Furrowed Bunkers Return to Memorial

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick Mucci....isn't the intent of the furrows to take the spin off the ball?  

No, the intent of the furrows is to make the extracation more difficult, and THEREFORE the STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE of the bunker MORE important.

It's more of a Macro, not a micro issue.[/color]

So even though 50% of the time, the very best golfers in the world can't get up and down out of a bunker, you and jack feel they need to be "toughened" up ?

That statistic is meaningless unless it's contexted with up and downs out of deep rough surrounding the green.

And, when I see mid-hadicaps hitting hybrid clubs out of fairway bunkers and onto the green it tells me that the bunker has failed in its intended role, mentally and structurally.[/color]

And you are also suggesting this would be good for the average joe as well?

The "average Joe" is to vague a description, could you quantify him by handicap ?[/color]

Here is my observation from watching PGA golf on TV and in person...the pro's like every shot into a bunker to roll to the bottom of the bunker and they want consistant sand depth in the bottom of the bunker...

a solution might be a maintinance set up where a ball that hits the slope of a bunker stays there and the sand is deep and lose...and rarely will a ball roll down into the bottom of a bunker...

That wouldn't tax green budgets much, would it ?

When 30 % of a particular green budget's labor is devoted to bunker maintainance, it would drive those costs through the roof.  It's an impractical and expensive solution.

No maintainance or sporadic maintainance is the answer.

However, it's no longer a maintainance issue.

It's now a cultural issue and guys like Jack Nicklaus and Ken Bakst are trying to change that.

And for that, I applaud them and others who follow that path.[/color]

[Craig Sweet]

Average Joe carrries a handicap somewhere between 15 and 25...the average Joe is heavily penalized when they hit into a bunker 4 out of 5 times....especially a fairway bunker....whether the bunker is furrowed, smooth, grooved, raked or unraked, the average Joe gets a sufficent penalty...

Why get all worked up and say the sky is falling over the occasional lucky shot out of a bunker by the average Joe?

And Pat, yes, the furrowed bunker is designed to reduce spin....

[Craig Sweet]

Patrick Mucci...the issue of bunker maintinance on a PGA Tour course and a daily play situation is different...cost wise....the tour can spend freely.

There is no reason the bunkers on tour could not be maintained as I discribe...deep, powdery sand on the face of bunkers that prevent the ball from rolling down to the flat bottom of the bunker...

once again I find you talking about a situation that is occuring on the PGA tour...sometimes its the ball, sometimes its the club, sometimes its the maintinance set up...and applying it to everyday golf through out america...the problem is, those are two entirely different worlds and what needs to happen on the PGA tour is WRONG for everyday golf in America...

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick Mucci...the issue of bunker maintinance on a PGA Tour course and a daily play situation is different...cost wise....the tour can spend freely.

Most Tour stops remain local golf courses, not TPC sites.[/color]

There is no reason the bunkers on tour could not be maintained as I discribe...deep, powdery sand on the face of bunkers that prevent the ball from rolling down to the flat bottom of the bunker...

First you'd have to remove the existing sand, replace it with the abundant, deep, powder sand, then contour it, then remove it and replace it with the original sand.
That's a cumbersome and expensive project, not to mention the inconvenience to the members.[/color]

once again I find you talking about a situation that is occuring on the PGA tour...sometimes its the ball, sometimes its the club, sometimes its the maintinance set up...and applying it to everyday golf through out america...the problem is, those are two entirely different worlds and what needs to happen on the PGA tour is WRONG for everyday golf in America...

I couldn't care less about what happens on the Tour, except that it does have an impact on the rest of the golfing world.

I'm talking about everyday golf courses where excessive maintainance practices are killing budgets and providing "perfect" conditions, in and out of bunkers.

Bunkers have gotten easier to play from, through maintainance and equipment.

They've lost some of their strategic signficance.

When Pine Valley doesn't rake bunkers for a month, and Friar's Head doesn't have any rakes on the golf course, bunkers play more like the hazards they're meant to be.[/color]

[JMEvensky]

To me,it seems like furrowing bunkers would be a good way to penalize the better golfer without having much impact on Joe Handicap.

The better golfer tends to look at bunkers as safe havens;usually easier than high rough,sometimes easier than tightly-mown chipping areas.He expects to hit a good shot from a well-maintained bunker.

Joe Handicap tends to be happy if the ball is extricated on the first swing whether the bunker is soft,hard,raked,or furrowed.

Furrowing bunkers might not impact Joe Handicap.It will certainly impact the better players.

Apologies for the caricatures of the different players.

[Craig Sweet]

Patrick Mucci, neither you, nor Jack have proven "bunkers have gotten easier to play from"....

And, judging from your comments on this website you care a great deal about what happens on the PGA tour...you are constantly asking questions about equipment and its impact on "the game" and architecture...while most people that post here see equipment having a negligable impact on the average Joe and thus architecture...

I, on the other hand, could care less about the PGA tour...I look at the average Joe having plenty of trouble getting out of what you alledge to be over maintained and manicured bunkers...a bunker is still a 1/2 stroke to 1 full stroke penelty for the average Joe...

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick Mucci, neither you, nor Jack have proven "bunkers have gotten easier to play from"....

Do you think that maintaining bunkers to a high, if not pristine, degree makes them easier ?  Yes or No ?[/color]

And, judging from your comments on this website you care a great deal about what happens on the PGA tour...you are constantly asking questions about equipment and its impact on "the game" and architecture...while most people that post here see equipment having a negligable impact on the average Joe and thus architecture...

If you'd read my comments more thoroughly you'd see that they're NOT contexted in the PGA Tour vein.[/color]

I, on the other hand, could care less about the PGA tour...I look at the average Joe having plenty of trouble getting out of what you alledge to be over maintained and manicured bunkers...a bunker is still a 1/2 stroke to 1 full stroke penelty for the average Joe...

I thought golf courses were designed and maintained for the broad spectrum of golfers, the average Joe, the less than average Joe and the better than average Joe.

Shall we now design, prepare and maintain golf courses solely for the 15-25 handicap golfer, YOUR average Joe ?[/color]

[Kalen Braley]

Phil M said this:

It is a hazard and nothing says that the bunkers need to be immaculate. Bobby Jones, back in the 20s, I believe, played Oakmont when they were using those furrowed rakes, and he said that he didn't like it, because it took the skill out of the game. Now, it just depends how bad a lie. Is there a chance we can hit a shot out of it? Or is it going to be just ridiculous where you're lucky to get it on the green, and it takes the skill out of it? So it's a fine line between the two.

How true is this?  Or should the intrinsic nature of a hazard be that you may be screwed or may get lucky with a good break?

[Jeff Goldman]

I think you guys are generally a bit too much on the purpose of bunkers, which is to make a course more interesting and fun, not to simply be penal.  Sure, at a course like Oakmont, which is designed to be harsh and penal, it may be appropriate to have extremely penal bunkers, however created.  At other places shouldn't the difficulty of a bunker depend on where it is and what it is there for?  For example, I think recovery from the rough on the leftside of the first hole on Pinehurst 2 is supposed to be more difficult than being in the bunker on the right because the green slopes right to left.  If you simply make the bunker more penal, you could defeat the design of the hole.  

Similarly, some fairway bunkers are designed to be relatively painless to make golfers think.  The 6th hole on the South Course at OFCC is basically a knoll hole, with very benign fairway bunkers.  Thus, folks in them have to decide whether to go for the green and possibly make a 12 rather than simply pitching out.  Make them more penal, and eveyone will simply pitch out, making for a less interesting hole.  

The difficulty of recovery from bunkers is important, but I  think focusing solely on the penal aspect leaves something out.

[Kalen Braley]

Once again, pardon my ignorance here.  But does scrambling include getting up and down from a bunker?  Or is this covered exclusivly by the Sand Save stat?

Either way, the average joe on tour gets up and down from the sand about 50% of the time.  The average scrambling stat is about 60%.  So if Jack is interested in making the course more difficult, then shouldn't he be more focused on growing the rough thicker around the greens, than making the bunkers more difficult?

Going on the assumption, that there is more rough surronding the greens than sand, then a player is more likely to miss the green in the grass.  The scrambling stat suggests that getting up and down from the grass is "easier" than doing so from the sand.  

So it seems Jack should be more focused on tougher non-sand conditions, because the pros will hit more shots from the grass surronding the greens and its a higher % opportunity to save par.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Kalen,

Scrambling includes recoveries from the fairway so don't jump to too many conclusions.

Craig Sweet,

Since when is a 50 % success rate on recovery from a bunker a bad stat ?

If the tour stat on making a putt is 50-50 from 6 feet, which I believe it was for numerous U.S. Opens, or even 8 feet, wouldn't that mean that the PGA Tour Pro is getting his bunker shot, on average, to 6 or 8 feet, every time.

Since when is that bad, that's sensational, and would seem to indicate that the bunkers aren't offering enough of a challenge.

[Jim Nugent]

Pat -- the average (median) sand shot on tour ends up almost 10 feet from the cup.  9' 8" to be precise.  True this year and last.  

Kalen -- scrambling stats do include sand shots.  But here is some info on sand saves vs. rough saves.  PGATour.com has a stat, "Scrambling from rough."  It is defined as "The percent of time that a player misses the green in regulation, but still makes par or better when the birdie stroke is taken from the rough."

Average (median) rough save this year is 55.2%.  Average sand save is about 49.3%.  Sand plays tougher, on average, than rough, for the world's best players.