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Why no Pot Bunkers in the US?


markb

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The Open is upon us and shots of Hoylake reveals its many, small sod-faced pot bunkers that are so effective at shaping where the pro's aim and shoot.  Seeing them got me to thinking, Why are true pot bunkers so rare in America?

 

For being so small, they are so good at changing a course.  You wanna dial back the big hitters without lengthening a tee?  Just stick a diagonal of two or three pots at 300 to 320.   Anyone who has ever been in one will do ANYTHING to avoid them.

 

So why don't we have them?   Are they too expensive to build and maintain?   Do the sod walls have to be replaced frequently?   Are they hard to rake and American GK's will only service a bunker that can be driven into with a machine?  Is is a drainage issue and without proper a priori drainage we can't have them in the US?   Or is it just a stylisitic issue?

 

What do you think?   Where in the US have you found true pot bunkers?

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I was in Lexington, KY on vacation around the 4th of July,  so I played a Pete Dye course just 5 minutes from my sister's house......Kearney Hills GC.....It's a Links style course with many grassy pot bunkers.....It was a blast to play.

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Were they sod faced or merely small steep sloped grass banks that could still be driven into with a tractor?

 

I get the feeling that the main reason we don't have them is that players HATE them and badger management to remove them or never include them in a new design.

 

In other words, I suspect that the main reason we don't see more is because we Americans like to have pretty "hazards" on our courses with graceful lobes of white fluffy sand, but we don't like HAZARDS that we're actually afraid of.

bag - SunMountain Synch with Ogio Synergy X4 cart
driver - :callaway-small: Optiforce 440, Paderson Kevlar Green stiff 46.5"
fwoods - :taylormade-small: Jetspeed, 3HL regular
irons - :taylormade-small:  Speedblades 3-8, 85g stiff steel, 2 up
wedges - :edilon-small: Scor 40, 45, 50, 54, 58
putter - :ping-small: Ketsch 35" slight arc, SuperStroke 2.0 mid-slim
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I guess you haven't played that many Dye courses.  It always seems that he has them scattered liberally around his courses and that they come in sod faced, railroad tied face or sand face - he has the gamut. 

 

Also we have an architect that did lots of very good to great courses in the Southeast, Arthur Hills.  He loves the Pot Bunker or needle nose thing as I like to call them - he particularly likes to put them in the middle of a fairway and then to give you a choice as to which side you'll play too - they may be small but if you pick the right set of tees they really enhance the character of a hole.

 

I don't see pot bunkers every day but they are around enough on the courses that I play that I wouldn't call them rare by any stretch.

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The pot bunkers that I have seen are normally wood planked faced or sod faced with full grass growing over them. I have yet to see one where the stacked sod is like the links style of say St. Andrews over here in the United States.

 

My guess is ultimately the cost of maintenance of the things.

~ Sand is more expensive then grass to replace and maintain a nicely raked area.

~ Having someone hand sheer / weed eat the face of a sod bunker to make it look pretty is time consuming = labor cost

~ Having someone hand rake the small deep bunkers that a riding machine that rakes the bunker can't get into = labor cost

~ Erosion of the sod faced bunker over time will cause the bunker to need completely rebuilt.

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I think it is because many people would just complain and hate them, including me.

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Like Rev says there are plenty on Dye courses. I have seen a few sod faced bunkers but I dont remember any here. The maintainence aint all that bad you can cut the face with a weedeater. I think possibly the reason you dont see a lot of them is because for the average recreational golfer (none on here though) it would be too difficult for them to get out of and would slow play drastically

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We just had a local "semi-links" style course undergo a major remodeling and they've added a few plank faced bunkers to the course.  Most "casual" golfers tend to avoid this course anyway, since it's always been one of the more challenging courses to play, so I think it will be popular with the golfers that regularly play it.

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