If careful and astute positioning of bunkers can produce a great course ....

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

.. why don't we see more great courses on less interesting land?

On the other thread on Muirfield, Ally highlighted the following sentence from Tom Doak's Confidential Guide:

"The quality of its bunkering is unsurpassed; each one is a fearsome hazard, but the mix of old-fashioned cross-bunkers and strategically placed wing hazards encourages the player to flirt with them, instead of forcing him to drive into tight corsets."

Combined with a routing that exposes the golfer to all points of the compass, it's not difficult for a player - that can exclude visuals from his mind - to come to the conclusion that Muirfield is indeed a very good course.

I haven't played Muirfield, but I have experienced Royal Lytham; a course that can be justifiably be compared to Muirfield. While standing by the Lytham clubhouse and gazing out over the 1st and 18th holes, one could be forgiven for wondering why the R&A would bring the Open here every 10 or so years. Does the visitor to Muirfield have the same feelings?

I enjoyed plotting my way - albeit very badly - around Lytham; trying to avoid each of the 166 bunkers that were present on that day's examination paper. I tend to give a course that demands more of this type of strategic thinking a few more brownie points that others probably would.

So if a mundane site can be made good or even great by bunkering, why don't we see more of this?

Is bunker positioning a underrated design technique?

Was Colt the master of this art?
 
Are there other examples?

[Ally Mcintosh]

Donal,

Yes - I think bunker positioning is an underrated design technique when taken in conjunction with inspired green complex design. Once you have those two aspects (along with decent soil / drainage) then I believe you can design and build world class golf courses on relatively bland land.

I don't see Colt as the master.... Someone like MacDonald at NGLA seems to have nailed great strategic bunker placement although that's a good question for everyone - which architect was best at positioning bunkers?

What it does mean is that you need a little more bunker acreage though...

[Charlie Gallagher]

Ally,
    I agree strongly with your assessment. Green complexes where contour is used to enhance or diminish success given certain angles of approach coupled with intelligent bunker placement and shape, both in the fairway and near the green can substantially enhance a bland site and make great golf. A couple of examples.
    Donegal Golf club at Murvagh sits on a fairly flat piece of links land excepting one prominent hill on the property, but the location of bunkers and a meandering drain are used cunningly, especially on several of its par 5's, to enhance strategy. I can say the same for another links that gets little attention internationally, County Louth at Baltray. Flat land and great golf thanks to Simpson's astute bunkering and use of contour. I will never understand why more people don't see the greatness in that course, it's right up there with the very best as far as I am concerned.
   In the US a flat course that is enormously enhanced by bunker placement and stunning green complexes can be found at Wolf Point.  Nuzzo also uses the stream that meanders through the southwest side of the property to great strategic effect. The 16th hole there is one of the most natural and cunning par 4's I have seen anywhere. It has one relatively small greenside bunker that has a profound influence on the approach due to the green's slope towards the stream and the need to avoid the dangerous recovery shot the bunker suggests. The fairway is near 100 yards wide, but the further right you drive it the more dangerous the approach can become. Just amazing strategic design. Many of the holes on that flat property are similarly enhanced greatly by the combination of bunker location and green complex construction. It plays firm like an Irish links too.

[Jud_T]

Donal,

Talking Stick North is the poster child for great bunkering on uninteresting land in the States.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Charlie:

I was thinking of Wolf Point when I was composing my post, but decided not to mention it, for fear of labeling it a course reliant on bunkers alone. I am not so familiar with it, but I do recall seeing some nice photos of undulating greens. It struck me a being a course with both good bunkering and good greens.

Ally:

When we discuss Muirfield and Lytham, we tend to forget the greens. Lytham's greens don't stand out as being remarkable, but they are not without interest. What about Muirfield?

I suppose I shouldn't restrict the discussion to courses with good bunkering only, but it is interesting to see think that a course with reasonably interesting (but not great) greens combined with masterfully positioned bunkers can be great. Would this be a fair categorization of Muirfield?

Would it be fair to say that CBM's use of templates at NGLA meant that he had "some help" already when he positioned the bunkers?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Donal,

I think it's an interesting question, one that should also be viewed in the context of improving courses deemed less than stellar

[Mark Pearce]

Muirfield is on unspectacular, not uninteresting, land.  There are plenty of undualtions just not the sort that look great in photos.

[BCrosby]

Donal -

You raise an important topic. I recall people were justifying the new Dawson bunkers on the second at TOC on the grounds that they were attractively done. Which is what it means to take your eye off the ball. We spend too much time here talking about bunker aesthetics and too little time talking about bunker locations and their influence on playing strategies.

The latter is at the heart of good architecture. The former is about landscaping.

As Jud T notes above, Talking Stick is a wonderful example of a course where well conceived bunker placement can transform a dull property into an interesing golf course. To be clear, not because the C&C bunkers are especially attactive (though they are attractive enough), but because how they affect play.

Bob

[Matthew Petersen]

Donal,

Talking Stick North is the poster child for great bunkering on uninteresting land in the States.

Absolutely. Bunkers, angles, and just enough humps and bumps.

[Joe Hancock]

We spend too much time here talking about bunker aesthetics and too little time talking about bunker locations and their influence on playing strategies.

The latter is at the heart of good architecture. The former is about landscaping.

I disagree. A bunker can either appear disastrous or benign, or something in between. Your decision to take on a bunker can be directly attributed to how it appears as well as its location.

Joe

[BCrosby]

Joe -

The appearance of a bunker can matter. But it only matters as a factor in playing the hole if the bunker is placed to affect lines of play in the first place. Bunkers have other functions, of course.  They can be built for aiming, or catching balls before they roll into worse hazards, or framing, etc. But whether those bunkers look "disastrous or benign" is largely irrelavant to the golfer. Because he isn't being asked (or tempted) to play near them.

Bob

[Charlie Gallagher]

Donal,
     Wolf Point has 22 bunkers I believe, but it relys on a combination of factors for defense. The wind there blows hard,  Mike Nuzzo told me that it averages around 25 miles an hour at noon on most days. The green complexes present all manner of design including natural ground level at 6 and 16 and more push up style on a number of other holes. There are bairitz features and radical contours sprinkled about. Angles of attack are very important on most of the approaches. Holes like 1 and 10 have isolated knolls on the green that dictate angle of attack. It's a great combination of factors that influece play on a property that probably has no more than 25 feet of total elevation change.

Based upon what Jud T and others have said, Talking Stick sounds like it may be similarly defended. I am going to need to make a priority out of a visit. I love courses where the architect influences strategy by artfully combining bunkering, green contour, wind, and width to create interest and alternatives.

[Thomas Dai]

The course that immediately comes to my mind when thinking of uninspiring land is Carnoustie. By links standards it's almost entirely flat and has no views of any consequence to give it any special visual appeal. Yet it's a great course. Okay, the winding burn has it's part to play but I've always thought highly of the bunkering and the way the bunkers determine the lines and angles of play eg central bunkers on both the 2nd and 6th holes, the dead ground effect of the bunkers short of the 10th and 14th greens, etc. Proper bunkering too, in your face and deep both around the greens and on the fairways as well.

As to Donal's question of why we don't see more of it, well I'm not sure, but I wish we did. In addition, to respond to the point of was Harry Colt a master of this, well I've always been extremely impressed with the thought provoking strategic aspects of his fairway bunkering and green-sites he built that I've seen have been well, simply wonderful - not many up-n-downs arn't challenging when Harry Colt was involved in the courses design. Herbert Fowlers bunkering is terrific as well.

Good thread, well raised Donal.

All the best.

[Tom_Doak]

Donal:

The last thing I would hope we take away from The Open at Muirfield is that new courses need MORE bunkers.  It's become typical for new courses in the U.S. to have 80-100 bunkers, but all too often they multiply because people [owners, architects, raters, golfers] think they are exciting to look at.

Muirfield, too, has more bunkers than it really needs.  But at least most of them are there to make the golfer think, instead of just admire them.