52 but I think it comes down to shaping a little ‘softer’. With a number of today’s courses, in my view you can really see the human influence on the bunker shapes, depths and edges. The best work is softer, so even when the courses have a lot of exposed sand, it appears to be more natural. It is massively difficult to define – perhaps we have to be like Potter Stewart and pornography and say, ‘I know it when I see it’.” Jay Blasi says: “I think social media focuses way too much on bunker shaping. Building great bunkers is an important art but there are far more important elements to great golf design, most notably routing, strategy and sustainability. Given our social media world and limited attention spans it is easy to see a picture of a beautifully crafted bunker or sandscape and immediately conclude that the course must be good. It is far harder to assess a routing or understand the strategic elements of a course from a photo or short video. “It is understandable if young designers and shapers go bold when they get an opportunity. They have waited for their chance and so they try to incorporate all their ideas right away. The secret sauce lies in harnessing the talents of skilled shapers while crafting a course that will stand the test of time. Often that boils down to editing, restraint and being subtle – something Tom Doak has discussed at length. “As a designer, I wish routing would be a far greater focus than bunkers. On my current project at Poppy Ridge, we were able to reduce the walk by 2,000 yards and 475 feet of elevation change by completely rerouting the course. The layout went from unwalkable to a really compelling and fun walk. But that can’t be seen in a picture. What can be seen in drone photos are bunkers and cart paths. Because we will do over 50,000 rounds, we chose to limit the bunkering, and we needed full length paths. So, while we focused on what is really important in terms of routing, strategy and sustainability, the reality is that the course would photograph from a drone better and may receive far greater attention if we had more bunkers, less paths and a terrible routing. That is unfortunate.” “Overdoing things is easy. Restraint can be difficult,” says Australian architect Mike Cocking of Ogilvy, Cocking and Mead (OCM). “And I do think building bunkers has become a bit of an architect’s crutch. If in doubt just fill it with bunkers as opposed to creating great landforms and contour. We were a little worried about that with the East course at the new Fall Line club in Georgia – although it is really fun with good holes it isn’t BUNKER DESIGN Pinehurst No. 2 has subtle bunkers but sandy waste areas add drama. For the renovation of Poppy Ridge (right), which will accommodate 50,000 golfers per year, Jay Blasi limited the number and size of bunkers Photo: Chip Henderson “ Some of the elegant simplicity of architects like Colt and Flynn is getting lost in all the cacophany”
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