Bunker Design
Bunkers add the most to the look and feel of a golf course. Good bunkering can take a barren landscape and give it a sense of excitement. At the same time, the wrong bunker style can also detract from an exciting piece of land. Bunkers also add strategy, define landing areas, and bring beauty to the golf course. How they interact with the site can make a good golf course a great golf course.
Bunkers add more strategy to a golf course then any other feature. By utilizing them correctly, you can use few bunkers to challenge the golfer. MacKenzie was a master at using bunkers to create strategy. Look at one of his greatest designs, Augusta National, it has 12 fairway bunkers and 43 bunkers in total. Yet with few bunkers, this course tests the greatest golfers in the world each year.
Defining landing areas can aid the golfer in many ways. It sets them up from the tee by giving them aiming points.This allows the golfer to visualize their shot, and hopefully, block out the dangers. When used properly, well positioned bunker complexes can steer a golfer around the course. Canyata Golf Club is a course where I currently consult. In the view to the right you see the sixth hole, a 515 yard par 5. Three bunkers off the tee define the landing zone. Two additional bunkers down the fairway challenge you if you decide to lay up for a short approach shot.
Along with everything else, bunkers add beauty to the golf course. Attractive bunkers can make a bad day on the course, better. (Although many have said a bad day of golf is better then a good day in the office.) Attractive bunkers help to set up the character of the golf course. I like to use the term, look hard, yet play easy. Sometimes I like to place menacing looking bunkers on a course, but leaving a lot of room around the bunkers. The first time a golfer plays the course they are awestruck by the bunkers. Then, when they finish their round, they look back and think the course was not as difficult as it looked. That continues to bring them back to the course the better their game.
What is a classic bunker style?
Ask most architects to define a classic bunker style and they usually give one answer. Flat sand! Nothing could be farther from the truth. In the books I have read and the courses I have played, it seems every style was used by all architects. MacKenzie, Ross, and Tillinghast all used a variety of styles. They defined the style by what would fit the best on the site.
In today’s market place, bunker style is as much about the site as it is about the maintenance. Many designers will force a style on a golf course because they want the look that will get them into the magazines. What they do is forget about the maintenance budget and how they can maintain the bunkers. Over the years the bunkers become too difficult to maintain. The appearance, and ultimately the bunker, fail. Working with a course to find the right style is important to developing a plan that will last.
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MICHAEL J. BENKUSKY, INC - GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTURE
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Lake in the Hills, IL 60156
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