[TEPaul]

On another thread ("Bunkers") Rottcodd asked about the different playabilities of various types of bunkers. Of course many responded that bunkering should be a half shot penalty (or perhaps a shot penalty or 1/4 shot penalty or maybe even a 13/16th shot penalty ) or whatever.

Man-made bunkers are that odd architectural vestige of golf! They're anything but natural looking no matter how naturally constructed they are at probably the vast majority of golf courses in this world. They aren't natural because sand is not natural at most of the sites of golf courses in this world. Sand just doesn't naturally exist at probably most of the golf sites of this world!

But bunkering was that not particularly necessary golf feature that hung onto golf and architecture when it first left the original linksland with all it's natural dunsy bunkering. Why it hung on and became apparently a complete necessity to golf and architecture today is frankly a long and fascinating story.

Bunkering is one of any architect's greatest artistic expressions and expressions in creating design and strategy! Bunkering is firmly planted in the Rules of Golf and every golfer's mentality. Bunkering has its own golf club. Bunkering is assumed to be essential to golf and architecture in every way!

But it isn't to me! It's not that I don't like bunkering, I love it and all it's many possibilities but I'm one of probably very few who think it definitely is not essential to all golf and architecture!

I'd like to see a really good architect get outside the box and build a truly great golf course without a trace of sand bunkering on it or a grain of sand on it. It's not all that easy to imagine but it certainly isn't impossible or frankly all that hard. The primary problem is most architects apparently wouldn't dare do such a think today for a variety of reasons not the least being it's probably near impossible to find a client who'd let them.

But I wish it'd start to happen!

I hate to say it and many will think it's heretical but what the hell! I was looking at a really beautiful photo of Cypress's Point's #16 on this website the other day. The hole is of course otherworldly beautiful and in a certain way the bunkering surrounding the hole is too!

But I have to say that beautiful bunkering surrounding that hole, on that topography and in that setting looked about as far from actually natural as I could possibly imagine. Of course I mean that in only a naturally occuring way. Large sand bunkers on a rocky promontory with the sea crashing around it? Frankly, it's completely incongruous looking!

I sure would like to see architecture start to get away from sand bunkering to some degree and I wouldn't mind it if architecture could figure out a way to get away from it altogether with the exception of sites that have naturally occuring sand like all the linksland courses did!

Think of all the construction costs, on-going maintenance costs etc that could be saved! Bunkering sure is a golf and architecture fixture but since almost all of it has lost it's strategic impact by being so immaculately maintained its use strategically anyway is less interesting to me.

If you don't think cost is a consequence, I should tell you on one quite well known course the bunker maintenance cost is 40% of the entire course's annual maintenance  budget!! That's huge--that's a lot of money!

Mounds, hollows, random rough patches and/or God knows what, other kinds of natural features or whatnot could replace it but it probably never will.

I'd love to see an architect attempt to do a really world class golf course in every way without a single sand bunker on it! Is architecture ready for that yet? Will it ever be?

[Gary_Nelson]

Tom,

A course in Michigan had no bunkers for the first several years after it opened.  Through the years they have rebuilt much of the course to fix drainage issues and installed bunkers at the same time.

I thought the course had no bunkers in order to save maintenance costs.  However, my golfing friends alway said that the course was "missing something".

Certainly this course wasn't world-class.  The green surrounds were just thick rough which didn't offer any variety of shotmaking around the green except for the "chop at it and hope" method.

Gary

[Rick Shefchik]

I agree completely with your thesis, Tom -- in fact, living as I do in the upper midwest farmbelt, I've even commented here once or twice that the importation of sand on our golf courses doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Yet there are sandy areas in Minnesota and elsewhere far from the ocean (the Nebraska sand hills and the desert southwest, for obvious examples.) I would think an architect with a minimalist or naturalistic style would simply want to create the best golf course out of what's there as he finds it. If you've got sand, use it; if you've got dirt, use it. If you've got rocks, cover up as much of them as you need to in order to create a playable course.

If you don't have sand, find other ways to make your course interesting.

[James Edwards]

Tom,

We have a wonderful course in the county of Sussex in England called Royal Ashdown Forest which has no bunkers.  The main reason why the course works so well is because of it's undulating topography.

I'm sure Mr Turner is mor qualified and could post some good pictures for us...

We as architects can achieve this, ofcourse we can, but I'm still yet to meet an architect that wants to today, show it to there client.  I have thought about it many times, as well as courses with no water etc etc, but unfortunately bunkering sells not just from a strategic point of view but also from an aesthetic viewpoint..

But, your point is very true with regards to costs..

[Pete Lavallee]

JJSE is quite right, Royal Ashdown Forest is a fantastic course with not a speck of sand on it! You could bring 100 golfers for a game there and I bet not more than a handful would even notice it after their round. Their secret is using, in place of bunkers,  broken hillocks covered in heather; which is probably a more effective hazard than sand in the first place. It also looks very attractive, especially in Sept. when it’s in full purple blossom, and is very iffy to get out of with the correct distance and direction. There is an excellent profile of RAF here on GCA. Here are some photos from this years’ vacation:

The tee shot on the short par 4 1st. This type of hazard is typical; the scab is filled with heather:


Here’s a view of the 1st green from the right hand side showing the neat tier in the green:


The creek in front of the second green is shored with sleepers, 400 yard par 4:


The par 4 3rd uses a swath of heather before the green:


The par 5 5th has a steam in 30 yards in front of the green, the second shot must carry it to get home in 2:


The same stream guards the front of the par 3 6th:


The short par 5 8th provides an interesting dilemma, go for the green off a hanging draw lie and you’ll have to carry the extensive heather covered mound to the right. Brilliant hole:


The par 3 11th. Although the hole is over 220 yards just land an iron near that stone marker on the right and watch your ball trundle for over 40-50 yards onto the green:


Another hole that’s great fun the par 5 12th. Launch a drive with a little draw down the right side to use the existing slope and then try and cross the huge swath of heather with your second shot. A 6 footer for eagle was one of the highlights of the trip:


   I was devastated that my camera battery went dead on the 13th, this par 3 had the best example with rippled heather filled trenches both in front and behind the green. The next hole the short par 4 15th had a great heather covered mound guarding the green (almost like the mound Pete Dye uses to hide the green on his short par 4’s) and keeping players from driving to close to it. All in all RAF is a first rate test of golf without a single sand bunker.

[James Edwards]

Pete,

Thank you for the assistance.   I Had totally forgotten your pictures from a time ago and only remembered Mr Turners.  The course still looks great, exactly how I remember it from our last visit for a county match in the summer.

Great Pics.

[TEPaul]

Pete L:

Thanks so much for those photos of Royal Ashdown Forest. The vegetated pit in that first photo is EXACTLY the type of alternative I'm talking about and thinking about---EXACTLY! How cool does that look and how natural to that site can you get---not much more than the look of that vegetated pit!

And think how that vegetated pit would play--basically like a bunker as a meaningful hazard feature should---no half shot or quarter shot or full shot in that thing---it would probably just be whatever you got lucky enough with---just as it should be--eg completely iffy--no recovery formulaics at all! That's what natural golf means to me!

But look at those "lines" in those photos! The "lines" meaning how whatever man-made architecture there is flows so naturally into the overall "lines"---ie the natural lines of the site. Those photos are what a truly natural look means to me and obviously that doesn't look like an area that has any natural sand.

I've no idea how that course plays but I love the different look of it without sand bunkering and the flow of all its lines! We've all heard of RAF here, though, since it's such a well known no bunker course. If my memory serves correctly I think I remember that the course couldn't have sand bunkers even if they wanted them--that there's a restriction against building any and there always has been---some royal edict or whatever!

But thanks again for those photos--I love that look!

Again, that vegetated pit in the first photo should be the prototype for a million more like it around the world on courses on sites where there IS no natural sand!

[ian]

Tom,

I love your concept and have been looking to build it with a particular owner for quite some time. I think it can be done and be very enjoyable.

You have:
chipping hollows and kicker slopes
false fronts and major green contour
swales and rolls
bluegrass hollows and banks
natural features in the land
and trees
mixed grasses for texture and colour

Thats a lot of elements to mix, only slight negative is that the contrast of sand is very useful for definition and framing

Cypress with no bunkers for you.

[TEPaul]

Ian:

What is that photo? Is it the 16th green from the 17th fairway with the bunkers doctored out?

[ian]

Yes it is. Is there another angle, or something else you would rather see?

[A_Clay_Man]

Never thought of entire course without a single bunker, before. Cool pix. Thanx!

I have to say the heather mounds look similar, in concept, to the nutmeg craters mentioned in all out ball buster of a thread on Garden City.

I have seen bunkerless holes on newer courses. 14 at Twin Warriors and Baxter Spann designed on here at Riverview. The 13th is a boomerang fairway around the line of charm which is all native. three grassed scoop-outs (front center left) act like a fortess to this green, with a wicked spine spliting it in-half veritcally.

Our surrounds are all sand, does that count?

[Bill_McBride]

Given the current tendency to maintain greenside bunkers with firm, not soft and powdery, sand, grass bunkers are a lot tougher to get up and down out of.   A good player these days is probably 50% out of firm sand and a lot less than that out of rough grass filled hollows.   And a lot less maintenance required I'd guess.

Any other examples of the kind of grass bunkers Royal Ashdown Forest features?

[TEPaul]

Ian:

How in the hell do you do that? Can you rearrange things however you want off a given set photo? If so I'm stunned. If you can do that how about working with that green some to take out the roundish shape of it and maybe create a shape to it that might mimic the lines on that promontory somehow. You know like elongate it and random the lines on the green's periphery somehow so it's longer when one looks at it from its tee angle!

[TEPaul]

I've thought of this no bunker thing for years now but not just anywhere. A raw site with no natural sand anywhere in sight started it but so did Flynn's (and Alison's) written thoughts on bunkering as basically a supplement feature to something less than really ideal natural features and topography. He did write that on some courses that had really interesting natural aspects or topography he intended to go light on bunkering. A good example was how he went lighter on bunkering on the topographical part of Shinnecock as opposed to the flatland holes which he thought called for massive stretches of sandy and undulating waste areas (to give them some character they didn't naturally have) which he actually designed and constructed like on holes #5, #6 and #8! Unfortunately at some point the club seemed to have forgotten or misunderstood what he was trying to do and they completely formulized some of them and let the rest vegetate over so as to be no longer there!

Just take a look at an old aerial of Shinnecock and what you see on holes #5, 6 and 8 will amaze you. Probably far less than a third of that designed and constructed undulating sandy waste area is still there!

Of course Shinnecock is a naturally sand based site.

[Tom_Ross]

Gee, I hate it when TEPaul recycles my old threads    ... but I love the concept, so I'll cut him some slack this time.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=7769

[TEPaul]

TomR:

Yours isn't the first time on here a bunkerless course thread has been started. There's probably a couple of them in the back pages and archives--I've started a few myself---that's why in the title of this one it says "(again)".

It's an interesting subject though that probably deserves discussion from time to time---I think it's a fundamental subject! The bunker feature has taken such a completely prevalent place in golf and architecture in every way imaginable. I think it's at least worth questioning it. It's history and prevalence is a most interesting subject once golf left the original linksland where the bunker feature was natural and sand indigenous.

It's always interesting to talk about how a really good course could manage without sand bunkering, some obviously don't think so, although the possibilities seem obvious to me. Just look at the alternatives on those photos of Royal Ashdown Forest.

I thought a few years ago my course might actually move to an incredible site just dripping in all kinds of fascinating natural features, great topography, history and a ton of other things that could be useful and interesting to golf. Plus the family potentially doing the deal with us really didn't like the distinct look of a golf course as the estate was so beautiful as it was.

So I started thinking about how the new course could work without any sand bunkering at all particularly because sand was anything but indigenous there---basically it would really stick out. I started thinking how one might blend and meld a course and the look of it right into the way that estate was--really beautiful! So I asked Bill Coore if he'd ever considered doing a course without any sand bunkering. He thought about it for a minute and said they had thought about that and would like to do it somewhere at some point but he said he thought this site called for some really good bunkering!

So what do I know? I think Coore is a flatout architectural genius but that doesn't mean I agree with his take on everything! I drive by that place every other day and if a really great architect, like a Coore, could pull off a really great golf course without a single bunker that site looks like the place to me. You could take a feature like that vegetated pit in the first photo of Royal Ashdown Forest above and do that 50 to 60 times--it's work for golf, strategy, natural look---the whole nine yards, in my opinion!

But as Pat Mucci says;

That's just my opinon, I could be wrong!

[Pete Lavallee]

TEP;  

Had I tried to document the unique hazards at RAF I could have gotten 20-30 great examples. What struck me most about the nature of the hazards was the rustic beauty they had. None look manufactured, possibly the effects of all those years to look so natural. It seemed to me a much more difficult task to get them right than to simply sculpt a sand bunker. It's a wonderful example of what can be done, and should be seen by all serious students, but strikes me as as something an architect would have a hard time doing, since because the hazard is a living thing, he would have to build it as an infant and hope it grew into the right adult sized hazard. A very slow process for anything but a private club that has tme to wait for their course to mature or wants to spend a lot of money hacking back what they planted in the first place. RAF works really well because they put very little water on the playing field so very little gets to these areas. Certainly, as a start, it would be nice if some designers used them to augment their sand bunkers until they had built enough examples to show a potential client that it was a good option for the right piece of property.

[A_Clay_Man]

Here's some pix I took today to show the hole I referenced above.

This Baxter Spanns 13th hole at Riverview, here in Kirtland NM.  The hole is approx 340 yards from this tee box. I believe the tips are closer to 380.


This is the line, directly to the green. Hopefully you can make out the group on the green.


This is the line to the fairway which boomerangs around the right of the line of charm. A tee shot of more than 250 will be in trouble.


This pic shows the scoop-outs that protect the green. The rock outcrop in the foreground on the right, is why a tee shot going too far is tot.

Just one of the fun holes, on Riverview's back nine.

Sorry if the pic quality sucks.

[ian]

Tom,

A year or so ago I posted 10 famous holes without bunkers, some looked great, others did not (I do not have them any more).

I simply paint out the bunkers by painting grass (or whatever) over the top of them.

The Cypress change took 2 minutes in total, unfortunately I erased it with the last quiz.

[Doug Siebert]

There's a course called Saddleback Ridge near where I live that opened a couple years ago that has a grand total of two bunkers.  Dunno why they even bothered, one doesn't even come much into play.  There's little water, not a whole lot of trees (used to be crops and pasture) and you have to be fairly wild to go OB or lose a ball.  But with a good job of using a natural feature (the ridge) along with various bumps, hollows and hills, some natural some not, along with really neat greensites on some holes, it turns out a better course than the majority of new courses I see that cost 5x as much to build.

Its funny, I go back and forth on it, on the one hand thinking that while it is somewhat challenging (70.7/126 I think, at maybe 6600 yards with 6 3s and 6 5s), it isn't quite as challenging as I'd really like to play, and wonder why they don't add some bunkers (or fill in the two that they have so it can at least claim the fame of being a bunkerless course!)  On the other hand, I really have to appreciate how well it does despite not relying on the typical crutches of sand, water, and tightness to create challenge.  Many courses that are quite tough would be defenseless without those things, this one does pretty well, and in a way that I'm sure is more enjoyable for lesser players.

[ForkaB]

As you know, Tom, I'm in full agreement with you on this.

Olympic (Lake) shows that you do not need "fairway" bunkering to create a great test of driving the ball.  And, possibly the finest long "par" 4 in the world (14 RDGC) has no bunkers.  Painswick (see below) is another example of courses that can challenge without resorting to unnatural sand pits.  There may be bunkers there, but if there were they were irrelevant and forgettable.

http://www.pasturegolf.com/courses/painswick.htm

So, why did the Golden Oldies add bunkers when they took golf inland, particularly onto clay soils?  Perhaps lack of imagination?  Perhaps half-baked theories of "camouflage?"  Perhaps laziness--it's far easier to "create" a "hazard" by digging a hole and putting sand in it than it is to find or create the sorts of microcosmal land forms that Ian Andrew mentions.

Today, its almost all eye-candy.  Try to sell a CCFAD to the public these days without some picture of your majestic bunkers.  Surely the old guys weren't so crass and--can I say it?--non-strategic?

[TEPaul]

"So, why did the Golden Oldies add bunkers when they took golf inland, particularly onto clay soils? "

The answer to that, Rich, is very elementary---no question of it at all. Those early pioneers of golf architecture, particularly the so-called Heathland contingent did the unforgiveable---they actually listened to those myopic Scots who told them if it wasn't in the linksland it wasn't a golf course! So they transported the sand bunker feature out of the linksland and it's hung on tight ever since!

All's not lost in this country though. I see that Oddjob Bush (or Sprout to you) is thinking of a constitutional amendment decreeing that there must be a man and a women to constitute marriage so I see no reason why he can't add another constitutional amendment that there must be natural sand somewhere on a raw site or a golf course will not be allowed to construct a sand bunker! In this way he can be something like George V who apparently made the sand bunkerless royal decree on Royal Ashdown Forest!

[Paul_Turner]

Thanks to Pete again, for some fine pics.  Ran's write up on RAF is spot on...beautiful vistas and the smell of peat fires: very evocative.

Clearly Painswick is the king of the grassy pit.  One reason for this, is that nearly all of these have cropped grass interiors, so a recovery is possible, if awkward.

Berkhamstead is another good bunkerless course in England (Colt/Braid).  Like RAF it was originally Common land, but I'm not sure of there was a Royal charter forbidding bunkers.

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