Do bunkers slow play?

[Mark_Fine]

Owners want "interesting" golf courses but some fear that adding bunkers, particularly ones more in the center/line of play will "slow" play, back up their golf course and cost them money!  Thoughts anyone?

[TEPaul]

Mark:

I'm sure an interesting and complex arrangement of bunkers on a golf course would have to slow play somewhat compared to a course that had few bunkers--that would only seem to me to be commonsensical.

My feeling about that though would be--so what? I'm probably one of the few who looks at the time it takes to play golf in somewhat of a relative way. I think all golfers should play golf without unnecessary deliberation and refrain from dawdling in any way but I've never felt that a game of golf should be a sport against a standardized time limit. Courses can be very different that way. If I wanted to do a sport strictly like that I'd take up running against a stopwatch!

[A_Clay_Man]

My thoughts are that "owners" who think this way, get exactly what's coming to them and therefore deserve. The removal of bunkers for pace justification isn't golf, it's golf business. If powers that be don't get that they really should take up bowling or at least build more alleys.

[Michael Dugger]

Good God, NO DOUBT!  Thank you Tom Paul for spelling this one out.  No bunkers for the sake of quick play.....well, don't hit in them if you want fast play.  Why not make every player who comes to your course pass a 'skills test'.  No one below 10 handicap.  THis idea is ludicrous.

[frank_D]

a bunker strategically located ENHANCES play by making the player think of the shot at hand and the risk / reward of negotiating / avoiding a bunker - the issue regarding time is more one of maintenance - either a) let the player leave the bunker as is without raking it to move on quickly or b) maintain the sand consistantly throughout the entire course - slow play i've witnessed relates more to "bad" bunkers not properly maintained creating very bad lies / poor conditions - [as an aside the road hole bunker on st andrews is currently undergoing re-conditioning - apparently all the sand players "drag out" has created a situation whereby balls roll away from the mouth -leaving a less effective hazard]

[Forrest Richardson]

Bunkers usually do NOT slow play as they player knows pretty much what club and shot to hit and simply goes ahead with business. On the other hand, deep rough and native rough, where balls are lost, are culprits to slowing play. Once again I'm going to encourage Bill yates, the expert on pace-of-play issues, to log in. I hope he does!

[Matt_Ward]

Mark F:

What slows play is the lack of follow-up by the people who run the facility. Most people have it backwards -- the inmates do not run the asylum. Management does.

I've played plenty of upscale public layouts with CR's of 74+ and slopes greater than 135 that features a wide assortment of hazards. The issue boils down to this: most developers / owners do not want to "hassle" slow players because they feel it's an intrusion on "their" game -- irrespective of what this does to the rest of the players "lucky enough" to be behind this parade.

If you have diligent management and consistent and uniform follow-ups you can keep play moving at a reasonable pace. Mark, many times it's not the hazards, but the rules of the road that the club insists upon. What's one of them? Start with the idiotic "cart paths only" rule. Once you have this you begin to worry more about where the cart is and lose sight on what you're there to do -- play golf.

I can remember people complaining years ago about the old sand that many bunkers had at Bethpage Black. At the 4th the cross bunker was extremely difficult to get to your ball because if you landed in the top third of the bunker just getting to the ball would be a comical exercise in futility for many players. Still, the early groups could get around the Black in 4.5 hours and considering the walk one takes that's not bad at all.

If management is vigilant and stays on top of what is happening you can keep things moving without making the game a sprint. How many bunkers is really irrelevant because I know of many muni type courses that stripped everything out of their course faster than the crooks can take the goods off a car and play still crawls because they sit on their hands and do nothing about the pace of play.

[Mr. Yips]

Bunkers slow play to the extent that any hazard takes more time to navigate than a fairway that kicks any shot into prime position allowing the golfer to walk in a straighter line up the hole. But 4'' cups slow play too. Can we widen them to speed things up?  

[Forrest Richardson]

Mr. Yips -- I believe statistically you are off a bit...

If an average golfer, shooting 90, take the following strokes:

Tee shots (non-par-3s)                14
Tee shots (par-3s)                        4
Fairway/rough shots                     24
Putts                                         36
Penalty strokes                             2
Short game (non-sand)                   6
Sand                                           4

Then I submit the sand shots account for little effect. Rather, the fairway/rough shots -- and short game shots -- where club selection is among many, many choices and options for play, is a bigger threat. The shots from fairway/rough are among many clubs and among many options on execution. While most often the sand play is limited and set.

[Forrest Richardson]

...And even if the sand shots are doubled, the effect is not much percentage-wise.

[Doug Siebert]

I don't buy that bunkers slow play.  Places where you have to look for your ball, that's what slows play.  If they want a design that improves flow, don't include any grass deeper than 3" and don't have any dense areas of trees in play.

A well placed bunker, say 300 yards out right across the fairway, might speed up play in some cases.  The longer hitters, who are usually the most wild, will club down to avoid it.  A lot of players who couldn't hit into it on one out of 100 shots will also club down because they want to believe they can hit into it.  Just not on a par 5, I hate forced layups on par 5s.

[Joe Hancock]

Wouldn't the time spent raking a bunker add to the round, especially a bunker that is very large? (More footprints)

Joe

[Mr. Yips]

Forrest, You misread my post. I didn't say anything about whether or not sand shots took more time than rough shots for a full 90 stroke round. I said nothing of the sort. I said that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line and anything that affects the straightness takes more time than the straighter version. But I do like your thinking. It emphasizes my point about putting taking too much of my time. Oh, but 36 strokes is not nearly enough for my average round.

Now, can we widen that hole?  

[Forrest Richardson]

JHancock -- Probably a factor, but again, it accounts for such a small percentage of shot time and post-shot time. Of course, there is the poor chap who much negotiate 275 sand hazards and finds 30 or more! This guy is on the wrong track, so to speak.

Mr. Yips -- I should take better read, sorry. Also, I should pay more attention to your user name. With a name like "Mr. Yips" I am guessing you putt until dark at some venues...right?

[grampa (Guest)]

Couldn't agree more that bunkers only enhance the SPORT of golf. The problem with slow play has to do with putting and egos. To many idiots who plumbbob, line up every 2 foot putt as if it is for the open championship and carry towels to wipe off their grips prior to each shot. If you really want to speed up play then we need  to teach ready golf and forget about "whose away". If your ready to hit your shot or putt then procede. For a 25 handicap waiting to learn something from an opponents putt is ridiculous. Eliminate egos. To many hackers playing from wrong tees and to many stubborn old men not moving to the forward tees while they slash it around.

[Forrest Richardson]

And one of the fellows lining up those putts may be Mr. Yips!

[A_Clay_Man]

Gramps is got it.  One good way to make sure people are all on the same page is to COMMUNICATE. I get fed up waiting for no reason than I'm not away, so i'll announce "I'll Go". My hope is people will be respectfull for the next 3 seconds, but alas they still don't get it.

Also, everyone who demands fast fast fast must also realize golf is not an exact science. Which means there are and will be more days that one, namely me, may go bunker to bunker to bunker to bunker to bunker. This might take slightly longer than some pre-determined pace but you can bet your sweet bippy that this golfer will be hussleing along to make up for the extra time spent in those bunkers.

[JakaB]

I carry my own bag while most of my friends and guests use caddies....raking bunkers and chasing divots slow me down...sometimes a caddie for another player will offer to do the work or throw me back a divot...which helps...and makes them easy additional tip money...but I rarely hit a good shot that finds a bunker...so I deserve to have to walk a bit faster to my next shot.   I average at least four bunkers a round which will add 12 minutes...one tee time.

[Doug Siebert]

JakaB, 4 bunkers a round is 12 minutes?  What are you doing in there, building sand castles?  

I agree with some of what gramps said, if more people played ready golf even if it meant hitting out of "turn" and didn't think they had to imitate the pros in terms of wiping grips, studying putts from all angles, taking off their glove to putt, etc. things would move a lot faster.  But I've never really bought that playing from tees too far back makes things slower.  A hacker can hit into the gunk off the tee just as easily on a 475 yard par 4 as from the 375 yard forward tees, it'll take just as long to find his ball.  Yeah, he may need an extra full shot to get home, but since the hole wasn't designed to defend against a 220 yard drive from the 475 tees, and he'll be playing it as a par 5 (whether he wants to or not) that extra shot may be a wedge or short iron into the green instead of a 5 wood second that could go anywhere.  Take a foursome of slow golfers and they'll be slow even if you start them at the 150 marker on every hole.

[Tom Doak]

I believe you could easily eliminate thirty bunkers from most courses without having much effect on the strategy of play.

This might slightly decrease the maintenance budget ... slightly ... but it shouldn't have much effect on playing time, because the bunkers you'd want to keep are precisely the ones that players would be most likely to find.

[Dan King]

grampa writes:
The problem with slow play has to do with putting and egos.

Wanna speed up golf, eliminate the golf hole. Either lower par for the course, add two once you get on the green, or give shots depending on how close you get to the pin (within 10 feet -- one shot, between 10 feet and 50 feet two shots, outside that keep playing.)

Not only does it speed up play, but maintenance costs will drop considerably. All you need is white paint and a way to measure 10 and 50 feet.

That should have the added benefit of making the ghost of Ben Hogan happy.

Dan King

"Hitting a golf ball and putting have nothing in common. They're two different games. You work all your life to perfect a repeating swing that will get you to the greens, and then you have to try to do something that is totally unrelated. There shouldn't be any cups, just flag sticks. And then the man who hit the most fairways and greens and got closest to the pins would be the tournament winner."
  --Ben Hogan