Ground control to Major Tom...

[Ben Sims]

Doak that is.

As requested I am starting a seperate thread about bunker POSITIONING.

1) So what do you think makes good bunker positioning? 

2) When routing a course, does a feature that can take a bunker get "designed around" for a hole?  Or are are you just looking for greens, fairways and tees?

3) As asked yesterday; what courses do you think have a relatively small number of bunkers with profound effect on the golfers' tactical execution from shot to shot?

4) Are unseen bunkers (like the one on the back of Long Hole green at Old Mac) more strategically important than those you can see?

And please, everybody help me with my ongoing education.  We have a gazillion guys on here that know a ton about bunkers.  But only comments on positioning and courses with not many bunkers please.  I'll be at a rehearsal dinner all night, so I'll catch up with all y'all later.

Can you hear me Major Tom...?

[Tom_Doak]

1.  To me the most important thing about bunker positioning is to put the fairway bunkers at different distances off the tee on different holes, so that there are some in play for everybody.  I remember hearing Jack Nicklaus saying somewhere that he needed to renovate a course five years after he built it because of equipment technology ... but what that really means is he put all the bunkers at a certain distance, and then that distance wasn't what it used to be.  Anyway, it's silly to assume that all "good" players hit the ball approximately the same length; they don't.

So, if you are going to have bunkers at different distances, what makes sense?  Naturally the topography has a lot to do with where the opportunities lie, but generally, I would have the shorter fairway bunkers on the short par-4's (where they would come into play for the shorter hitters who need to crowd them to get home in two), and the further-out fairway bunkers on the longer par-4's.

2.  Absolutely, we see that there are certain little rises that would be a great place for a fairway bunker, and then we try to position the tee in relation to those features.  That is why I just hate when some renovation architect moves bunkers downrange -- because the hole was designed around the original position of that bunker, and the new spot won't feature the right topography for it.

More tomorrow ...

[Bradley Anderson]

1.  To me the most important thing about bunker positioning is to put the fairway bunkers at different distances off the tee on different holes, so that there are some in play for everybody.  I remember hearing Jack Nicklaus saying somewhere that he needed to renovate a course five years after he built it because of equipment technology ... but what that really means is he put all the bunkers at a certain distance, and then that distance wasn't what it used to be.  Anyway, it's silly to assume that all "good" players hit the ball approximately the same length; they don't.

So, if you are going to have bunkers at different distances, what makes sense?  Naturally the topography has a lot to do with where the opportunities lie, but generally, I would have the shorter fairway bunkers on the short par-4's (where they would come into play for the shorter hitters who need to crowd them to get home in two), and the further-out fairway bunkers on the longer par-4's.

2.  Absolutely, we see that there are certain little rises that would be a great place for a fairway bunker, and then we try to position the tee in relation to those features.  That is why I just hate when some renovation architect moves bunkers downrange -- because the hole was designed around the original position of that bunker, and the new spot won't feature the right topography for it.

More tomorrow ...

Tom,

This totally makes sense. But could you expand on this thought by saying what your minimal distance would be for fairway bunkering?Would you place a bunker at 150 yards, or something like that in terms of short yardage off a tee?

[Rob Rigg]

Why do so many architects put bunkers 100 to 200 yards from the tee on mid to long par 4s?

John Fought at the Reserve - South and Jacobson/Hardy at Brasada Ranch are just two examples from recent memory.

Penalizing a bogey golfer is appropriate, but penalizing a double bogey golfer is unnecessary torture.

If someone is probably going to shoot north of 100 anyways, they don't really need to be hitting their second from a bunker that was located 125 yards off the tee and 300 yards from the green.

Right?

[Philippe Binette]

1) Good bunker positioning makes you think and the earlier you have to think about it, the better. By that I mean that if you have to think about a greenside bunker of the tee of a par 4, that's great.
Example: 3rd green, the Old Course, the huge greenside bunker on the left influence the ideal position for your tee shot. There are countless examples of that on links course where with the wind and firm ground, it's hard to stop the ball, so you want to have room on the ground for your approach even if it's only a 100 yards shot. On a course with soft green, from 100 yards, good players don't give much about greenside bunkers.

2) When designing a course (someday I'll be able to built one), I'm not thinking about the fairway. The fairway, to me, is a result of whatever remains of what is not bunkers, water, steep slope that can't be mown as fairway etc... So with that in mind, the importance of bunker position is crucial. This though could lead to putting to many bunkers, so restrain to which one matters most is important.
When looking at some architect plans, for some it's obvious... I can see them sitting in their office going: ok the fairway will go here turning left to right and THEN, we will put 2 bunkers on the inside of the dogleg, another one left past the dogleg so that would frame the tee shot etc... THAT leads to predictable golf course.

3) Course with few bunkers... you have to be careful with that because a course could be compose of 20 bunkers complexes (or groupings) composed of small bunkers that lead to a total of 45 bunkers, while some have 45 big bunkers.
Kingston Heath in Melbourne has a ton of bunkers but group together so well, and most of the holes have one side bunkerless off the tee so you don't feel like there are bunkers everywhere.
Among course I've seen with few but influent bunkers:
Man... I've haven't seen many of those since I've ended up going to course to watch their bunkers!!!!
If it wasn't for the 8th hole (which has 12 bunkers) I would say that North Berwick West Links had few bunkers (74 total so 62 for 17 holes (3.6 per hole) which is not a lot for a links course and they are influent... but there is so much other stuff there that it's not only the bunkers that makes the course.

4) Unseen bunkers are important for those who know they are there...

[Tom_Doak]

Rob:

I think it is okay to bunker one or two of your long par-4's like it is a par five for the members ... including a bunker 200 yards from the tee.  (I seldom go down to bunkers at 150 yards unless there is a compelling esthetic reason to do so.)  Your argument against them makes perfect sense, EXCEPT formulas like that can make a course pretty boring for the shorter hitter.  Then again, you could rightly point out that the feature at 150 yards would be better if it was something other than a bunker.

[Peter Pallotta]

"..To me the most important thing about bunker positioning is to put the fairway bunkers at different distances off the tee on different holes, so that there are some in play for everybody."

Tom - interesting. I try to play the 'right set of tees' for me. I usually choose those tees from the total yardage on the card, and then if necessary change my mind after a few holes.  But I won't change my mind if I've found that the fairway bunkers on the first few holes are either unreachable even with my best drive, or consistently carry-able if I hit a good, solid drive. And I can't remember this approach ever failing me as a guide to the right set of tees over the course of a round (it may have, but if so I don't remember it). Which means that I must have played most of my golf on courses where hazards are placed at different distances on any given hole but where that 'ratio' stays almost wholly consistent over the 18 holes.  Again, I might be remembering wrong - but I can honestly say that I've never thought or remember experiencing fairway bunkers that, playing the same tees every hole, move further or closer from those tees from hole to hole. 

But this may not be so clearly written, and/or maybe I've misunderstood you

Peter   

[Rob Rigg]

Tom,

I agree that any formula should not be followed 100% of the time. Depending on the land, the routing, etc. it might make sense to build out a bunker on a hole that is less than 200 yards from the tee.

I think the architect has a bit of a dilemma between creating interest for the "short hitter" and creating a means of survival for the "100 shooter".

Aside from scenery off the tee, I would imagine that the inconsistency of many golfers precludes them from really being able to enjoy the design or strategy that an architect creates from tee to green - meaning fairway bunkering and potentially the use of slopes, rumples, etc. to make tee shots more challenging or ball placement more important.

I played with a friend yesterday who hit his drives anywhere from 50 yards to 225 yards, and they were sprayed left, right and center. I pointed out a couple of features I thought were interesting on some of the fairways and near some of the greens and he was like "Huh? Why would I even notice that, I'm just trying to get my ball on the green without losing it."

[Jeff_Brauer]

First, I can't believe a thread like this drops like a rock while another Merion Piss Fest goes on for ten pages (again)  Great topic, and the kind I think we are here to talk about, no?

I would agree with TD on FW bunkers with a caveat.  I start by placing bunkers/hazards (because I don't automatically assume a ground hazard has to be a sand bunker again and again) based on strategy and distance from the tee.  Yes, I presume the "average drive" for the various players on different tees and I adjust that average for different tee positions,  wind, and elevation change just to make sure I know where most balls will end up.  No sense building too many hazards at 290 from the tips when physics on an uphill, typically against the windwill keep most drives well short of that.

That said, if I find a nice rise that would be suitable to easily build a bunker at say, 250 and I have calculated the "average" carry might be 260 for the "typical player from the tips" on this hole, I simply build it where it fits naturally.  As TD says, not only do every "class" of player hit it slightly differently on average, on any given shot, they flush it to various degrees and can vary in distance over a round or year by 20-30 yards.

As a practical matter, any time a bunker is positioned as a carry bunker, moving it forward a bit just opens up the potential of risking that carry just a bit more for more players, and works better when winds shift.  For a lateral bunker, distance is truly not that critical because one ball may land in it on the fly while another may get in after 20 yards of roll, giving the gca some latitude and suggesting building them where they fit the land.

Of course, in so many cases, fw bunkers are built where the land has no natural features as a replacement challenge of sorts, and then some mathmatical gymnastics make some sense, at least to me.  One reason is that my clients are telling me that they want to remove bunkers to reduce costs (or improve bunker maintenance on the fewer remaining bunkers while keeping costs steady)  In the 30's and the 70's - two other cost cutting eras - the bunkers that saw too little play were the first to go, no matter how nice a "fore bunker" or a back bunker framed a scene or appealed to small number of golfers.  

Oddly, there is just as much pressure to remove bunkers that see too much play......

As to fw strategy, I wrote a lot on Cybergolf about that. I fear posting it here will exceed the length limitations, although, that may have changed.  Short version - I presume the golfer will want to use driver 90-99% of the time (12-14 out of 14 long holes) and wonder why so many flanking bunkers basically repeat the same strategy?

 With a driver in hand, I figure you can ask golfers to carry, skirt, or stay short of any fw hazard, but most courses offer just the skirting type hazard.  By combining hazards, I can ask them to hit carry/skirt, carry/stay short, skirt/stay short, etc.  I can use the RTJ pinch mode once in a while, too.  So, why do so many courses have such little difference in tee shot strategies?

And, I mention those because this is a hazard postion thread.  Add in fw slopes or the occaisional tree to bend it around and there are even more tee shot scenarios to make golf fun.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

I am biased in favor of skirts staying short, but that is another topic entirely.

I have mentioned before that Mr. Nicklaus was in favor of "staggered" bunkering -- if there was a bunker 285 off the tee on the left, like the ninth at Sebonack, he wanted a bunker on the right either at 250 or 320 yards, so the player who steered wide of one would have to contend with its big brother.  On that particular hole, the landform set up so that the bunker on the right was more like 270 yards off the tee, creating a more "pinched" situation -- albeit with 40 yards of fairway in between the bunkers -- but Jack just hated that and insisted we change the landform to get the right-hand bunker further away from the left one.  I guess he wasn't a big fan of Mr. Jones' work!

I think the best-looking fairway bunkering we've done was at Pacific Dunes, and I think part of the reason for it was that we did NOT put the usual stakes at the "turn points" on that course ... I just had a general idea of where the "landing area" was, and fit all the bunkers into the features without caring if it was 225 or 252.  Of course, there is so much variation in the wind there from day to day that you could never factor in an "optimum" distance for drives in Bandon ... that's the great thing about wind, it will make a bunker that you easily carry one day come into account on another day.  But, what I was trying to say is that NOT THINKING ABOUT the driving distances at all made the work appear more natural, because there wasn't any pattern to it.

Rob:

To be honest, I am starting to get sick of that straw man argument about strategy not mattering for higher-handicap golfers.  If I put a bunker out there, as long as they look at it, I believe it affects where they go ... just like a pond 50 yards in front of the tee can cause a greater number of topped shots.  But if your friend enjoys the game more playing obliviously, great for him.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Pac Dunes is of course, a special case!  As to pinching bunkers, I put them in at Newton, KS a few years ago.  They are now so out of style that when Ron Whitten went down to review the cousre, it was one of the first things he commented on, writing something to the effect that few gca's have the cajones to do that style now. 

They were so overdone or overexposed by RTJ and Wilson and Lee over 40 years ago now (and really closer to 50 and 60) that the stigma still exists.  I am not sure what that says about gca, or the pace of change in gca but it surely says something......

[Rob Rigg]

Tom,

I would not disagree about a pond causing more topped shots or a bunker forcing any most golfers to change where they are aiming.

What I am talking about is the golfer's ability to execute a shot as intended, or the architect putting a golfer in a situation where they have little chance of succeeding.

How good does a golfer need to be so they can actually execute strategy?

I have played with enough golfers who shoot 95+ on an average round to know that the elements of a hole will effect how they play it - but their ability to execute will probably mean that while playing near water they will probably hit into it - and while playing away from a bunker they will either be in it - or aim for the other side of the fairway and put their ball out of bounds or in the trees on that side of the hole.

If someone only hits the fairway once or twice a round - they playing away from a bunker on one side of the fairway is a pipe dream.

I am not advocating designing for the rather high percentage of golfers who shoot 90+ in a round and need all the help they can get - but I am not sure that adding design elements at their driving distance will increase their enjoyment.

[Cristian]

Tom,

I would not disagree about a pond causing more topped shots or a bunker forcing any most golfers to change where they are aiming.

What I am talking about is the golfer's ability to execute a shot as intended, or the architect putting a golfer in a situation where they have little chance of succeeding.

How good does a golfer need to be so they can actually execute strategy?

I have played with enough golfers who shoot 95+ on an average round to know that the elements of a hole will effect how they play it - but their ability to execute will probably mean that while playing near water they will probably hit into it - and while playing away from a bunker they will either be in it - or aim for the other side of the fairway and put their ball out of bounds or in the trees on that side of the hole.

If someone only hits the fairway once or twice a round - they playing away from a bunker on one side of the fairway is a pipe dream.

I am not advocating designing for the rather high percentage of golfers who shoot 90+ in a round and need all the help they can get - but I am not sure that adding design elements at their driving distance will increase their enjoyment.

This is an interesting point; in tournaments of the highest professional level it shows that long and straight driving is one of the most difficult aspects of the game; no more than 60 or 70 % of drives tend to end up on the fairway on average, let alone on the correct side of the FW. Granted; courses are set up narrower and professional drives are longer, but this is a relatively innocent disadvantage compared to the average 10 handicapper drive let alone a 20 handicapper....

In general therefore I think fairways from a strategic point of view are overbunkered, fairway bunkers can add interest to the average golfer only if fairways are wide or if hitting near a fairway bunker provides a very distinct adavntage for the second shot.

However I find greenside bunkering even more interesting. We all admire Colt's and Mackenzie's asymmetric bunkering on this site yet many of the picture threats on other newer sometimes called minimalist design courses show totally different bunkering, usually covering 60%+ of the green surrounds on most holes.

In my opinion if the green is not extremely large or the hole very short relative to it's par, this will lead to 80-90% of the golfers aiming for the middle of the green if they play the percentages, hence zero strategy.

Isn't this unnecessary? Asymmetric bunkering with a reasonable part of the pins tucked close to the hazard will challenge both the high and lower handicapper with strategic interest.

Augusta National is a great example (even after all the changes); only 4 or 5 holes have significant bunkering on more than one side of the green. The other side of the green can be protected with interesting chipping area's; often more difficult for the pro, but a bail out for the average player. I just don't understand why so few courses adopt this principle. What am I missing?! GCA'ies Please explain!

[Tom_Doak]

Christian:
 
You make a great point.  I agree with you 100% about asymmetric bunkering at the green ... you must be looking at pictures of others' minimalist courses if they are surrounded by bunkers. 

I often try to leave one side of the green relatively open, not just to give the bad player a wide berth to miss, but also to get the good but timid player to hedge away from aiming directly at the flag.  You would be amazed at how well this works ... it was even working on the front nine of the Kiwi Cup at Cape Kidnappers last fall, until Hunter Mahan started making putts and everyone else realized they'd better make birdies, too.

It's even more fun to get a hole where the player who is short and hedging to the side has a relatively simple recovery, but the player who gets pin high but off-line has a more difficult recovery because of the slopes in the short grass.  #4 at Cape Kidnappers is one of my best examples of that.

[Matthew Runde]

First of all, this is a spectacular thread.

I think the nature of the bunker has a lot to do with the psychology of the positioning, and is one reason I'm in favor of nasty bunkers.  If a bunker is as tame and inviting as many of today's are, the more-skillful players will be less likely to steer clear of it, because they know that, should it catch their shots, recovery would be fairly straightforward.  Shallow, unfringed areas of perfectly-manicured sand don't affect skillful players as much, and may even help them by preventing stray balls from rolling into the rough (which may provide much more challenging recoveries).  A fearsome pot-bunker, however, will grab everybody's attention, and will make the strategy of the hole much more important.

[Greg Tallman]

1.  To me the most important thing about bunker positioning is to put the fairway bunkers at different distances off the tee on different holes, so that there are some in play for everybody.  I remember hearing Jack Nicklaus saying somewhere that he needed to renovate a course five years after he built it because of equipment technology ... but what that really means is he put all the bunkers at a certain distance, and then that distance wasn't what it used to be.  Anyway, it's silly to assume that all "good" players hit the ball approximately the same length; they don't.

}

Pretty fair critique here... the formulaic manner in whcih some deisgn courses is flawed. Be it 267 or 283 thise that automatically position bunkers at a specified distance create, least in some instances, a monotonius boring golf course only hitting a homerun when the land is very, very compelling.

[Matthew Mollica]

It's even more fun to get a hole where the player who is short and hedging to the side has a relatively simple recovery, but the player who gets pin high but off-line has a more difficult recovery because of the slopes in the short grass.  #4 at Cape Kidnappers is one of my best examples of that.

Couldn't agree more Tom. That's a great hole, and it's the bunkering that helps make it what it is.
I'm of the opinion that's your best southern hemisphere par 5.

Thanks to all in this thread. Great reading, and loads to think about.

Another example of why golfclubatlas is great.

MM

[Ben Sims]

Mr. Doak,

I have been having fun just kicking back on this thread and seeing what pops up.  I'll comment on it later when I can fully process the awesome info thus far.  However, will you please address the 3rd and 4th aspects of my original post?

I understand that it may be method to your madness to see what pops up on answering my first two questions, but I think your answers to the final two questions could bring people out of the woodwork to debate....

Back to the wedding reception.

[David_Elvins]

Great thread everyone.


Rob Rigg,

I think you make a very common mistake in that you assign a 'driving distance' to the bad player and good player.  I have played with single figure golfers who drive the ball from 150 yard carry to 300+ yard carry.  I have played with men with handicaps of 20+ who range from 120 yard carry to 250 yards carry.   

The idea that bunkers positioned 180 yard of the tee only influences the poor golfer totally discounts the fact that there are many many single figure golfers who can only carry the ball 180-200 yards.

[Rob Rigg]

David,

If you re-read all of my posts you will see that I did allude to what you mention in your post.

I completely understand the need of the architect to challenge skilled short hitters who can control their ball along with low handicaps who crush it. I used 200 yards as an arbitrary number because I would imagine that most skilled golfers with modern technology can carry the ball that far. Maybe 150 yards is more appropriate as a general rule.

The inconsistent high handicapper who can hit the ball 300 or 150 depending on how they swing on any particular hole clearly makes fairway bunkering, etc. very challenging for the architect.

All I am suggesting is that, if a high handicap golfer consistently faces long carries, water, heavy bunkering, etc. off the tee, then they will have a very long day. If you cannot control your ball and have a tough enough time hitting the fairway regardless of the obstacles on either side of it, then a mis-hit into a bunker 100 or 150 yards away, or a pond right in front of the tee, seems like added torture for a round that is probably already very difficult.

As Tom and others have pointed out - and I agree - there can be no "laws" in GCA that should never be broken depending on the property, terrain and optimal routing.

Many modern courses have been designed with the low handicap/scratch golfer in mind and I think that the architect often forgets, or disregards, that 95% of the people playing the course do not have that kind of game that allows them to place each drive in the optimal position. Thus, strategic courses with danger near the best line but room to miss for the average golfer (which should lead to a more difficult second to the green) is fair design IMO.

[David_Elvins]

All I am suggesting is that, if a high handicap golfer consistently faces long carries, water, heavy bunkering, etc. off the tee, then they will have a very long day. If you cannot control your ball and have a tough enough time hitting the fairway regardless of the obstacles on either side of it, then a mis-hit into a bunker 100 or 150 yards away, or a pond right in front of the tee, seems like added torture for a round that is probably already very difficult.

I agree with the bit on forced carries, Rob.  Forget course length, forced carries is the major obstacle to average and short hitting golfers.  A good course can and should be designed without numerous, excessive forced carries.  However I don't think that this ties in totally to bunker distance.  As long as course has space to play, a few short bunkers shouldnt be a problem.

strategic courses with danger near the best line but room to miss for the average golfer (which should lead to a more difficult second to the green) is fair design IMO.

I agree, and I think that Tom Doak acheives this as well as anyone, even when he includes bunkers in the 150-200 yard range.  Width is a better help to the average player IMO.

[Mark_F]

I have played with single figure golfers who drive the ball from 150 yard carry...

...totally discounts the fact that there are many many single figure golfers who can only carry the ball 180-200 yards.

So there's hope for me yet to get to single figures, David. At last I have something to live for.

[Sean_A]

Rob:

To be honest, I am starting to get sick of that straw man argument about strategy not mattering for higher-handicap golfers.  If I put a bunker out there, as long as they look at it, I believe it affects where they go ... just like a pond 50 yards in front of the tee can cause a greater number of topped shots.  But if your friend enjoys the game more playing obliviously, great for him.

This may be the most pertinent idea on the entire thread.  Of course Tom is correct.  It doesn't matter a tosh if the player is good enough to pull off the strategy so long as he has a choice of what to do.  So the 20 capper may pull off the strategy in 6 shots rather than 4, the idea(s) of the hole still works. 

One of the big problems I find with bunkering is that some archies are almost naturally compelled to try and even out the effect of the bunkers across all levels of players.  This will inevitably lead to a predictable bunker scheme because its impossible to place bunkers like this unless a decent wind and a keen course are part of the formula.  Meaning, the wind and firmness may dictate that a certain percentage of bunkers on any given day are out of play, but the next week these same bunkers are in play while the more obvious ones are not.  Its one of my pet hates of championship links.  They can have the pick of the litter on how to bunker the course and yet we get the predictable schemes of today which usually serve to narrow a course rather than provide real options.  Mind you, when 100 or more bunkers are slapped in its difficult not to have some sort of pattern even if its the randomness of St Andrews.  I wonder how long it takes for players to worry about a significant percentage of the bunkers at St Andrews?  So many are blind and the terrain so uneven, that often times its a crap shoot until one really knows the course well.  This may be one reason why so many folks don't rate TOC nearly as highly as others do.

Ciao   

[Tom_Doak]

Sean:

So are you saying you don't like The Old Course?  Because certainly, all of those bunkers out there at 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300 yards from the tee are a big part of what convinced me that mixing them up was a good thing.

And can you think of an architect or two who tries hard to "even things out" with their bunkering across all classes of players?  I really don't see much evidence of that when I play.  Most every architect seems to have a strong opinion about exactly which kind of player he is trying to "test," and puts the majority of bunkers in the range of that player.

[Tom_Doak]

Ben:

I've been thinking about my answer to your question #3 for a couple of days, because it's a good question and it deserves a good answer, and I really didn't have one to give you.

After further deliberation, I think the correct answer to your question might be that there really AREN'T any courses where a relatively small number of bunkers, by themselves, have a great effect.

Most great courses seem to have more bunkers than average -- as a non-golfer might expect, if you told him that a great course is supposed to be especially challenging.  To be sure, there are some great courses which have less than an average number of bunkers.  I'll run through a few of them to illustrate my point:

1.  Augusta National had only 22 bunkers when it opened.  But when you've got Rae's Creek and 100 feet of elevation change and greens like that, who needs bunkers?  The bunkers that ARE there do not have the "profound effect" you asked for.

2.  Ballybunion (Old) has not many more bunkers than Augusta.  But they've got the wind, they've got the course falling into the ocean on four holes; they've got the biggest dunes in golf; and they've got small domed greens with shaved banks to both sides.  Putting bunkers at the sides of the greens would've made the course EASIER.  And again, the bunkers that are there are not very compelling ... indeed the best holes are the only without any bunkers.

3.  Commonweath Club, in Melbourne, has fewer bunkers than most of the Sand Belt clubs, because MacKenzie wasn't there and they were working on a tighter budget, I imagine.  It might be the best answer to your question that I could think of ... the bunkers ARE compelling, but there are probably 60 or 70 of them, so that's not such a small number.  However, the bunkers by themselves would not be nearly as compelling if the greens weren't tiny and the bunkering wasn't backed up by trees (too many trees, but trees).

4.  Riviera -- same as Commonwealth.  The bunkers are compelling, but much more so because of the sycamores and the greens which compound their effect.

5.  Royal Ashdown Forest has no bunkers at all, but when you have great natural roughs like that, who needs 'em?

I had a few more examples -- Royal County Down, the Valley Course at Royal Portrush, Rye, Liphook, the Eden Course at St. Andrews, Royal Worlington & Newmarket, Woking.  All of them have a paucity of bunkers, but at all of them, it's really the undulations of the fairways or the greens that make the course compelling, and the bunkers add gently to it, compounded by great natural roughs.

In the end, it would probably be better to think of this question one HOLE at a time, instead of one course at a time.  If you look at it that way, you'll see that the holes which have other natural hazards have less need for bunkers ... a single fairway bunker might be plenty if there is an important tree or some good native rough or undulations defending the other side, or if you are playing toward the Road green at St. Andrews.  But when you get to the duller stretches of the property, you will not find many great holes that don't have three or four bunkers to enforce some strategy. 

The problem is only that too many architects think their whole property is dull, and many have given up on adding trees or mounds or rough or any type of hazard other than bunkering.  At Old Macdonald one of the best things we did was to add some undulation for strategic purposes on a couple of holes, instead of more bunkers ... on any other site you'd have to call it mounding, but in Bandon we could make it look like natural dunes, so we got away with it.

I'll hold off on your fourth question for a while as I am sure this post will provoke a bit of response.