NO SYMPATHY Mike Strantz showed little remorse for golfers who missed Tobacco Road’s ninth green.
Oakmont was said to have more than 350 such hazards, each prepped with the infamous rake. Early Oakmont might have been pointedly sadistic, but more enlightened practitioners used bunkers for stringent strategic purpose. They understood that there can be no strategy without risk, and there’s no risk without the threat of dire penalty. CB Macdonald’s bunkers at National
phised personalities, like denizens of a town: Strath, Cartgate, Deacon Sime. Later, when professionals in the Unit- ed Kingdom began constructing artifi- cial bunkers on new inland courses, they tried to emulate the old links bun- kers by digging crude, rectangular cavi- ties and deep trenches that had none of the sublime naturalness of their inspi- ration but all the cruelty.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT The science of course construction progressed into the 20th century, but architects did not generally dumb down their bunkers. Oakmont founder HC Fownes, holding Calvinistic views of crime and punishment, at least to- wards golfers, instructed crews to add new bunkers wherever the better play- ers were hitting the ball. At one point
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 59
JUNE 2024
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