Why put bunkers in landing area?

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
Very few architects are blessed with sites like at Sand Hills and Bandon Dunes.  Most architects have sites that “God didn’t intend to be a golf course” and a lot of thought does need to go into it to make it look like “God intended this to be a golf course”!  Sometimes there is a not a lot that is random when you just have roiling or flat farmland that has been plowed for 20 years.  Ask Pete Dye for example about all the great sites he has had to work on and how blessed he was with all the great holes that nature revealed to him 

[mike_malone]

Archie,
14 at Philly fairway bunker is one of my top five. You take it on not avoid it.

[mike_malone]

 I was just looking at some aerials of a classic redo. White bunkers are everywhere. It seems to be the way that restoration architects prove their worth.

[archie_struthers]

 


but of course mayday, better to hit it in that puppy than next to it in rough

[Tom_Doak]

I was just looking at some aerials of a classic redo. White bunkers are everywhere. It seems to be the way that restoration architects prove their worth.

Mike:


You're right.  By the same token, presumably most of those bunkers are restoring something that the original architect prescribed.  Whether they were all really necessary is another story.


Good luck on your quest to see designers build fewer bunkers in 2021.  I, for one, am moving in that direction.  Others may post likewise, but it only matters if they actually build any courses! 

[Sean_A]

Bunkers only affect a small number of players. They require maintenance. Why not just have grass options to affect everyone?

Perry Maxwell typically built very few fairway bunkers, and hardly anyone ever makes note of it. 
    [need that little thinking man emoji here]


I am not sure though what you mean by "grass options".  Grass bunkers are a weird form to me, unnatural and unnecessary.  Just stop the short grass where you want it to stop, and start the rough, you don't need to dig a hole.

I like earthworks of all shapes. Don't see what the problem is with digging features into a course. The concept has a long and well loved tradition in golf. It's just that the current trend is all about naturalism which is good, but not the be all and end all of design. Kington, Walton Heath etc would be dull courses without the earthworks and pits.

Happy New Year

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
You remind me of the story of the bunker reduction program at Oakmont when the members were complaining to Fownes and Loeffler that there were too many bunkers on the golf course.  Loeffler said he would take care of that and went out to the third hole and took eight bunkers down to just one. Of course that one is the famous Church Pews bunker

There is no question there are many courses where there are too many bunkers but there are others where a few added would increase strategy and interest.  At Bethlehem GC, the course used to have 39 bunkers totaling 117,000 square feet and averaging 3,000 square feet each.  We reduced that number to 29 bunkers totaling 81,000 square feet and averaging 2,800 square feet.  Part of the reason was I felt many were superfluous and/or located in less than ideal areas.  We also needed to reduce/manage maintenance costs so we had to be smart in how and where we employed bunkers.

I agree that most bunkers don’t look natural especially on an inland/parkland golf course. Unless you are on true linksland most bunkers don’t look natural period.  But we all know the history of how golf migrated to other topographies and the concept of bunkers moved with it.  It is interesting though that some complain about "too many trees on parkland courses” ??  Seems those who complain want the parkland courses to look more likethe treeless linksland courses?  But they don’t want bunkers either? 

Everything in moderation.

Happy New Year!

[Jeff_Brauer]

I am not sure though what you mean by "grass options".  Grass bunkers are a weird form to me, unnatural and unnecessary.  Just stop the short grass where you want it to stop, and start the rough, you don't need to dig a hole.

I grew up liking grass bunkers, probably because I saw so many grassed over former sand bunkers around Chicago, I came to think of them as an art form. Among my favorites always seemed to be Langford former sand bunkers, with their 1.5 to 1 bank slopes and wavy top edges.


And, if the slopes are right, the combo of hole and steep bank can still make it dicey to take a low enough club to reach the green, which is the same concept as often used in sand bunkers.


As to the OP, agreed mostly.  5,000 SF of sand bunker vs. 2+ acres of rough means the rough is going to statistically catch many more players.  I guess that is why most gca's reserve fw sand bunkers for those critical places that may challenge the best players, although we aren't always careful about making them enough of a hazard to make them meaningful.  The trend has been more towards aesthetics, IMHO. 


Of course, playability, aesthetics and maintenance concerns are the legs of the so called design triangle.  For most courses, the latter is a factor, another reason that "standard design practice" came to be limiting fw sand bunkers to those areas where they might really affect strategery and play.


I think Ross said it was easy to over bunker a golf course, and I have generally agreed.  It's sort of like Pete Dye in the period when he used those long strip bunkers (often between a lake and fw).  The first one is cool, but when you see it many more times, it gets to be a bit "meh."  For that reason, for whatever fw bunkers I use, I nominally try to make each one different, maybe just one big one, a cluster of small ones, random spacing, and other different combos so each one has a chance to be visually different, another use of sand bunkers, IMHO.


Of course, that detailed answer to the OP may really just be said as, "Oh crap, did I screw up my entire career?" [size=78%] [/size]

[Jeff Schley]

I really dislike over bunkered fairways. Especially when you combine that with water , trees, and tight landing areas. Unnecessary and expensive to maintain.


One course that could use a few more bunkers imo is kankakee elks.  L/M needs some love of course and a chainsaw for sure. However when and if they do get a restoration I think adding a half dozen or so bunkers would be welcomed.

[JC Urbina]

Mike,


If I may, a few  of my favorite quotes in golf.


"John Low has stated that there is hardly such a thing as an unfair bunker. He is right. Variety is what one wants in a hole properly laid out"


" The risk of going into a bunker is self imposed, so there is no reason why a player should condemn a bunker as unfair"


Charles Blair Macdonald

[Pete_Pittock]

Was that Hitler was thinking when when building the Atlantic Wall, or the French with their Maginot Line?


The same bunker presents a myriad of options depending on the skill of the (to be) trapped.


I thought this was put to rest with Woking 4.

[mike_malone]

Mike,


If I may, a few  of my favorite quotes in golf.


"John Low has stated that there is hardly such a thing as an unfair bunker. He is right. Variety is what one wants in a hole properly laid out"


" The risk of going into a bunker is self imposed, so there is no reason why a player should condemn a bunker as unfair"


Charles Blair Macdonald

Jim,
They’re not unfair just unnecessary.

[mike_malone]

Was that Hitler was thinking when when building the Atlantic Wall, or the French with their Maginot Line?


The same bunker presents a myriad of options depending on the skill of the (to be) trapped.


I thought this was put to rest with Woking 4.

“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”.

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
Define what is necessary?  Oakmont, early on for example, had almost 350 bunkers    Someone thought at the time they were all "necessary" or they wouldn't have built them.  So what is the correct number - 6 or 7?


That is the beauty of design - all the variety.  How many bunkers are on The Old Course at St. Andrews?  Does anyone know?  Are they all necessary?  They will evolve like all courses do.

[mike_malone]

Oakmont is an unique course so it gets a pass. I felt that way at Hollywood as well. Those courses are defined by bunkers. TOC is not part of this criticism since it’s a links. 


  I did ask “Why” in the title. I don’t have answers just questions .  Like “what is Notre Dame doing in this game?” 

[Pete_Pittock]

Oakmont is an unique course so it gets a pass. I felt that way at Hollywood as well. Those courses are defined by bunkers. TOC is not part of this criticism since it’s a links. 


  I did ask “Why” in the title. I don’t have answers just questions .  Like “what is Notre Dame doing in this game?”

Alex,
In jeopardy of pulling this thread down a rabbit hole (which ultimately becomes a links course bunker), it could be to provide a parking spot ala this video https://www.golfdigest.com/story/royal-cinque-ports-golf-course-vandalized-uk

[Brian Ross]

As Jim (via CBM) accurately noted, the key to all of this (and truly the key to everything in golf architecture) is variety. When it comes to bunkers (whether fairway or greenside), you can add in moderation for me. In The Spirit of St. Andrews, Alister Mackenzie opined that "It is often possible to make a hole sufficiently interesting with one or two bunkers at the most." I generally subscribe to this line of thinking in my work though there are a handful of site-specific factors that determine just how many bunkers I feel is enough.

While I prefer fewer bunkers, I have no problem with locating a few of them in the landing area. I have a course that will open this fall that has 25 bunkers, 9 of which are fairway bunkers. When a course is appropriately (aka moderately) bunkered there are going to be few (if any) instances where a player is required to take on a bunker. This is not something that needs to happen on every tee shot by any means but posing a diverse set of questions to the golfer is my job and, in the spirit of variety, occasionally that question is going to involve whether you want to take on a particular bunker or some other type of hazard in order to receive some type of advantage over the course and/or your playing partner.

[mike_malone]

When I hear “variety” I think imagination and character. Bunkers in the landing area particularly both sides lacks imagination for me. It’s cookie cutter.

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
You mean like at Merion which must have 120 or more bunkers on that 120 acres!  What about that course which I know you know well!

[Sven Nilsen]

Mike,
 Oakmont, early on for example, had almost 350 bunkers     

Mark:


I find this number hard to believe.  Oakmont's bunkering scheme wasn't completed until 1912.  The guide for the 1927 US Open notes the course had 150 bunkers.  The 1935 US Open guide notes 180.


Seems very odd that the course would lose 200 bunkers between 1912 and 1927, and then add 30 more in the next 8 years.


Sven

[mike_malone]

Mike,
You mean like at Merion which must have 120 or more bunkers on that 120 acres!  What about that course which I know you know well!

Wildly overbunkered.1,10,11/12,13,14 just to mention a few holes. 4 and 9 around the green are way too many.

[Mark_Fine]

Sven,
The 350 number is actually true.  I did a ton of research on Emil Loeffler for a design of his that we did a Master Plan for and have been renovating/restoring over the years.  Forrest and I also did a Master Plan for Oakmont’s East course.  Maybe Forrest will chime in.  He knows a lot about Oakmont.  I know Mike knows Merion quite well.  That course has a ton of bunkers, many in the landing areas.  Is that another course that “gets a pass”?  Maybe the question is why do some get a pass and others don’t? 

[Sven Nilsen]

Sven,
The 350 number is actually true.  I did a ton of research on Emil Loeffler for a design of his that we did a Master Plan for and have been renovating/restoring over the years. 

Mark:


Love to see the research (or even one piece of evidence for that 350 number).


Still don't think its true.  That would be over 19 bunkers per hole, some of those holes being par 3's and a course where many of the bunkers lie between two fairways and are in play on both holes.


The highest number I've seen cited in contemporaneous reports is 193.  That is still a ton of bunkers.  But its a far cry from 350.  A few years back someone tried to count all of the bunkers you could see in the various old aerial photos of the course.  The 150 to 200 number range is where they came out.


Sven

[Sean_A]

Mike,


If I may, a few  of my favorite quotes in golf.


"John Low has stated that there is hardly such a thing as an unfair bunker. He is right. Variety is what one wants in a hole properly laid out"


" The risk of going into a bunker is self imposed, so there is no reason why a player should condemn a bunker as unfair"


Charles Blair Macdonald

My issue has nothing to do with fairness. In fact, I never have issues to do with fairness where architecture and set up are concerned. Nor is my issue to do with bunkers being a choice to take on or not. My issue is completely about variety. I dislike it when the primary recovery shot is from a bunker. It gets old real fast. IMO golf is mainly a game played on grass and in the main architecture should reflect this.

Happy Hockey

[Thomas Dai]

Make the game more challenging for the better player, especially the more elite player, and easier for the lessor player?
Not something the modern approach (inc the rules) to sand bunkering seems to do.
atb
As an aside, courses without any sand bunkers have featured in a few threads over the years -
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,846.0.html
and
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,11891.msg196201.html#msg196201
and
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,38977.0.html