Bunker (golf)

“ There is no bunker on the straight line, but there are bunkers to right and left and a somewhat narrow space between, and a shot that is very, very nearly well hit sometimes finds a resting-place in one or other of them. It is a poor thing, however, to demand perfect immunity for any respectable drive, and the shot that is placed where it ought to be gives the chance for a really fine second shot between more bunkers on to a green of fascinating but fiendish undulations. ”

“ On the left-hand side, eating its way into the very heart of the green, is another bunker, very deep and shored up by precipitous black timbers, and the very slightest pull on our approach shot will land us in it. The obvious thing to do would appear to be to push our approach out to the right at any cost, but that will not do either, for on a bank on the right hand side grows a perfect thicket of thorn bushes, where there is very snug lying for the ball and great scope for the niblick. ”

“ At the eleventh, however, we come to a really splendid hole, at which each shot has infinite terrors. The tee-shot has to be played down a narrow spit of land, with thick, rough grass on the right, a bunker encroaching on the left, and a continuation of the same bunker straight ahead of us. Nor must the ubiquitous wall, also on the left, be entirely despised. The very least hook will plunge us into the left-hand end of the bunker, a slice means the long grass, and a very long, straight ball may go too far and meet a sandy fate. ”

“ The first of them entails a shot over the ‘Castle’ bunker, and never was a bunker that more thoroughly belied its true character by a mild and harmless exterior. All that we see in front of us is a grassy bank, with a guiding flag fluttering on the top; and, ignorance being here most emphatically bliss, we may hit a fine shot as straight as an arrow and be congratulated on reaching the green. It is only when we have climbed to the top of that innocent-looking bank that we shall see what we have escaped, a perfect Sahara of sand that stretches nearly to the edge of the green. ”

“ So appalling is it that at one time some tender-hearted people thought that it was refined cruelty to keep such a horror till the last; so they shuffled the course round and turned the eighteenth hole into the ninth, in order that, if a man was fated to ruin his score, he should be put more quickly out of his agony. This was rightly considered, however, to be mistaken kindness, and the big bunker is still kept as a crowning joy or misery. The three short holes are certainly things of beauty and of the three the best and the most paralyzing is the eighth. ”

“ A fine slashing hole again is the sixteenth, where the green is guarded by a grass ground ditch and a low wall of earth, which one would take to be an artificial bunker that has fallen into disuse, except that it dispels the illusion by looking infinitely less ugly and more artistic. When the wind is not too strongly against us, here is a grand chance of hitting out with the brassey and reaping a due reward. Then again, for sheer terrifying splendour of appearance, what could be better than the tee-shots at the thirteenth, commonly called ‘Apollyon,’ and the home hole? ”

“ On the very next tee another bunker of terrible aspect lies before us, this time a towering mountain of sand, and the ball is soon out of sight. However, at the second shot we get a good view of the green, away in the distance perched up on a plateau hard up against a fence. There is rough to the right and a bunker almost in the line to the left, but a good shot will carry it, and, after the ball has vanished for a moment, it will reappear, trickling gently along the plateau to the hole side; it is really a grand two-shot hole. ”

“ Certainly that bunker in front of the green is sufficiently desperate, and to be compelled to approach the hole with a brassey may well inspire fear, but a good drive on a calm day should leave us little more than a firm half-iron shot to play, and then we can afford to treat the bunker almost with contempt. ”

“ The fourth is a one-shot hole, which likewise calls for hard hitting. It is never short, and against the wind a really big shot is needed to carry the bunker, which is made the taller and more frightening by a timbered face. The green is flat and easy, and if we can reach it there should be no excuse for more than two putts. ”

“ Once in the bunker there is nothing to do but employ the ‘common thud’ of Sir Walter Simpson, and we ought with ordinary fortune to get out in one, but the ball must be made to drop wonderfully dead and lifeless, scattering showers of sand as it goes, or else it will run quite gently and deliberately across the green into the bunker on the other side. It is one of those holes at which, were the fates amenable to a compromise, many a stout-hearted player would write down four on his card and proceed to the next tee with the ball in his pocket. ”

“ It is possible, of course, to play an approach shot straight on the bee line to the flag, and if we play it to absolute perfection all may go well; but let it only be crooked by so much as a yard, or let the ball, as it often will do, get an unkind kick, and the bunker will infallibly be our portion. Consequently the prudent man will agree with Willy Smith of Mexico, who declared that it was unwise to “tease the bunkers”; he will not attempt to avoid these greedy, lurking enemies by inches or even feet, but he will give them a good wide berth and avoid them by yards. ”

“ Neither is the second an easy shot, for the green is sloping and treacherous, and there are bunkers to right and left. At the sixteenth—the ‘Cardinal’s Back’—there is an insidious little pot-bunker in the middle of the course, and we must drive either to the right or left of it, or perhaps, wisest of all, aim straight at it in the sure and certain hope of a sufficient measure of inaccuracy. ”

“ The links at Westward Ho afford a very practical illustration of a magnificent course made difficult by careful use of natural and artificial bunkers and hazards. The links, where not bunker or hazard, are all putting-green; every lie is good, but the golfer has to use all his skill to avoid these bunkers. Golf is therefore unlike cricket in this important respect, that the pitch or ground where you play the game can never be as a rule unduly easy; you can always remedy this to the great advantage of the game. ”

“ The trend of modern golfing architecture is all against the old-fashioned cross-bunkers, which used as a matter of course to be dug at regular intervals across the fairway, but, curiously enough, the cross-bunker plays a not unimportant part at Walton. Two holes in particular come to mind, the long seventh and eighth, where bunkers have to be crossed and cannot be circumvented, while the crossing of them in the proper number of strokes is a very essential matter, since the necessity of playing short often involves the loss of a whole stroke. ”

“ The ‘Hilbre’ we may hope to reach with a drive and a cunning run up, and then we have a chance of another three at the ‘Rushes.’ Here we have nothing to do but play quite a short pitch over a cross-bunker and a little wilderness of rushes, but the hole is very close to the bunker, and the green is hard and full of unkind kicks, and a three is not to be despised. ”

“ The sixteenth is a fine straight-hitting two-shot hole over undulating country. The seventeenth brings us face to face with the big bunker, and if the wind be favourable we may hope to reach the green with a really good hit, but the green is curly, tricky, and difficult of access. Finally, we have another drive over the big bunker for the last, taking care to avoid being stymied by a clump of firs, and then we may pitch comfortably home across the road with a four well in sight. ”

“ But she succeeded in dislodging her ball at last, and driving it into a bunker. At the same moment, Amanda suddenly clutched me by the arm. "Oh, Laurence!" she said in a bloodcurdling whisper. "What shall we do? Here is Colonel Bartlemy!"
The worst had happened. The hottest-tempered man in the club, the oldest member, the best player, the greatest stickler for etiquette, was hard upon our track; and Aunt Susannah, with a red and determined countenance, was urging her ball up the bunker, and watching it roll back again. ”

“ We must not hook either, for rough country awaits the ball hit unduly far to the left, and, indeed, the shot is such a narrow one that there are some strong hitters who advocate the taking of a cleek from the tee. The second shot may be described on a calm day as a longish pitch, and there is a big bunker in front of the green, rough ground and a sandy road behind, the railway to the right, and tenacious undergrowth to the left. ”

“ The contrast between white or yellow sand and the grass helps one to judge distances much more accurately, and enables the ball to be found more easily, and the great disadvantage and expense of scything the long grass on the hummocks to prevent lost balls is done away with.
Ordinary bunkers are, as a rule, made in quite the wrong way. The face is usually too upright and the ball gets into an unplayable position under the face. The bottom of the bank of a bunker should have a considerable slope, so that [50] a ball always rolls to the middle ”

“ We mount a high tee on one side of an enormous bunker, and must hit a sheer carry of goodness knows how many yards on to a green also perched high in the air upon the further side. It is a distinctly heroic hole; and the seventeenth and eighteenth, in trying to live up to its standard, have grown so long as to be just a little bit dull. They are, however, I believe, to be lopped and pruned of their superfluous yards, and should then make a fine finish. ”

“ Successfully carrying or skirting a bunker of an alarming or impressive appearance is always a source of satisfaction to the golfer, and yet it is hazards of this description which so often give rise to criticism by the unsuccessful player. ”

“ Bobby, I suppose, determined to be over, seeing that I was in, rather over-ran the green. A bunker near the hole never had the terrors for me that it has for some people: we were too familiar with them at Westward Ho! Tom Vardon said to me afterwards, respecting the stroke which I played out of that bunker: "That was a plucky shot of yours, to go straight for the hole like that." Of course it is always pleasant to be told one is a hero, but really there was nothing very heroic about this. If the sand were taken at the right point behind the ball there was no trouble about the stroke. ”

“ A man whose handicap is some distance removed from scratch, but who has played golf for many years, and thinks with good reason that he knows a fine course when he sees one, would nevertheless, in designing a new one, be led unconsciously to make holes which would be more or less suited to his own style of play. He might, indeed, in a most heroic spirit, place a bunker at a point which he knew would be more than usually dangerous for him, and he would feel a better and a braver man for this act ”

“ A trench of this kind invariably fell in, whereas those made vertical at the top with the slope at the bottom did not do so.
Hazards are usually placed too far [51] away from the greens they are intended to guard; they should be placed immediately on the edge of the greens, and then (particularly if they are in the form of smooth hillocks and hollows) the player who is wide of them has an extremely difficult pitch, and is frequently worse off than the man who is in them.
A bunker eating into a green is by far the most equitable way of giving a golfer full advantage for accurate play. ”

“ The fact can only be explained by the argument that if you keep on doing the same thing something is sure to happen in the end, and it is a sufficient warning to these bunkered golfers that the gods of golf have so large a sense of justice and of right and wrong that by this time the hole has for a certainty been lost. The slashing player who wants to drive his long ball out of the bunker very rarely indeed gets even this little creep over the crest until he has played two or three more, and is in a desperate state of lost temper. ”

“ It is of no use to hope that your drive will jump the bunker at the fifth: I have tried the long, low, raking shot here many times, but the bunker is too high and too far away to be run through successfully; it is much better to slice unblushingly into comparative safety. ”

“ There's a great south-westerly wind, like a celestial housemaid, scouring the skies, and I shall be completely sheltered there, and in the intervals of my reading, I shall pleasantly observe the unsuccessful efforts of the golfers to carry the big bunker. I can't personally play golf any more, but I shall enjoy seeing other people attempting to do it. ”

“ With the tee-shot we must hug as closely as we dare the side of a big hill on the left, and if we fall into the opposite extreme, we may slice our ball among the rocks of ‘Carl Kemp.’ All being well, we have a reasonably easy second over a bunker ”

“ Moreover, not only is it necessary to hit straight, but it is intensely profitable to hit a long way, for if we can only hit far enough, we may play a running shot on to that sliding, sloping green, whereas if we have to pitch on to the slope over the corner of the right-hand bunker, a five is, to put it mildly, far more likely than a three. The fifteenth, again, is a beautiful drive and pitch hole, with a number of alternative routes, all of which want accurate hitting, and all leading up to a most difficult approach shot. ”