As if one type of fairway-side beach weren’t enough, golf course architects mine their layouts with a wide variety of sand-filled hazards, including framing, target, pot, waste, and cross bunkers. Pros, the conventional wisdom goes, would rather play out of a bunker than thick rough, but most average players find these penal pits frightening. Here are nine reasons to consider carrying a shovel as your 14th club.
Put Me Down for an Eight
Several hours north of Calgary, Alberta, the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge (pictured above) is home to one of the world’s great mountain golf courses, designed by Stanley Thompson in 1925. Demonstrating either a subtle humor or the effects of too much whiskey, Thompson designed the bunkers along the 10th hole in the shapes of a variety of sea creatures, including an octopus with outstretched arms. jasperparklodge.com
Seeing Red
Aspen Lakes Golf Course in Sisters, Ore. — 2.5 hours east of Portland — features bunkers filled with pulverized red volcanic cinders. These hazards beautifully offset rich tee-to-green bent grass, glimmering blue lakes, and snow-capped black volcanic peaks in the distance. The red color also makes it easier to find your ball aspenlakes.com
Bunkers Are the New Black
Motorists and golfers outside Plymouth, Mass., may be sucked toward “the black hole,” a 30-foot-deep bunker at Waverly Oaks Golf Club, located along Route 3 between Boston and Cape Cod. Architect Brian Silva hung the ball-attracting galactic doom-bringer on the edge of an even deeper green-fronting ravine along the par-3 17th. waverlyoaksgolfclub.com
Goofy Design?
Aficionados of golf architecture might call it a Mickey Mouse design tactic, but the par-3 sixth hole of Joe Lee’s Magnolia Course at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., features the “mousetrap” bunker, in the shape of the famous cartoon rodent. Some may relish an explosion shot out of here. disneyworld.disney.go.com
Get Legs
Consider carrying one of those tiny seafood forks instead of a sand wedge when visiting the Cedars at Dungeness, northwest of Seattle. The 483-yard, par-5 third hole is protected by a bunker in the shape of the local (and tasty) Dungeness crab. This walkable Jack Reimer course is located on the Olympic Peninsula in the dryish (compared with Seattle) “banana belt.” dungenessgolf.com
State of Golf
The Four Seasons Resort and Club outside Dallas is home to two noteworthy courses. The Cottonwood Valley Golf Course, designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr. and updated by Jay Morrish, features a first hole in the shape of Texas, a bunker beside it replicating Oklahoma, and a water hazard representing the Gulf of Mexico. The TPC Four Seasons — scheduled to reopen early this year — hosts the annual Byron Nelson Championship. thesportsclubfourseasons.com
Cardinal Sin
On the third hole of Scotland’s Prestwick Golf Club, tucked between Glasgow Prestwick Airport and the Irish Sea, awaits the Cardinal Bunker, one of the most infamous in golf. The vast sand pit is lined with railroad ties that bisect the fairway, turning a short par-5 into a philosophical dilemma over when to storm the beach. Prestwick was home to the first Open Championship (now known as the British Open) in 1860. prestwickgc.co.uk
Church Pews Bring Golfers to Knees
Possibly the best-known bunker in North America, the Church Pews resides at Pennsylvania’s private Oakmont Country Club. But unless you qualify for the U.S. Open, you’re unlikely to test yourself in the hazard’s 102 yards of sandy mayhem. Head instead to Northern Bay Golf Resort & Marina, 85 miles north of Madison, Wis., where you can hit into a perfect replica of the Church Pews — and play replicas of other famous holes as well. northernbayresort.com
The Sound of One Hand Putting
Just outside Las Vegas, the Revere Golf Club’s Lexington Course pays tribute to the idea of golf as a Zen sport. The 11th hole features a green and bunker complex designed in the shape of the ancient yin-yang symbol. The two dots punctuating the tear-shaped components of the symbol are represented by the hole itself and a round pod of grass set within the bunker. reveregolf.com
— Jeff Wallach
Getting there: All the destinations covered in "The Front Nine" can be reached by flying Continental. To book your vacation, visit Continental Airlines Vacations at covacations.com
