Is Mounding...

[Mike Hendren]

The most under-utilized and most affordable architectural element?

I don't mean that silly containment work on the hole's periphery, but rather dead on the line of charm. 

Show us some great artificial mounding!

Like this from Ran's profile of Holston Hills:


Bogey

[David Cronheim]

Underutilized absolutely, but affordable...well you'd be surprised how much dirt it takes to build one those mounds. Trucks full of clean fill aren't as cheap as you'd think. That said, they're affordable when compared to bunkers.

A few favorites:

Greenbrier #5 (from GCA):





(The mounds are actually not made of dirt, but from rocks removed from the site, according to GCA)

Kebo Valley #13

[Keith Williams]

Bogey,

I'll second your notion.  In fact, not to drag this thread into the gutter too quickly, I have found over time that I like my golf courses like l like my women - with mounding in all the right places   (time for a Mae West hole pic?)

Keith.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Interesting thread, Michael.

I'm in the midst of renovating The Oakville Golf Club (near Toronto) right now. The course was originally designed by George Cumming - the long-time pro at The Toronto Golf Club, and pioneer  Canadian golf architect - in 1921. 'Mounds' are an integral element in our plan. We're actually removing more than half of the existing sand bunkers from the course (most are not Cumming's design) and replacing (many of them) with 'mounds'.

I'll try to get some photos up here (for the sake of interest) once these new 'mounds' have been turf-ed. It's an interesting, albeit somewhat controversial idea - but I think it's going to work out just fine

[David_Tepper]

The mound front & left of the 12th green at Royal Dornoch makes the hole.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ridgewood (NJ), vis a vis AWT employed mounds directly within the lines of charm and around several greens.

Containment mounds can also serve as a visual and acoustical barrier.

[Mark Saltzman]

Bogey,

I don't know that mounding needs to be on the line of charm, but agree that it can be a very effective feature.

For example, at Scarboro's 1st (AWT), the lay-up area on the par-5 is made much more intimidating by adding mounding to the rough on the left side.  Approaches from the rough can be difficult, but approaches from the rough from a difficult/uncertain lie will be difficult.



Mounding Guards the Left Side of the Fairway

[Bradley Anderson]

Mounding can interfere with surface drainage routes and trap water, so there needs to be adequate drainage planned to accommodate mounds. So there may be certain places where mounding isn't going to be as affordable as you might think. Drainage systems require maintenance just like irrigation systems do.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Absolutely, Brad. But just like any golf course feature, design and shaping work must be done to facilitate drainage - first and foremost. As you know, that's usually not 'rocket science' - though I, too, have seen mounds screw up drainage.

[Tom_Doak]

I'm not big on building mounds, and never have been ... my goal at High Pointe was to build a course that didn't have any mounds, to try and balance out The Bear down the road.

But, I can certainly appreciate some of the mounds on older courses, especially the little mounds all over New England courses, which were an efficient way to use the debris from the site without trucking it miles out of town, as we do with cleared material nowadays.

The thing that bothers me in the photos above is that all of the mounds have LONG grass on them ... so that a ball that lands on them gets stuck there.  I have a soft spot for mounds with SHORT grass on them, so that a ball that hits them may go careening across the adjacent green, or get redirected toward another hazard.  That little mound in front of the fourth green of The Old Course is my all-time favorite.

[Patrick_Mucci]

AWT seems to have used them extensively.

They can also be found at Baltusrol Lower and Somerset Hills.

Shackamaxon has some, but not along the line of charm, more so surrounding the greens, especially on the long par 3, # 14 I believe.

As Tom Doak pointed out, maintainance is an issue.

Most of the AWT mounds are in the rough.

[JR Potts]

Count me as a huge fan of the mounding around 8 at Augusta Nat'l.

[Mike Hendren]

Count me as a huge fan of the mounding around 8 at Augusta Nat'l.

+1

Why isn't that feature and orientation a template?  Think of a 300 yards par four with the an extremely deep but narrow green angled at 45 degrees to the line off the tee with similar mounding running the length of the left-hand side of the green.  Maintain the mounding at fairway height so a tee ball can be chased over it with fairway long.  Imagine how dicey the chip would be if one came up short of the mounding while attempting to drive the green.  A timid pitch would catch the downslope of the mounding and run over the green.  Give the strategic, shorter hitter the option of leaving his drive way right with a simple pitch down the length of the green - not unlike the 4th at Spyglass without the ice plant.   How often to you see a bunkerless half-par hole.

Mike

[Patrick_Mucci]

Michael,

The 3rd green at Ridgewood (east) has the angled green with the mounds at the green and back in the fairway.

A double dose if you will.

[Adam Clayman]

[Jaeger Kovich]

Mounding seems to be the hardest thing to build and make it look natural.

[Grant Saunders]

I started a thread a little while ago that touched on a similar thought but with the element of the mounding used as a visual deception in relation to the putting surface.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,51461.msg1176638.html#msg1176638

I would definitely like to see mounding used more in place of bunkers as it is much easier and cheaper to maintain. The thread about topshot bunkers and how they are used to hide the landing zone has me thinking that simple form without the bunker could achieve that same effect without the extra cost.

[Tom_Doak]

Count me as a huge fan of the mounding around 8 at Augusta Nat'l.

+1

Why isn't that feature and orientation a template?  Think of a 300 yards par four with the an extremely deep but narrow green angled at 45 degrees to the line off the tee with similar mounding running the length of the left-hand side of the green.  Maintain the mounding at fairway height so a tee ball can be chased over it with fairway long.  Imagine how dicey the chip would be if one came up short of the mounding while attempting to drive the green.  A timid pitch would catch the downslope of the mounding and run over the green.  Give the strategic, shorter hitter the option of leaving his drive way right with a simple pitch down the length of the green - not unlike the 4th at Spyglass without the ice plant.   How often to you see a bunkerless half-par hole.

Mike

Mike:

This sounds like the tenth green at The Renaissance Club, a par five with the green angling the other way behind some very large rolls, with a steep fall-off along the back left flank.  It is one of the cooler green complexes we've built.  But, I can't take much credit for it ... the mounds were already there [a series of low dunes], and my friend John Ashworth had the idea for that green location several years before we wound up with the job.

[Sean_A]

I am a big fan of mounding if they are in play and/or part of the fairway (short grass).  I especially like mounding which causes causes visual deception/creates dead ground. One of my favourite uses is at Whittington Heath.  The row of mounds partially blocks the view of the green and hides the right to left swing of the surface and and area short of the green. 


Tom's mention of TOC's mound too is a great feature.  Perhaps the best use of mounds I have seen is at Kington - always in your face.



Ciao 

[Tim Nugent]

I have grown to hate mounds like this.




It's not the mound per se but rather their context against otherwise flat or tame topo.  They remind me of the 2 ice cream scoopers of rice you get with the Blue Plate Special at diners in Hawaii. They just sit on the exising ground and scream ARTIFICAL.

[Bill Brightly]

Michael,

The 3rd green at Ridgewood (east) has the angled green with the mounds at the green and back in the fairway.

A double dose if you will.

Here are the Tillinghast mounds Pat is referring to:

In the fairway, at the end of the tee shot landing area:


Around the green:

[Jeff_Mingay]

Mounding seems to be the hardest thing to build and make it look natural.

Jaeger (and Tim N.),

I think in some cases, the point's not to worry about mounds looking natural at all... see a number of those photos above

Now, whether you think they look good or not is entirely subjective of course.

[Tim Gavrich]

I too think strategic mounding tends to be underutilized.  I care very little about it looking "natural," personally; if it makes the hole more interesting, I'm all for it.  I think they're especially important on relatively flat courses, where there aren't so many opportunities for uneven lies.  My home course is a late-80s Nicklaus design, so there are a lot of mounds around greens and along fairways.  The 6th hole is a very slight dogleg left with a skinny green.  A bunker guards the left side and to the right is an array of mounds that catch many approach shots.  The thing is that it can be a tougher up-and-down from that side than from the bunker!

Kington's round mounds of rebound look awesome.

[Jim Sherma]

I agree completely with the statement as long as the mounding represents an area where a recovery is possible.

The pictures shown are representative of this but when these types of features are maintained as "native" gunch they become too penal in my opinion. Any feature that forces a decision with a reward for challenging the fearture offset by a recoverable but still potentially costly penalty for not pulling it off should be applauded. Decent rough on a tilted, broken ground type of lie should provide this, there is no need to make it lost-ball or hacked sand wedge type of grass though. This type of mounding appears to be a cost effective way of creating more interest assuming that they do not represent the drainage or mowing issues previously mentioned.

[Mike Hendren]

Agree that it is not necessaryh to attempt to make mounds look natural, but I'm guessing it's no small feat to get the scale right.

Sean, those rugged mounds at Kington are beautiful.  Love the photo with the wonderful back-drop.

Mike