[Mike Hendren]

I gave up on Nooch's Merion thread, but am compelled to ask:  "Is there such thing as a "natural bunker" anywhere?

Seems to me they're pretty much all man-made or at least man-manicured.  

Sure, some are better integrated into the terrain, but I think the term "natural" is a misnomer.  Driving out to Sand Hills I noticed the occasional sandy blow-out, but nothing as spectacular as the bunkers on hole no. (take your pick).  

There's nothing natural about the bunkering behind the 13th green at CPC.

Any sheep would consider the Road Hole Bunker to be deluxe accomodations and would no doubt expect a complimentary breakfast to go with it.  

With permission of homeland security, perhaps a more descript term is dirty bunker, as opposed to clean bunker.  

To all, keep taking digs at ANGC.  Perhaps one day you'll get to play there and will be hushed up

Regards,

Mike

[Gene Greco]

Mike:

    All the bunkers at Sand Hills are natural. Some of the bunkers had some overgrowth which was simply scraped away from the faces.

Only one morning was spent doing minor shaping of the entire course.

Sand Hills IS the most natural golf course in the world and so are the bunkers.

[Mike_Cirba]

"Dirty" bunkers;











I thought adding Sand Hills at this point would be redundant.  

[Mike Hendren]

Gene,

You above all know how much I love Sand Hills.  Every morning when I turn on my computer at work I see the 17th green with the 18th in the distance.  Every night when I check my messages at home I look up to the only picture hanging in our home office - a framed photograph of the brilliant 1st hole.  

I just have a hard time believing the bunkers are natural.  Surely something was used to scrape away the natural vegetation to expose the sand, and in doing so the orientation, size and depths were established at the hand of (a) man.  

redanman,

My theory is bunkers don't appear in nature.  The only place I see them are on golf courses.  When was the last time you drove down the road, looked over, and exclaimed, my gosh, look at those bunkers over there!

Mike

[THuckaby2]

Mike - interesting how the love of Sand Hills goes... I have one picture of a golf hole here in my office - I turn my right shoulder and see.... #1 at Sand Hills!

I get what you're saying about "natural" bunkers, also.  I guess it comes down to how one is going to define that term... By a very strict definition, looking at #1, for example, the area to the right of the green may well have looked a lot like it does now, before the course existed.  But it wasn't 100% like it is now, as some vegetation was scraped away to reveal more of the sand underneath, and to give a uniform area clear of vegetation.  So no, it's not 100% completely "natural."

But that being said, it's as natural as can possibly exist on a golf course...

So that's good enough by me.

But yeah, the term dirty bunkers works better anyway!

TH

[ForkaB]

I tend to agree with you, Mike

I do not think that there are any bunkers in Scotland, for example, that I would class as "natural" today.  Sure, some of them (but a pretty small percentage, IMO) were natural (i.e. created by wind and/or sheep and/or rabbits, etc.), but none of them that I know in any way resembles what a natural bunker is (if you want to see a few truly natural bunkers, look between the course and the sea at Brora, or in the wasteland central to the new holes on Dornoch Struie).

I haven't seen Sand Hills, but I would be surprised if the current bunkering scheme will survive intact after a few seasons of wind, rain and angry men with their niblicks.  Not to say it will be worse, just that it will change, as all bunkers do over time.  I know that Pacific Dunes is an amalgam of "natural" and created bunkers.  Gene, do you really believe that all that you see at Sand Hills is as Bill and Ben saw it when they first visited the place?  If so, that is really cool, and unique.....

[THuckaby2]

If so, that is really cool, and unique.....

You have to realize, Rich, that those words apply more at Sand Hills than at any course on this planet.  It is so beyond "really cool"... so beyond "unique"... Just take this as a given.

But re the bunkers, well... it comes down to how strict you are re the term "natural."  By any absolute, completely strict definition, they simply can't be natural, as they were scraped away and are maintained, at least to some extent.  Any bunker that is maintained is by strict definition not natural.

But is that the point here?

TH

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Mike I am with you and believe outside of a few across the pond, most are very man made and the so called natural bunkers look nothing like them. But I thought the first bunkers came from areas where the sheep had burrowed out areas down wind of the dunes or mounds to protect themselves from the elements. Go Tigers beat those dogs!!!

[Mike Hendren]

I haven't seen Sand Hills, but I would be surprised if the current bunkering scheme will survive intact after a few seasons of wind, rain and angry men with their niblicks.  Not to say it will be worse, just that it will change, as all bunkers do over time.  

Rich,  there is evidence of just that on the fairway bunker guarding the inside of the dogleg at the 11th hole,  another one of my favorites captured beatifully by a photo Paul Turner recently e-mailed to me.  Perhaps he can post it (I am a stupid).  The right hand side appears to have been shored up, but in no way does that diminish its strategic integrity or its aesthetic beauty.  

Gene, I know I have sinned, but I have several excellent excuses

JB,  I hope the Bayou Bengals can handle the Dawgs.  Looks like my Vols will need all the help they can get.  Again, thanks for forwarding the younger Clausen to Knoxville.  Just what we needed

Mike

[Mike_Cirba]

"Clean" bunkers.






Are we still thinking there are no natural looking versus unnatural looking bunkers?  

[A.G._Crockett]

Mike,
Give us some warning before you post pictures like that!  I almost lost my lunch!

FMI, what courses are those from?

[ForkaB]

Criba

You sneaky semanticist, you!

Nobody was talking about natural "looking" bunkers, just natural ones.  The crop circles you have posted are no more or less unnatural than the "Shoe" bunker at Pacific Dunes, or the Road Hole bunker at TOC (in whatever year and incarnation you choose).

[Mike_Cirba]

The "semantic difference" is the entire point.

When we attempt to use the language to, in Orwellian terms, say that what our eyes are seeing to be true is in fact, false, and that there is no difference between the bunkers in the pictures I've posted above, then we are engaging in pure folly.

Yes, most bunkers do not exist naturally.  Get over it.  Point conceded.

However, given their artificiality, one either integrates them well with their natural surrounds and places them in interesting spots or one doesn't.

THAT is what we're talking about, and that is a differentiator that is always important.  

If bunker aesthetics don't matter, then Rich is correct...the "clean" bunkers above are just as good as the "dirty" ones above them.  War = Peace.    

[Mike Hendren]

redanman,

"Natural appearing bunker" is a better term indeed.

Mike Cirba,

It is the cleanliness, configuration, placement and sheer no. of bunkers that are so heinous in the posted photographs.  They are indeed poster boys for "clean" bunkers.  

Is the only difference in the large greenside bunker in the second photo and the Road Bunker at Maidstone's 2nd as pictured in the course profile that one is clean and the other is dirty?

Regards,

Mike

[ForkaB]

Mike

You should know that some of the finest bunkers in the world are "clean" and some of the most ludicrous are "dirty."  Just because you happen to like dirty bunkers doesn't make them better or even more "natural."  Peace=War if and only if you think that golf course aesthetics is a matter of life and death, rather than just a matter of opinion.

[Mike_Cirba]

Rich;

Form generally follows function.  Everything else is an exception but I'd love to hear your examples.    

As far as life and death, would I have been more accurate in saying Clean = Dirty?   How about Artistry = Craft?  

[ForkaB]

Mike

There are too many examples in the GCA world where form and function are disconnected to list them all.  Many of MacKenzie's bunkers at CPC, Pasatiempo, etc. have beautiful form but dubious or even trivial functionality (other than "camouflage" for the creatively challenged).  Examples would be the mostly irrelevant fairway bunkering on 4 and 5 at CPC and the 16th Dali-like teadrop bunker on 16 Pasa.  Many bunkers at Muirfield, Dornoch and Shinnecock would look like flying saucers if viewed from above, but actually serve to create significant interest for the golfing strategist.

I am, of course, biased in that I think that functionality is the key for bunkering (or any other architrctural feature, for that matter).  Interesting form is a nice bonus, but hardly essential.  I recognise that you and others may believe otherwise.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Cirba,

Do you really feel that those bunkers on the golf course in the middle of a pine forest look indigenous to that area ? Natural ?

I feel that your brain has been programmed to accept that LOOK as "natural" irrespective of where the bunker is located, seaside, pine forest, mountains or plains, it doesn't matter, that's the look that you like, that you think looks natural no matter where the bunker is located.

How would that bunker look in Florida ?
At Seminole, Pine Tree, Boca Rio, The Medalist or Jupiter Hills ?
Natural ??

Your brain has been corrupted by the Naccarato syndrome  
You're clearly BIASED and have a preference for the frilly look to the exclusion of all others.  

[THuckaby2]

Mike

There are too many examples in the GCA world where form and function are disconnected to list them all.  Many of MacKenzie's bunkers at CPC, Pasatiempo, etc. have beautiful form but dubious or even trivial functionality (other than "camouflage" for the creatively challenged).  Examples would be the mostly irrelevant fairway bunkering on 4 and 5 at CPC and the 16th Dali-like teadrop bunker on 16 Pasa.

Your overall point is a good one - I'm with you in that I value function more over form when it comes to bunkers.

BUT... you continue to be dead wrong with these examples, which you have used before in conversations on this topic.  The bunkers on each of these holes are VERY much in play and VERY much effect the strategy, however you personally didn't find them to be... Or let's just say that at least for ME, they are very much in play on each of these holes, and very much effect how I play them.  We can go over this hole by hole again if you like, but suffice to say that if I find them in play, isn't that enough that these are bad examples of form over function?  

TH

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mike Hendren,
You and I need to take that GREAT walk sometime in an area of either sandy dunes or raveged wilds so I can show you bunkers au' naturale. Ask Redanman, he will tell you of the GREAT walk we once took on some dunes in Half Moon Bay. We learned a lot!

Nobody but Mike Hendren answer this question!

The 10th at Friars Head, what is natural and what is constructed?

[ForkaB]

Tom

That you find those bunkers in play is just a comment on your own imperfect psyche, not on any form vs. function debate.

Mike H

Please answer Tommy so I can respond to his latest inanity!

[THuckaby2]

Rich:

Oh, my psyche is definitely imperfect, but I also have a realistic knowledge of my abilities.  I've also been IN the fairway bunkers on 4 and 5 at CPC, as well as countless times in the greenside bunker on 16 Pasa... none of these are happy places.

I'd say that if you find them irrelevant, you just haven't played these courses enough.  

In any case if I have been in them, they are in play, and thus relevant, and thus having very viable function in this discussion.

I'm sure you can come up with better examples.

TH

[Mike_Cirba]

Rich;

I agree with everything Huckaby said...except the part where he said "your overall point is a good one".  

We both know that's just Huck being amenable.    

As far as the pots in the British Isles looking unnatural, I'd differ with you there, as well.  





Even if that course is in the states...

[THuckaby2]

Just be be clear, I am also very amenable, but when I say "overall point", I mean the general idea that function is more important than form.  I do agree with that.  I make no representation to any geographich area exhibiting this, or not doing so.  

TH

[Gene Greco]

Mike:

   You need to open up your copy of Confidential Guide and look at the before and after pictures which Tom Doak took of #18 at Sand Hills.

Still don't believe natural bunkers do exist?

   Now, try to remember your drive from North Platte to somewhere in space south of Mullen, Nebraska.

Do you not remember thousands of natural bunkers along this magnificent Hwy 97?

Did you not see hundreds of cattle, some hunkering down in "bunkers" to shield themselves from the wind thus creating more, larger or deeper bunkers?  

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