Jerry Pate knows golf. He's got eight wins on the PGA Tour, including the 1976 U.S. Open, and he's an accomplished course designer. Throughout the season, he'll be stopping by Devil Ball to offer an inside-the-ropes look at the week's upcoming course. Today: Aronomink, site of this week's AT&T National.

"There is no such thing as a misplaced bunker. Regardless of where a bunker may be, it is the business of the player to avoid it." -- Donald Ross

Aronimink is a fabulous Donald Ross layout that opened in 1928. Although it has not had the notoriety of other Ross courses such as Pinehurst, Seminole, or Oakland Hills, it truly is their equal. Even Donald Ross himself wrote that he had intended Aronimink to be his masterpiece.

The outstanding features of this layout are most certainly the bunkers. The layout is littered with over seventy of them, and throughout the duration of a 72-hole event every one of them makes an impact at some point. The fairway bunkers at Aronimink don't just protect on inside corner or define the target line, they pinch the landing areas and approaches to demand accuracy from the tee. The greenside bunkers front each green, allowing little room for a running approach. As a result, the golfer is prodded into challenging the fairway bunkers for a chance at an aggressive approach to the pin.

Once captured by one of these bunkers, the golfer must be careful not to compound his errors. Nearly all the bunkers sit perpendicular to the line of recovery, which makes the height of the bunker faces stare directly at the player's next shot. A player going for too much on the recovery can easily hit the face in front of him or place his shot into the next bunker, placed precisely down the fairway to punish overzealous recovery attempts.

I am excited that the AT&T is visiting Aronimink. It will be refreshing to watch a Tour event where course management, accuracy, and patience will prevail over distance and aggression.

Jerry Pate has been designing golf courses for more than 30 years. His portfolio of work includes Old Waverly Golf Club in Mississippi, site of the 1999 United States Women's Open; Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck (formerly known as Shadow Isle) in New Jersey; Kiva Dunes on the Alabama Gulf Coast; and Rancho La Quinta Country Club in California. See more of his work at www.jerrypategolfdesign.com.