

[Patrick_Mucci]

Evil Lurker,

You make a good point.  

Between the invention of the Sand-Wedge and its evolution to the L-Wedge, and the modern day grooming practices, being in bunkers is sometimes prefered to being in the greenside rough.

I've advocated raking bunkers once a month as a start.

Certainly, no one is building bunkers as pictured above,
in quantity.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Patrick,
Lots of folks here seem to dislike modern bunker maintenance practices and some have suggested, as you did, reduced frequencies of raking, grooming ..etc..But, I have never come across a player who walked up to a bunker, saw his ball in a foot print and said, "oh boy, what a challenge". Are there any clubs out there who are reducing their bunker maintenance? Does anyone here really want a terrible lie in a bunker when they missed the green by a yard? The pros may like hitting in bunkers instead of green side rough, but average Joe still seems pretty intimidated by the sand. I'd love to see a club return to the idea of bunkers as hazards, but I doubt any club has a majority of players who want to make their bunkers more difficult.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Don,

Everyone, high and low handicapper seems to love Pine Valley, and I would say that their maintainance of bunkers is pretty close to what I described above.

TODAY, the same golfers you mention get upset if they don't have the perfect lie in the fairway, rough or bunker.

We've clearly gone to excess in some areas of maintainance.

[Richard_Goodale]

I tried to raise this question obliquely when the Oz contingent were going on about Royal Melbourne.  As I understood it, at RM (and other "sandbelt" courses) th bunkers were designed to meld into the greens (GREAT!), but were also maintained so as to have virtually all shots going into them collect into a flat, firm area in the middle (BAD!).  I prefer the GBI links course combination of bunker/green meld AND softish, less predictable sand.  The few that replied to my query seemed shocked that I should be so cheeky.  Was I wrong?

[Don_Mahaffey]

Patrick,
I'm in total agreement, I have tried to educate as many of my players as possible on what I call minimalist maintenance. Of course as soon as they hear that they think I mean reduced conditioning, not true. Let me give you an example, this year I went to a totally different fairway fertility program. My goal was to have perfect fairways but reduce the money spent on fertilizer and mowing. Since November I have mowed my fairways once a week and never had to disperse or collect clippings after I mowed. I have never grown better grass. Most in golf would say you can't do that and still have good fairways and to be fair when it warms up I will have more growth and need to mow more often, but I don't need to now and I'm very serious when I say that my grass is very good. I've found a balance that works for me at my course. But, the average player doesn't know or care how many times I mow unless the fairways are an inch long. The bunkers are another story. I know what you mean about Pine Valley, but it's a tradition there. Could another club change from highly groomed bunkers to a Pine Valley style? That I think would be quite a challenge.

[Mike_Cirba]

Don,

You're correct in stating that it would take quite the mental leap for modern golfers to start enjoying the challenges of bunkers that played as hazards.

But, I can tell you that although I may be a masochist, I've very much learned to enjoy finding myself in a difficult predicament in a difficult bunker.  My friend Dan King can attest to my joy in finding my ball plugged at Blue Heron Pines last winter, and playing a decent recovery shot was all the more gratifying.  

I can't imagine any reason why a "hazard" shouldn't be truly terrifying and something to avoid at all costs.  Otherwise, as Shakespeare may have said, "if there is no chance of tragedy, how dost we find comedy?"

[TEPaul]

DonM:

I know what you mean about trying to get members to accept bunkers that are less than very consistent and I think it would be a hard sell with most but it's worth a try at some clubs and who knows the idea may catch on to some extent.

You mentioned Pine Valley and that it's a tradition there. I don't know about that, maybe, but it's proabably more a practical matter. If they decided to maintain their bunkers like other courses they would probably have to double their crew.

Since Pine Valley is so revered and respected and since most have not been there it might be worthwhile to mention to members of other courses that one of the top courses in the world does it and just leave it at that. Sort of an Augusta syndrome in reverse, if you know what I mean. Anyway, everybody seems so interested in copying their tree separation style so they should be forced to copy their bunker style too!

Hidden Creek, which hasn't opened yet is thinking seriously about going this relatively unmaintained bunker route.

My thought would be to take the question of "maintenance of the sand for consistency" out of maintenance's hands altogether by an edict from somethng like a strong Green Committee!

This could then become a recognized decision of the club and get people off maintenance's back that way. The edict would include the direction that the only raking of sand will be done by players--that sort of throws things back at the entire membership as a group---not unlike the way Marine DIs handle their platoons--ie; everyone pitches in or the entire unit suffers! Who knows, this way the membership might get far less lazy and do something about raking the bunkers as they should--and certainly caddies could do it or help if they have them. Have you ever noticed how certain players if they have this ingrained in them do it instinctively, like a Lee Trevino who always went a long way to cleaning up after himself in a bunker?

Then post a sign somewhere prominently at the club for all to see: Something like:

"The sand in the bunkers at this course is maintained by the players only! The best way to negotiate the bunkers on this course is to avoid them--which is the primary architectural reason they're there in the first place. If you don't care to maintain them, again, the best way to do that is to avoid them in your play."

What do you think? Would anyone like to volunteer for the green commitee at their club and initiate and enforce something like this? Come on, there's probably a lot more closet John Arthur Brown's out there than you think!

[johnk]

Those are great pics.

I don't think bunkers not being hazards is a really
a huge issue for anyone but the pros.

First, 95% of all players' sand games mean that the bunkers do cost them a stroke the vast majority of the time.

Second, most of the courses I play have much less than perfect sand.  The sand is wet cement, or rocky or just dust.  You don't have a problem with over-consistency out here in NorCal.

My recollection from the UK is that the sand takes care of itself pretty well.  Plenty of rocks and furrows in the bunkers on the Old Course.  Beyond maintenance, very few bunkers in CA have the drama of the average bunker in Scotland.  I can only recall a few in the US that have steps leading in to them.  I've never had a ball that I literally had no way to get a club on in CA, but that happened twice when I played Rye.

So if the bunkers we play aren't hazardous enough, would maintenance practices really change the way they play for the average player?