Bunker Study: Aesthetics

By Jeff Mingay

Bunkers make dramatic golf. They provide the thrills and feed man’s appetite for adventure.

Robert Hunter, from The Fairway magazine, 1922

The placement of sand hazards throughout a golf course is much more important – in regard to creating golfing interest – than bunker aesthetics. Regardless, golfers are more apt to judge the quality of a course on the look of the bunkers than their locations.

One of my principal tasks working with fellow Canadian golf architect Rod Whitman is shaping bunkers. Over the past year at Sagebrush Golf and Sporting Club, for example, I’ve been using a John Deere 120 (and sometimes a larger 270 model) excavator for heavy digging and preliminary shaping. This spring, we’ll get out the shovels and rakes. Detailed handwork is the key to creating attractive bunkers with distinct character.

Besides shaping bunkers, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past decade and more studying them – in person, at courses throughout the world, and in photos – both historic and contemporary. I read feverishly as well. And, I’m yet to come across a more poignant and descriptive commentary on bunker construction than the following passage from Robert Hunter’s classic 1926 book, The Links:

“(Bunkers) should have the appearance of being made with the same carelessness and abandon with which a brook tears down the banks which confines it, or the wind tosses about the sand of the dunes. In nature, rock, tree-roots, and turf bind soil, and when wind or water assails it, the less resistant portions give way, forming depressions or elevations broken into irregular lines. Here the bank overhangs, while there it has crumbled away.”

Of course, there are many different bunker styles – natural looking, eroded pits (as described above); elaborately shaped bunkers, like those at Cypress Point (where Hunter worked in association with Dr. Alister Mackenzie on the design of the course); grass-down bunkers with flat bottoms, typical of Pete Dye’s work; and, of course, sod wall bunkers most often found throughout the British Isles.

It’s up to the golf architect to determine a bunker style that suits the inherent character of individual properties – both aesthetically and functionally.

No other architect – throughout history – has been better (yet) than A.W. Tillinghast at diversifying bunker style from course to course. Compare Tillinghast’s “baseball mitt” bunkers at Winged Foot, featuring sand flashed high on the interior faces and thick grassy lip, to the grass-down flat bottom bunkers at nearby Somerset Hills, in New Jersey. Then take a look at historic photos of the ragged edge, natural looking bunkers at San Francisco Golf Club, and you’ll agree.

Tillinghast realized golf’s grand appeal stems from the remarkable diversity of the game’s playing fields. Avoiding standardization of any kind is part of the course architect’s duty.

Today though, we more often find a “signature” bunker style employed by course architects working with contractors who’ve become comfortable with a particular look and style no matter the circumstance.

Why?

Well, from experience, I know that creating distinctive, natural looking bunkers requires a great deal of time, energy, attention to deal, and patience. It’s not uncommon for Rod Whitman and I to tweak and change a single bunker numerous times over months and months, throughout the duration of a golf course construction project. At Sagebrush, for example, we’ve dug a bunkers, studied them (with co-designer and club founder Richard Zokol), tweaked them, changed them again, then filled them in and started over (this is when patience is required!).

The Sagebrush property is scrubby and rugged, clearly mandating scrubby, rugged, natural looking bunkers that meld into the landscape. The bunkers at Sagebrush will run the gamut too – small, medium, large, and even a few extra large bunkers will feature throughout the course. Some will be fashioned with sand flashed high on the interior face. Some will be fit with grass down to flattish sandy floors, and islands of grass and plants. Others still will have sand flashed here and grass down there. Variety is the key.

Creating stylish bunkers with distinct character is very important in golf architecture. But it’s not as important as hazard placement...

Originally appeared at MingayGolf.blogspot.com, January 26, 2007