Unkempt Sandy Areas

[Tim Gavrich]

Watching the Senior PGA at Kiawah--where all sandy areas are being considered as "through the green"--has got me thinking.  Would it make for more strategic interest to eliminate bunker rakes and relive bunkers of the "hazard" designation?  This would appease those of us who marvel at those who complain about bad lies in bunkers, and allow those who complain about bad lies in bunkers to ground the club in an effort to access the ball a little more easily.

Thoughts?  I'm sure there have been similar discussions to this in the past, but watching the tournament at Kiawah made me wonder a bit about sandy areas and their impact on play and maintenance.

[Phil McDade]

Tim:

I've always been curious what the "local" rule, if any, is at Pine Valley, which has some similar characteristics.

I think much of Whistling Straits, if not the entire course, played through the green for the recent PGA there. I could be wrong, but I do remember some debate about it during the run-up to the tourney.

[TEPaul]

Tim:

There has been discussion of that subject in the past on here.

Basically, what you are suggesting is just not possible under the Rules of Golf.

There is a specific definition of what a bunker is in the Rules of Golf that makes it impossible to treat a bunker as a "waste area" ("through the green") thereby allowing the grounding of a club in sand and there is no definition in the Rules of Golf for a "waste area" (and I doubt there will be anytime soon) so the whole thing is something of a Catch-22.

We've had a thread or two on this in the past.

Phil:

There are no "waste areas" at Pine Valley. You don't want to touch the sand anywhere on the course unless you want to be penalized.  

[Tommy Williamsen]

Tim:

There has been discussion of that subject in the past on here.

Basically, what you are suggesting is just not possible under the Rules of Golf.

There is a specific definition of what a bunker is in the Rules of Golf that makes it impossible to treat a bunker as a "waste area" ("through the green") thereby allowing the grounding of a club in sand and there is no definition in the Rules of Golf for a "waste area" (and I doubt there will be anytime soon) so the whole thing is something of a Catch-22.

We've had a thread or two on this in the past.

Phil:

There are no "waste areas" at Pine Valley. You don't want to touch the sand anywhere on the course unless you want to be penalized.  

Boy am I confused.  Although that should not surprise me.  Are you saying that any ground that is sandy is considered a bunker?  How does one make a distinction between grassless soft dirt and sand?  There were a number of places where my host at PV said I could ground the club.  At my club in South Carolina, Musgrove Mill, there is a clear distinction between bunkers and waste areas.  Grounding clubs in the waste areas is legit.  The color of the sand and is kinda white while the waste areas are brown.  Maybe the waste areas are not sand but dirt that is raked once a week or so.  But it is difficult to tell the difference.

Would you please explain this more?

[TEPaul]

Tommy:

First one has to look at the definition of "bunker" in the Rules of Golf---"A "bunker" is a hazard consisting of a prepared area of ground, often a hollow, from which turf or soil has been removed and replaced with sand or the like."

If you try to tell the USGA Rules of Golf Committee that areas on your course that conform to that definition are "waste areas" and are not bunkers and are consequently not "hazards" (in which it is a violation of the Rules of Golf to ground your club) they will simply not agree with you. Believe me I know, I've tried it.

On the other hand, there are local rules at particular golf clubs that designate certain unmaintained sandy areas as "waste areas"---some mistakenly call them "waste bunkers" which one can tell from what I'm saying here is basically a contradiction in terms.

The R&A/USGA does not have a definition for "waste area" in golf and so the concept and the handling of it in the Rules essentially doesn't exist as something distinct from a bunker (hazard) or "through the green" area.

if a club designates some sandy area as "waste area" on their course it is considered to be "through the green" within the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf and you can ground your club in it (even though what consititutes "improving your lie" in sandy areas can get a bit tricky).

So, I hope you can see the dilemma here and the sort of grey area between the Rules of Golf and what some clubs do with their own "local rule" designation of "waste area". The Rules of Golf apparently doesn't even recognize such a "local" rule and it has no "local" rule for "waste area" in the Rules book on the one hand and they wouldn't let (if one wants to play by the Rules of Golf) a club designate their actual bunkers as "waste areas" if they conform to the definition of "bunker".

By the way, your host at PV apparently does not know the designation of the sandy areas of PV. There are no "waste areas" there. All sand areas are considered to be "hazards" and you cannot ground your club. Or at least that's the way it's always been unless they just changed it just recently.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

I had always thought that all of the sandy areas outside the fairways at Pine Valley were just considered "through the green" and that you could ground your club anywhere.

"A "bunker" is a hazard consisting of a prepared area of ground, often a hollow, from which turf or soil has been removed and replaced with sand or the like."  But at Pine Valley no sand has been replaced in many of those areas ... you're just playing off the native soil.  And I thought the word "prepared" was construed in this sense to indicate "maintained", so that if you don't rake the sandy areas they aren't bunkers.

[TEPaul]

TomD:

In the definition of "bunker" in the Rules of Golf raking of sand areas or not has nothing to do with it.

As for how they play the sand areas at PV I've always been told by the Mayor that all sand areas at PV are hazard and you can't ground your club without penalty. One of the reasons for that is probably because it used to be so hard to tell if you were in a formal bunker or not. Now, to complicate matters in recent years all the sand areas of PV are raked----again not that that matters in the Rules of Golf but it may in the thinking at PV.

My advice, if you are playing in a tournament at PV would be to never ground your club in sand anywhere.

But, Tom, I'm not saying this subject generally is not a gray area---it is---I know it and so does the USGA.

[Adam Clayman]

If an area is raked, isn't it therefore maintained?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Tom Paul, thanks for your answers.  It is confusing however.
I have no doubts about what you are saying, it just is different from how I have played for 60 years.

[Tom_Doak]

Sean:

I believe the main reason the USGA leans toward calling these areas hazards instead of "through the green" is that there is too much scope for improving one's lie in the process of grounding the club, and they just don't want questions about such things in the course of running a competition.  If you can't ground your club those issues go away.

[Tim Taylor]

See "Cink, Stewart, Harbor Town, 2004"

Sean:

I believe the main reason the USGA leans toward calling these areas hazards instead of "through the green" is that there is too much scope for improving one's lie in the process of grounding the club, and they just don't want questions about such things in the course of running a competition.  If you can't ground your club those issues go away.

[paul cowley]

Sean:

I believe the main reason the USGA leans toward calling these areas hazards instead of "through the green" is that there is too much scope for improving one's lie in the process of grounding the club, and they just don't want questions about such things in the course of running a competition.  If you can't ground your club those issues go away.

I guess I understand ...but I really don't understand how much advantage can be gained while grounding ones club....correctly that is .

I am not sure if all these definitions are worth the effort if players abide by the rules of play through the green.....lets remember that this is a self policing game.

Then we could get rid of the rakes.

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul, thanks for your answers.  It is confusing however.
I have no doubts about what you are saying, it just is different from how I have played for 60 years."

Tommy:

Yes, of course it's confusing and made more so by the fact that the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf have not to date decided to define a "waste area", despite the fact that numerous clubs are using that "Local Rule" defintion on their scorecards these days.

By the way, Tommy, you say you've played for 60 years? Amazing. Of course, I've never met you but for some reason I got the sense that you were a young guy. Hey, maybe 60+ is still a young guy.  

In my opinon, this is an issue that will by necessity be either changed or referenced in the Rules of Golf, or more logically in the Decisions on the Rules of Golf sometime fairly soon.

[Rich Goodale]

Tommy P

Have you actually ever been in a bunker or waste area, at Pine Valley or anywhere else?

PS--I think the Mayor was trying to play with your mind....

[Brent Hutto]

There doesn't need to be a definition of "waste area" in the Rules any more than there needs to be a definition of "gunch" or "hardpan". At courses like the Ocean Course, sandy ground is treated (quite correctly IMO) no different than grassy ground or weedy ground or bare ground.

The last thing the Rules need are additional subdivisions of the golf course into picky categories, each to be treated idiosyncratically.

P.S. And by the way I do not approve or the so-called "local rule" at Tobacco Road that encourages improving ones lie in the sand. I think I've done that about three times in my two rounds there but in future I will play the ball as it lies.

[TEPaul]

Brent:

There's a "local" rule at Tobacco Road that encourages improving your lie? What do you mean by that? Do you mean they have a "local" rule that allows a player to ground his club in something like a sandy waste area? Allowing that is not the same thing as encouraging a player to improve his lie or it shouldn't be. Improving your lie anywhere is a violation of Rule 13.

Obviously, a number of clubs must think players are unsure in some sandy areas if they are in a bunker (hazard) or "through the green", hence the "local" rule designating these areas as "waste area" in which one can ground one's club.

The R&A/USGA Rules of Golf has no problem with that and simply views those areas as "through the green". A problem arises when these sandy "waste areas" begin to conform to the R&A/USGA definition of a bunker. In that case the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf do not consider that area to be "through the green" but a "hazard" in which one cannot ground the club.

[Brent Hutto]

There are no bunkers at Tobacco Road. It's all through the green. I think that sort of thing is great, for the reasons I've outlined in this and other threads.

The issue I have with Tobacco Road is the starter tells each group that there's a "local rule" that if your ball is in the sand you can lift, rake and replace to give yourself a perfect lie. Of course you and I know that no such "local rule" is in keeping with the Rules of Golf.

This is ostensibly to speed up play, much like the "local rule" of treating tall grass as a lateral hazard that they try to get you to play by at many courses.

The first couple times I played The Road I did the lift and rake thing, twice the first round and once the second round IIRC. Some time during the second round I realized that in fact it didn't really speed up play and I was waiting on every shot anyway. So I'm not going to do it in the future.