Under Bunkered Courses?

[Mike Hendren]

When's the last time you played a course and thought:  What this place really needs is more bunkers?

Isn't less more?

Bogey

[Terry Lavin]

Whistling Straits is the poster child of overbunkering.  Terrific course made less so, in my judgment, principally because of the excessive application of eye candy.

[Sam Morrow]

Is Oakmont over bunkered?

[jonathan_becker]

An Australian on this board once told me a great way to prevent over-bunkered golf courses.  "Give the guys shovels and have them dig each one out."  

[Brent Hutto]

Yeah, Bogey. I remember thinking if Ganton had just a couple more fairway bunkers per hole they might have a pretty good course there!  

But seriously, that was the first course I can recall playing with that many bunkers yet I would not be willing to see any of them eliminated. I'd always thought the "over-bunkered" and "eye candy" type complaints were pretty universally valid. But for all courses out there that would play pretty much the same (or better?) with 1/3 of their bunkers filled in there stands Ganton which, to my mind, is an exception to "a whole lot of bunkers" being equivalent to "overbunkered".

And honestly, the appearance of the Ganton bunkers is certainly not flashy enough to make the phrase "eye candy" come to mind in any case...

[Joel_Stewart]

When's the last time you played a course and thought:  What this place really needs is more bunkers?

I played Sharp Park on Saturday and most of the Mackenzie bunkers have been filled in or have morphed into ovals.  I thought the course needed more bunkers.

I have only played a few courses (maybe 2) that I felt are over bunkered and one is WS which Terry mentioned. 

[Nigel Islam]

Arcadia Bluffs has to be the most overbunkered place I have ever seen. They have a bunker by the entrance just to let you know they have a lot of bunkers. (Otherwise I liked the course a lot though) The thing that drives me crazy is when there are bunkers there that really serve no purpose at all.