[Ally Mcintosh]

So often I see people on GCA berate bunkers on the outside of doglegs... Usually they are correct... When used for purely "target" or aesthetic purposes, they often serve no addition to strategy. Regularly, they are used in this way for penal purposes to tighten landing zones.... They certainly don't follow that old favourite Max Behr "line of charm" school of thinking....

But so often they can be highly strategic....

If using outside fairway bunkering on long sweeping doglegs with close inside bunkering at the greenside, it is almost easier to achieve strategy in angles than it is using the reverse... Apart from the actual mathematics of those angles being easier to achieve, the mental aspect is the equal to the line of charm approach... In this case you have to forcibly play out away from the line and on the slightly longer route to be rewarded...

This really struck home whilst playing yesterday in incredibly firm and fast conditions (early season lack of growth and moisture in ground) where the course offered up at least 4 of these type of holes where the ball was next to impossible to hold on the green if approaching from the line of instinct... It was real old time strategy and reminded me that equipment advances haven't completely done away with it... Great fun... Good to be alive...

Anyone with good working examples of outside bunkers working well in a strategic sense?

[Jason Thurman]

I love this bunker on the 14th tee at the very solid Dale Hollow State Park course in Kentucky.



It's a reachable par 5, and the carry to the fat part of the fairway over the water is about 225 or so. Getting there leaves a green-light situation. For a bigger hitter though, the bunker forces your hand. You either have to take a 3w off the tee to stay short (nerve racking when you're trying to carry water) or stay right of the bunker, leaving a VERY narrow target. The bunker defines position A, and if it were replaced by fairway or even rough most players would want to end up in that very spot. Go in the sand, though, and reaching in 2 is out of the question.

[Phil McDade]

From a course I don't like all that much (and yet this is the second photo in a week from that course!), one of the more entertaining holes at University Ridge near Madison WI. The hole is a sharply doglegging par 4, playing only @ 350 yds, downhill; it occasionally has been driven and even aced. The test here is pretty straightforward -- hit a cut or fade off the tee to set up a simple approach pitch. The outside bunkers are pretty penal -- high mounds surrounding them -- but I think they work; the hole fairly shouts: Hit a fade or you're in trouble!

Three looks -- the tee shot, the approach with a successful drive, and a look back:

[Jason Thurman]

Funny Phil. I never really noticed the bunkers on 15. The bigger risk for me was always the OB/lost ball zone left of them. I agree though that 15 would be a much weaker hole without the hazards outside the dogleg. With players trying to blast one near the green, the risk of a pull is always there and it equals death on that hole.

I'm curious as to why you don't care for the course. While the greens have some conditioning issues and 4 might be the worst hole of all-time, I've always thought University Ridge was a very good routing on a unique property with plenty of good risk/reward shots and some fun holes. It's probably not in my top 10 anymore, but not too far out either. In fact, the bunker left on 1 that pushes the player further toward the line of charm might be another good example for this thread.

[Phil McDade]

Funny Phil. I never really noticed the bunkers on 15. The bigger risk for me was always the OB/lost ball zone left of them. I agree though that 15 would be a much weaker hole without the hazards outside the dogleg. With players trying to blast one near the green, the risk of a pull is always there and it equals death on that hole.

I'm curious as to why you don't care for the course. While the greens have some conditioning issues and 4 might be the worst hole of all-time, I've always thought University Ridge was a very good routing on a unique property with plenty of good risk/reward shots and some fun holes. It's probably not in my top 10 anymore, but not too far out either. In fact, the bunker left on 1 that pushes the player further toward the line of charm might be another good example for this thread.

Jason:

Here's my photo thread on URidge from a few years ago that lays out in detail some of my objections to the course (the linked thread contains a link to another thread from a Madison-area GCAer as well):

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,38431.0.html

In short:

-- The front-nine routing, particularly the first four holes, is truly awful, and creates significant pace-of-play issues;

-- The back nine is better, although the trio of short par 4s that run consecutively (13-15) -- when Jones had a ton of land to work with -- shows a lack of imagination (although I like 15 a lot);

-- Jones is pretty formulaic with his greensite bunkering and mounding, as well as with his par 3s;

-- Some of the new back tees -- designed to lengthen the course -- are over-the-top and don't fit with some of the greens (a lesser concern, but one worth bringing up given URidge's admitted desire to raise the profile of the course);

-- The course has some really solid holes (I like 9 and most of the back nine), but also has some pretty awful (4, 6, 8 ) or goofy (2 and 16 esp.) holes. It never seems to "fit" together as a coherent round of golf.

[Mark Saltzman]

Ally, I completely agree with your premise, and would say that in 90+% of cases bunkers on the outside of doglegs / through the fairway are completely penal in nature with the ideal line (both in length and angle) being from the inside of the dogleg.  Aside from being penal, more often than not, the vast majority of golfers cannot reach them, making them either (a) eye candy, or (b) visual intimidation, depending on whether or not they were designed by a MFA.

Anyways, here's the 1st at Prairie Dunes.  The bunker through the fairway was added by Coore and Crenshaw and shaped by one of Dan Proctor or Dave Axland (can't remember which one, maybe someone can IM me so I have my facts right, anyways it is very well done). 


The hole sweeps left from the tee.  The temptation is to play towards the inside of the dogleg.




But a tee ball on the inside of the dogleg leaves a semi-blind approach to the green:




While the ideal line from the right is protected by the fairway bunker on the outside of the dogleg:

[Pete_Pittock]

First hole at Seattle Golf Club, as I remember a mid length par 4 doglegging to the right with a forest at the inside corner. The closer you hit it to the bunker, the better angle to the green. From memory more than a quarter century ago.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=SEATAC+airport,+SeaTac,+WA&daddr=210+NW+145th+Street,+Seattle,+WA+98177&hl=en&geocode=Fc7x0wIdr9e1-Cn9_upCVUOQVDG3N9zHxNnTmQ%3BFYhd2AIdc-20-CmvCg2CKRGQVDFNxz3-h1EUig&mra=ls&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.688845,78.662109&ie=UTF8&dirflg=d&ll=47.586715,-122.312164&spn=0.326501,0.614548&z=11
Scroll up until you seee Hwy 523. SGC is west of I-5 on 523 (145th). The first hole is bottom left with the tees just above "Boundary Lane"

[Doug Wright]

I agree Ally there are some holes where bunkering on the outside of the dogleg makes sense.  The 15th hole at my club (Denver CC) is a short dogleg right par 4. The small, well-bunkered green angles from the fairway like this / so the best angle of approach is from the left side of the fairway. For years there have been three bunkers on the outside of the dogleg, and they were very much on the golfer's mind from the tee. In our bunker renovation project, Gil Hanse removed those bunkers in favor of two bunkers in the right center of the fairway (and closer to the green). The left side is unprotected (except for Cherry  Creek, which  is unreachable from the tee by 95% of players). The tee shot on this hole is now very uninteresting. I asked Gil about this when he did his presentation to the members and he said he wanted to add focus to the creek. Unfortunately the creek adds nothing--it's not a factor as i mentioned--and the prior bunkers on the outside of the dogleg added a lot. The rest of Gil's work on the course (bunkering--repositioning and additions plus tree removal) is very well done, including a couple of holes where bunkers on the outside of doglegs that were not very strategic were replaced by bunkers on the inside of doglegs.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Thanks for the responses and very interesting example Doug.... Shows (at least in your opinion and it appears to be a well thought out one) that it's always good to question the default position which for many of us is centreline bunkers = good, bunkers on outside of dogleg = bad....

I think they work best in a strategic sense with gentle sweeping doglegs... The first two examples look a little more severe and then it can become more about distance control rather than angles...

However, from a design point of view, I actually believe it is easier to create the desired strategic effect using the outside of the dogleg as the preferred line rather than the inside... This is because you are angling the green with the line of play as opposed to against the line of play (as you need to with the line of charm approach)... Therefore it takes less of a movement from its natural orientation and means the strategic bunker at greenside is easier to place and maximise...

Anyway, I saw it work to better effect on Friday than I have ever seen before... It was the best promotion for firm and fast that there could possibly be...

 

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