Golf architecture: The ‘Great Hazard’ undergoes a renaissance, with modern designers rethinking, restoring classical cross bunkers

One of early American golf architecture’s most dramatic design features is being reinvigorated for the modern game. 

Inner-circle Hall of Fame architect A.W. Tillinghast pioneered the “Great Hazard,” a massive expanse of wasteland usually set in the middle of a par 5. He often coupled this with a smaller but still gnarly bunker complex at the front of the green. In combination, this system demands a series of great shots, whether the player is going for the green in two, three or even four strokes. 

The smallest imprecision off the tee forces the player to recalculate the odds all along the way. Four shots, including a punch-out and back-to-back layups, may be required to hopscotch up to the green. The overconfident player who mismanages the percentages could be in for a huge number. 

But over the past century, players and equipment have evolved to the point that many of the original Great Hazards no longer threaten the tactical headlocks their creator intended. Longer hitters simply blast over the wasteland to set up an approach with a lofted club over the greenside bunker complex. 

That’s why architect Gil Hanse, who has restored about a half-dozen Tillinghast designs in New York and New Jersey, made major changes to No. 17 on Baltusrol Golf Club’s Lower Course. Hanse moved the network of fairway-interrupting bunkers and tall-grass islands downrange some 40 yards,  with the leftmost portion potentially gobbling drives and the rightmost path offering the most aggressive line to the green. Either way, it’s a big carry out of or over the hazard. 

“When you have big hazards, they ask big questions,” Hanse said. “They ask you to make big decisions. In this day and age, accomplished golfers were able to drive it into the (Great Hazard). That’s why the shift occurred. If you get out of position, now the positioning of the hazard is you have to hit a monumentally good shot to get over.” 

Indeed, be anywhere but perfect and you’re blocked out and hitting sideways, setting up a third shot with a long iron or wood, uphill to a raised, multi-tiered green with intimidating bunkers in front and left. Throw in three bunkers that protect the second layup area, and it makes a hole the pros might not often birdie when the PGA Championship returns to Baltusrol in 2029. 

Hanse said the original hazard at Baltusrol had become smaller over time. He used Tillinghast’s plans and photos from the early years to reestablish the scale and dimensions of the original work, but he moved it to the new, more strategically demanding position. 

“Moving the Great Hazard exemplified Gil Hanse’s statement of a ‘sympathetic restoration,’ ” said Baltusrol club president Matt Wirths, who worked closely with Hanse on the exacting details of the project. “It restored a signature design element of a Tillinghast course, but in a way that recognizes the changes that have taken place since the original hole was built.” 

And it’s not just Baltusrol. Great Hazard holes are being rediscovered, reinvented and stiffened at courses around the country. 

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