Okay, bunker rakes aren't new. But when my wife and I golfed at Desert Willow Firecliff in Palm Springs on Monday - HOT - I saw a neat thing on the course, something I'd never seen before.
Considering the number of bunkers on the course, I didn't hit one until late in the round, but early on my wife got into some sand trouble and found a couple of bunkers on the front nine. But, neither of us noticed any rakes laying about, to clean up afterwards. I did notice how well maintained the bunkers seemed to be, but thought that the crew perhaps did them every morning with the Sand Pro.
Then, on the 13th hole, we caught up to the guys in front of us, and waiting in the fairway for our approach shots, we noticed one of them raking a greenside bunker. We looked at each other as if to say WTF - where did he get the rake? Immediately we looked at our cart, thinking that we somehow didn't notice (how??) a rake on the back of our power cart - a little trick that Dick Zokol's Sagebrush course in B.C. implemented for their huge bunkers. Then the lightbulb went on - I flashed back to a couple of green plates in the turf that I had noticed back on the front nine. At the time, I'd thought that they were for irrigation purposes.
So, when we got to the green, we walked over to the nearest bunker, and voila - there it was. An underground rake ...
It was the darndest thing ... you push down on one side of the plastic plate, and it pops open. The rake comes up a foot or two, and you pull it out and do your thing. When finished, you insert it back in the hole, push down a bit (spring-loaded), and then close the plate and step on it to lock.
I thought, hey, there's the answer to the age-old question ... is it better to leave a rake on the grass beside the bunker (headache for the mowers) or leave it in the sand (headache for the Sand Pro guys)?
Has anyone ever seen or experienced these things? Looks like they're called Underground Rake Caddie, but a little Internet search doesn't reveal much. Not sure if the company is still in existence.
Just wonder what kind of a maintenance nightmare they are for the crew? Perhaps a super could chime in.
Jim