I like flora in bunkers and here is why. I actually had a member ask a pretty good question. He asked if the flora in my bunkers was not a sign that the bunkers could not stand alone as hazards. He felt that if they were proper hazards, they wouldn't need the "crap" in them.
I was a little struck by the question/statement because it was a good one and most of the stuff I hear doesn't qualify as well thought out
I took a moment and said that I truly felt bunkers were meant to play as hazards, not as the pristine, "consistent" things that players, especially good players, expect to be easy places to recover from. If I made the bunkers so deep as to make them challenging for a better player to get out of, they would be impossible for most everyone else. I thought about the un-raked bunker approach but people hate that and unless you are pine valley the un-raked look can look like you are being cheap.
The flora in the bunkers provides a degree of uncertainty and fear. When you hit a ball toward a hazard I think you should be worried about what you may have. Maybe its playable, maybe it's a perfect lie, maybe it's "dead". I love uncertainty in golf. It makes the game more interesting and fun and it really screws with "good" players who think penalties should always be "proportional" or "fair".
Nonsense. Here is a sampling of flora in my bunkers: (I think its pretty, it is not more expensive to maintain and it heightens the fear factor when a player's ball is headed in that direction. Oh, and this fear does protect certain lines of play the way flora-less hazards couldn't without being so deep they are unplayable for most.
The flora in that bunker is hiding a catch basin
And yes, it is a bunker about a yard off the back tee!