13 MA I L BOX Dear Editor Your article ‘Losing the crutch: holes without bunkers’ gave solid insights on the origins and usage of bunkers in course design. I tend to support a middle ground: put in bunkers with strategic merit, but don’t overdo it. As far as entire courses with no bunkers, I have encountered a few. One was the public Prairie course in Lincoln, Nebraska, which was my unofficial home course during 1991. I then moved to Dallas, Texas, to an area with lots of wellbunkered golf courses. One result was that my sand game struggled for that first year in Texas. So, if your course has no bunkers, your home crowd suffers a skill disadvantage when playing courses with bunkers. Hence, the idea of balance in bunker installation. More common in St. Louis area is courses with most – or all – bunkers removed. A prominent example is Ruth Park Golf Course, a nine-hole muni designed by Scottish architect Robert Foulis. Robert and his brothers combined for dozens of courses in the Midwest in the early 1900s. At Ruth, the bunker removal hurt playability, as many of the bunker areas were simply levelled to promote drainage. As for prairie grass touches and hazards, area courses tried it a decade ago. Nature lovers seeking Audubon certification thought it would be challenging and pastorally elegant to line fairways with prairie grass. Ruth Park tried it brief ly. The main result was a plague of slow play by foursomes with directionally-challenged golfers. A few years back, I went out in March and was delighted to find that the prairie grass had largely retreated to the outer borders of the courses. In closing, I wanted to share with you an excellent hole with no bunkers, and no water. This is the fourteenth at Normandie Golf Club, another Foulis course. The course was recently spared from home developers by a partnership between Nicklaus Design and the local amateur golf association. The hole goes uphill to a landing area, and downhill to a diagonally-set shelf green with swale in front and hill at the back. You have to think about every shot. John Orr St. Louis, Missouri We are delighted to receive letters from readers, and the best in each issue will be rewarded with a golf shirt. Send to 6 Friar Lane, Leicester, LE1 5RA, UK, or email us at letters@golfcoursearchitecture.net Sandy was in Scotland, in fact in the home of golf itself in the last issue, sat on the edge of the Ladies Putting Course, otherwise known as the Himalayas. Originally laid out by Old Tom Morris, it is believed to be the oldest mini golf course in the world and is run by the Ladies Putting Club. Richard Phillips of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, figured it out (as did quite a lot of others, but Richard’s was the first name out of the hat). We hope you enjoy your GCA golf shirt, Richard! A slightly unusual location for Sandy this month. One might almost say precarious in the event of a very high tide, because the timbers in the shot are to protect the golf course from the inflowing sea – it is, effectively, located in a tidal creek. A little younger than the Himalayas, the course has still been around for well over a century. Know where it is and fancy one of our coveted shirts? Send your answer to gopher@golfcoursearchitecture.net. GOPHER WATCH
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQ1NTk=