Bunkers, bunkers and more bunkers…
Bunkers
St. Andrews member James Balfour penned a short but impassioned essay on the nature of the game and the elements responsible for its charm and challenge. His prime conclusion was that hazards are the essence of the game. Now there are countless hazards, all with varying degrees of severity. For the purpose of this rambling we will focus on bunkers.
By definition, a bunker is a hole in the ground. While most players view the sand as the hazard, technically the bunker is the depression in its entirety – essentially this includes all the slopes that feed into the hole in the ground. A prime example might be one of the bunkers at St. Andrews. How many times have we witnessed during the televised Open when a player’s shot that rolls near the sand bunker actually ends up in the sand? Because the turf surrounding the bunkers is short grass, the definition is much more palpable. Unless there is enough ball speed to counteract the slope of the hazard, the ball becomes “captured”. Most golf courses that we play regularly have rough grass around the bunkers, so the definition can be lost when, most of the time, a slightly errant shot gets hung up in the tall grass and does not complete its descent into the bottom of the hazard. Even though the ball comes to rest on the downward slope, it is still technically in the bunker.
So, what makes a “good” bunker?
Ultimately, a good bunker is a well-placed bunker. A properly placed bunker will impact two shots on a par four and even three shots on some of the great par fives. How the bunker looks, ie… flat sand bottoms, or bowl shaped or very high flashed sand lines is more a function of aesthetic presentation than the tactical nature of the hole in the ground, so the appearance of the bunker really becomes a subjective discussion. The photos below depict three very different looks for a bunker. The photo is of the Creekside Course at the Golf Club of Georgia (apologies to Dave Sansom, world famous golf photographer).
A low sand line
Sand line in the middle ground
High sand flash
The bunkers of the ancient courses started as natural occurrences. Whether created by animals or Mother Nature, we can’t be sure. And I suspect that until Old Tom Morris arrived on the scene, the greens and fairways were placed near and around the natural hazards. As the game blossomed and construction methods moved from shovels to teams of horses and scrapes, and into the more modern powered mechanical means, bunkers became easier to build. Once we entered the modern mechanical age, it seems bunkering went to new levels. In some instances, the old adage “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” kind of went by the wayside. But I digress…
If a bunker exists (or any other hazard for that matter), it will be visible. An unseen hazard is unfair due to the fact that it does not call on the skill of the player, but only the player’s local knowledge. Therefore, the governing factor that all bunkers will be visible from where the shot is to be played dictates the majority of the proposed contouring.
There are many types of bunker styles, but in all cases, the bunkers are visible. The right front grass bunkers have been opened up into the rough and theft front sand bunker opens into the fairway. In theory, the sand represents a portion of the bunker as the depressed area is actually the total hazard and even the fairway crosses through the low area.
The right bunkers, while barely visible, still have presentation and intrinsic strategic value. The back left (and right) are flashed for visual presentation and are known as “framing” bunkers, adding visual reference to depth.
