[jim_lewis]

At least for high level competions.  Watching the play at East Lake, it is obvious that shots from the bunkers are much easier than playing from the Bermuda rough. The result is that a shot that barely rolls into the rough is penalized more than a worse shot that finds the sand. If the bunkers are to be played as hazards, they should be just that, hazards to be avoided. For starters, fairway bunkers should be deep enough to require an excellent and risky shot to reach the green. The bunkers should be maintained so as to create the risk of a bad lie, which will normally cost the player at least half a shot. Most of the bunker lies at East Lake are so perfect as to present no real challenge. The players will complain that they are unfair or inconsistent or too hard. My answer, "That's why they call them hazards. If you don't want to play from them, do hit it there."
BTW, I am a better bunker player than most of the guys I play against. I prefer tougher bunkers, because I think they give me an advantage over my opponents who intimidated by sand.

The same should apply in competitons. The more skilled sand player should have an advantage. Perfect lies in shallow bunkers are easy for everyone.

[David_Tepper]

Jim -

This topic seems to come up once or twice a year.

Sand Save stats on the PGA Tour have been pretty consistent over time. The tour leader usually converts 2/3's of the time and there are a handful of guys who get up & down 60% of the time. The majority of the guys on Tour don't convert more than 50% of the time. And don't forget, these guys are also the best putter in the world.

DT   

[BCrosby]

Crusty -

I was at EL parts of Thursday and Friday. No question bunker recoveries are easier than rough recoveries for the pros. They are so good, I'm not sure lack of raking would phase them much.

The fw rough at EL appears to me to be lower this year. Maybe just 2" or so. There were lots of very good approaches from the rough off the LZ's.  Around the green it was a different story. There are spots where the surrounds grass must be higher.

Many - not all - of the EL bunkers are pretty deep. For example, bunkers front and left of no. 2 are very deep. Ditto bunkers front of 8 and 9. Didn't seem to phase the pros very much , even if they were short-sided.

As you know, on clay-based courses deep bunkers can be hard to maintain. At EL that's especially true the closer the bunker is to the lake.

Also, let's not forget that these are the 30 best players in the world at the top of their game. They can play.

Bob

  

[Craig Disher]

Bob,
I think the issue is not with the bunkers near the greens but with the ones off the fairway. Tiger had two drives, one of which found a fairway bunker on the par 5 15th, the other (on the 8th?) didn't reach the sand but settled into the long grass on the side slope. From the sand, he reached the green setting up an eagle putt; from the side slope and a horrible stance his short approach missed wide to the right. With the nasty bermuda rough, the sandy bottoms of the fairway bunkers are like small areas of relief.

[Andy Stamm]

How would you 'fix' it? And how would that effect the course the other 51 weeks?

I don't know about East Lake specifically, but for normal play the rough isn't that high, and the bunkers play the same. In this case the rough is easier than the bunkers (especially considering a bunker shot is much harder for the non-pro). When the pros come the rough is grown, but how can you change the bunkers for one week? Is the solution to make the bunkers so hard (deep, etc.) that when the rough is up they're still harder than the rough? They'd be brutal for the daily player the other 51 weeks. I'd chalk this up to a side effect of course having two intended audiences, the regular guy and the touring professional. Not ideal, but not that big of a deal.

[Sean_A]

Assuming the water table isn't too high, deepen the bunkers and lighten the rough.  There isn't any point whatsoever in having bunkers which are easier to recover from compared to grass.  I know I am an outlier on this, but bunkers should be far and few between, but nasty SOBs which nobody wants to be in.

Ciao

[BCrosby]

Bob,
I think the issue is not with the bunkers near the greens but with the ones off the fairway. Tiger had two drives, one of which found a fairway bunker on the par 5 15th, the other (on the 8th?) didn't reach the sand but settled into the long grass on the side slope. From the sand, he reached the green setting up an eagle putt; from the side slope and a horrible stance his short approach missed wide to the right. With the nasty bermuda rough, the sandy bottoms of the fairway bunkers are like small areas of relief.

Craig -

I didn't see Tiger's shot on 15 yesterday, but I've been in that bunker. He hit a hell of a shot.

These guys are very, very good.

Maybe the Brits have this right. Replace our "natural" looking bunkers with pots with vertical walls.

Or maybe you remove the sand and replace it with even taller Bermuda.

Either approach might solve the problem, but both would be at the price of a course that looks unlike what we expect a course to look like  in the Georgia piedmont.

Bob  

[jim_lewis]

I am primarily concerned about the fairway bunkers. The sand save percentage from greenside bunkers may be in the 60% range with most of the 40% coming from short-sided bunkers, but I wonder what the percentage of players reaching the green from fairway bunkers is. It sure looks very high, too high, for my taste.

Here is how I would address the problem for one week events. Simply churn the sand in the bottom of the bunkers so that the ball will sit down in the sand. The lies in the fairway bunkers at East Lake are so firm and perfect that they seem to border on hardpan, which actually is easier to play from than the fairway for some pros. I don't think the best players in the world should reach the green from the fairway bunkers more than 50% of the time. Dammit! they are supposed to be hazards for all players.

[Matt_Cohn]

They are so good, I'm not sure lack of raking would phase them much.

Disagree. Even a slightly imperfect lie totally recalibrates the difficulty of a bunker shot. The main reason bunkers are so easy is that the lies are so predictable. Stop raking them and things go haywire. Remember the fuss at Muirfield Village a couple of years ago? Wouldn't have happened if changing the lies didn't make a huge difference!

[Tim Gavrich]

I don't mind so much that bunkers can be easier to play out of at times than deep grass. I'm watching the players play the second hole at East Lake right now, a par 3 where the pin is cut cose on the green over a pretty deep bunker. I think the fact that pros think they can get up and down out of that bunker means they're going to be more aggressive than they would if the bunker was a hell-pit. Which makes for better competition (and, by the way, TV viewing): players challenging that front pin or everyone playing to 40 feet from the hole in the center of the green?

[Adrian_Stiff]

We talk a lot on here about courses that are set up for the 1% (THE PRO'S) and debate 7500 yards as silly/needed. Bunkers are more challenging than rough 90+% of golfers, think there is no real fix for the week that the circus comes to town.

[Tom_Doak]

We talk a lot on here about courses that are set up for the 1% (THE PRO'S) and debate 7500 yards as silly/needed. Bunkers are more challenging than rough 90+% of golfers, think there is no real fix for the week that the circus comes to town.

Adrian:

Maybe if the bunker lies were a little more iffy for the pros, the course wouldn't need to be 7500 yards to keep the scoring from being too low.

I am all for the bunkers being tougher, but it's not such an easy fix, since "lesser" bunker maintenance means it may be inconsistent from group to group, and tougher for the leaders at the end of the day.  That's why Nicklaus tried the furrowed rakes ... they provide some degree of consistency.  The last thing the Tour wants to see is players accusing their fellow players of dragging their feet to make it harder for the next guy.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Tom - I agree about the bunkering but its not going to happen and for all the reasons you say. I think 7500 for the pros is here to stay, its a shame, if the courses were 6800 then you might still see a 60 year old win a major.... that 700 yards is what seperates the men from the boys, but in this case its in favour of the boys.

[BCrosby]

From where does the obligation to rake bunkers arise? Is it just courtesy? Good manners? Or is the obligation built into conditions of play for PGA events?

Likewise a golf course has no obligation to provide rakes, right?

Is it all about conforming to expectations about etiquette? 

Bob
 

[Adrian_Stiff]

BCrosby - I think its more a case if you dont conform you just lose customers. The customer expects certain things that have become standard, flat tees, greens of the same speed, bunkers raked.

When a member comes in a finds a stone in a bunker or the sand is not deep enough or contaminated with clay they rant and rave, they dont say "its my fault I should not have gone in there".

There is no rational reason why a tee could not be on a severe slope or greens mown at different heights to make it more tricky. I think raked bunkers fall into this category.

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Some Bunkers are placed to save the golfer from a worse fate – trapping the ball before it goes into long grass or woods or a steep falloff.
In this case the bunkers are MEANT to be a relief from long grass and are obviously less challengiing than long grass.

In this case the bunker shouldn’t really be seen as a hazard but more as a test for the golfer to play from sand as opposed to grass. 

I do agree though when bunkers a placed as hazards in fairways as opposed to “saving” sandy areas they should be deep enough to penalize players at least half a stroke.

[Tony Ristola]

The solution is easy, but it would require reintroducing the element of luck, and with the prize money and value of winning a tournament or major boiling down to luck... I don't see it ever happening. That train has left the station.

It might be interesting to have one tournament with all Top 50 players teeing it up with bunkers run amok and see the result. The uncertainty would surely result in more defensive golf.

Who wouldn't want to see a pro try and hit it from a foot print?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

I tend to agree that furrowed raking is the most equitable method, since late starters would be penalized by prior utilization, and it would remove careless maintainance by fellow competitors

[Matt_Cohn]

"lesser" bunker maintenance means it may be...tougher for the leaders at the end of the day.

Only if you rake the bunkers every morning.

If you only rake the bunkers on Monday morning of tournament week, then by the first round on Thursday the early vs. late starters will see no appreciable difference in bunker conditions.

[mike_beene]

Sand recovery is a part of the game and as stated above it is a penalty half the time and the speed of the swing can make for some haywire misses.I like the fairway mowed to the bunker,but in the end golf isn't supposed to make sense.

[Tom Allen]

Here's my solution (but potentially a tough one from a maintenance standpoint:  higher faces on fairway bunkers.  If you can't take the bunker lower, make the face higher.  I too think that a fairway bunker should be more of a penalty.  Oakland Hills #1 has a bunker left of the fairway (the middle bunker I think) that I found.  I had to play out sideways.  And I liked it. 

[Greg Tallman]

A fair number of fairway bunkers should be pitch out bunkers, equally penalizing (sort of) all levels of player. Of course the assumption is the 30 handicap can even get out if the scratch cannot have a go at the green.

The crowd that demands a player have a shot at the green from a fairway bunker are simply wrong.

[Brent Hutto]

What's wrong with an "easy" bunker surrounded by "tough" rough? Is it written in the bible somewhere that "Any Bunker Shall Be Harder To Play From That Rough"?

If you're going to have brutally thick Bermuda rough all over a golf course (and honestly, I'd rather not have brutally thick Bermuda rough everywhere) then why on earth would it be a problem for a greenside bunker or even a fairway bunker to offer a lesser hazard. Even if the bunker is a de-facto bailout area, that seems to me a reasonable partial-stroke penalty for good players.

It's almost like you guys have the following idea about high-level competition venues.

1) Make the greens super-firm and super-fast. Even a well struck shot ought to occasionally bounce right off the green and into trouble. And there should be enough contour that long putts aren't necessarily easy to two-putt.

2) Make the rough around the greens really tough. A ball in the rough should not be one that can be stopped anywhere near the hole. If you miss one of those incredibly firm, ball-repelling greens an up and down ought to be almost impossible.

3) And the bunkers. Don't get me started on the bunkers. If you go in a bunker you ought to wish you were in the four-inch Bermuda rough because the bunker is a real hazard.

4) Be sure to have some water hazards. And they need to be the yellow-staked kind, none of this lateral hazard that only costs a stroke. You ought to have to drop waaaay back there if you're so stupid as to hit it in the water.

There you have it. Build some 7,400 yard tees, make two Par 5's into Par 4's and you can really separate the sheep from the goats. Only way to make it better is let them play with Balata balls and, preferably, wooden drivers. Oh, and no wedges over 54 degrees of loft. Don't want them playing any good shots out of our carefully prepared hazardous rough or sand.

[Jay Cox]

What's wrong with an "easy" bunker surrounded by "tough" rough? Is it written in the bible somewhere that "Any Bunker Shall Be Harder To Play From That Rough"?

When we talk about hole strategy, we routinely praise holes where driving to the side of the fairway that is bunkered gives you a better angle to the green, or where a bunker guards the approach line for a tee shot hit to the wrong side of the fairway.  When a course is set up for pros, should be do exactly the opposite?  Glorify holes that are designed with the best approach angle from the side of the fairway that has only rough, because the penalty of a miss to that side is greater than the penalty of a miss to the side that has bunkers?

The core theory of building bunkers to be anything other than eye candy depends on the bunkers being true hazards -- i.e., worse places to hit it than their immediate surrounds.  The placement of 95+% of bunkers on great courses does not make strategic sense if one views them as saving bunkers rather than hazards.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brent,

The problem with your answer, and Jim's question, is that you can't maintain a course for a local club as if the U.S. Open is being held tomorrow.

The average to higher handicap golfer has difficulty with bunkers and deep rough and certainly the dual combination tends to be disastrous for them.

Those positing that bunkers should be difficult probably never sat on a board or green committee and as a result, were never assaulted by the membership for establishing difficult conditions.

It's a delicate balance, probably more difficult today than in the past.

You want to provide a challenge to the better player, but not to the degree that the mid to high handicap doesn't enjoy their overall challenge.  And, at greenside bunkers, it's impossible to seperate the levels of play.

Where soils permit, bunker depth, rather than bunker conditions might be an answer.
But, when preparing a course for daily play, by good, bad and mediocre golfers, I think it's more difficult to produce a challenge commensurate with each level's game.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()