Bunkerless golf course?

General Discussion
#1

I saw this interesting article over on Golf about a course that went bunkerless:

That got me thinking about bunkers. I feel like they are really overused in many course designs. Sometimes having a lot of sand can feel natural to the landscape, but most places they just look out of place and forced. My own club follows foothills and canyons, but still has at least 2 bunkers on every hole. Might be too extreme to go completely bunkerless, but I would be fine if half of those were converted to “grass bunkers”. Would still be penal, but easier to maintain and (at least in my mind) better looking.
FWIW, I’m a pretty good bunker player, but still think most courses would be better off with fewer of them.

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#2

I agree especially from a maintenance standpoint. Players tend to expect bunkers to be pristine even though they are supposed to be penal and they can be hard and time consuming to mow around.

I think waste areas on some courses fit the layout much better although I don’t know if those are hard to keep up too.

I’m not a great bunker player, but I can get out decently. With the rough we’ve had lately I find myself yelling “get in the bunker!” on holes now lol.

I do think they make sense design-wise on some holes where shots just off the green or off the fairway could shoot deep into the woods or worse and a bunker can catch shots to keep playing moving along. Our 11th hole is an example as the green is tiny and sloped towards the water. You can really only use about a 1/3rd of the green because a ball landing in the middle can go right off into the junk at the end of the water. A bunker to catch balls would be perfect, but we can’t add one because the town actually owns the land for that hole and won’t allow any changes.

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#3

As part of our “course master plan” my course has filled in 2 bunkers, one fairway and one greenside, moved one from the lhs to the rhs on one hole and on the last they cut the top off the fairway bunker as it used to have a high face and be very penal with the safest shot being sideways. Still plenty of bunkers left though.

#4

In tourney play our course has 170 yd par 3 water in front 3 yds from apron of green. No sand.
1 foot from the Right of the green an area about 18 inches below the entire right side of the green where they grow the grass 4-5 inches high. A sand bunker would be less penal. I’ve seen players completely whiff if the ball sits up…if it sits down good luck advancing the ball 2 ft. Sand is pretty, but difficult to maintain. I live down the road from the great Pine Valley, I’ve played a couple times and have visited many times…it is basically one big sandy waste area…All courses have their challenges,IMO, you don’t need bunkers to make it tough. With today’s equipment, bunkers are not that penal unless you start seeing them 4-5 ft deep.

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#5

Bunkers are expensive to maintain. This is anecdotal, but I’m pretty sure I saw a superintendent somewhere on Twitter talking about how bunker maintenance was his #1 cost.

One of my favorite local courses has 2 bunkers on the entire property. That course makes a ton of money and has a relatively simply maintenance schedule.

I am a big fan of limited bunkers, and mainly for strategic purposes.

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#6

Just did a mental count and I think we have 39 bunkers at Mt Osmond Gc. Every hole has at least one and some have three.

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#7

Pretty sure there’s 26 at our local tract.
Being a 50-50 bunker player I wouldn’t miss them too much. But replacing them with high rough will be just as challenging.

#8

I think we have 37, but when I first started picturing the course in my mind I only counted out 28 so who knows if I still missed a few. I tend to only think of the ones I wind up in. Holes 6 and 11 have no bunkers

We certainly have some are probably a waste. There are a handful at the back of some greens, but they are so small and shallow (with hard sand) that they really don’t catch many shots going long. A few holes they got rid of them and now have just grass bunker depressions. Those seem to catch more balls and are a real penalty with the thick rough. They did reshape some others to make mowing easier, but not many.

#9

I play most of my golf on two courses. One has tons of bunkers, the other has very few.

The course that has a lot of bunkers, I wish there were fewer, especially since some of then don’t have enough sand in them and are hard to deal with.

The course that has only a few, I wish it had more, especially a few fairway bunkers. I think off the tee, they sometimes help frame the hole and give you something to aim at.