I've been having a running friendly "discussion" with the best players at my club. Since I am a former Grounds Chair with a good relationship with our superintendent, they come to me with their complaints about the "inconsistency" of the sand in our bunkers. Naturally, I respond by saying: "You know, you really need to avoid hitting your ball in our sand hazards." And I laugh a little about how much low-handicappers whine.
But I'm also seriously trying to convince a few that they need to alter their expectations and to re-think what they should expect when they hit a ball in a bunker. I've just about convinced a young, multiple-time club champ. He ran the concept by his buddy David, a GREAT player who has played on mini tours for years. David said he agreed, he'll accept thin or fluffy sand, all he wants is "consistency" in the bunkers throughout the course,
Here is my response. Feel free to tell me where I was wrong.
Steve,
I wanted to respond more fully so you could forward this to your friend David (unnamed player with near-PGA pro ability.)
As a decent player, of course I prefer consistent bunkers. I love saving par from bunkers. But having served as Grounds Chair for four years, and as a fairly serious student of the history of golf course architecture, I want to give David some things to think about.
Bunkers are not static. They are greatly affected by wind, rain, equipment (sand pros) and players whacking at golf balls with sand wedges.
I can’t quote statistics, but an amazing amount of sand simply blows out of sand hazards. Of course, some bunkers are constructed to better protect from the wind. So that means if the Superintendent fills every bunker PERFECTLY on a Monday, there will be inconsistency of the bunkers by Friday if we have four windy days.
Rain and water beats the sand down, but not every bunker collects, or repels, water in the same manner. Drainage is HUGE in how well each bunker handles water. Our course has 15 bunkers built in the last 4 years, all with good drainage. The rest were built 20 years ago. Some of those drain OK, some do not. Some are greatly exposed to the wind, some are not.
The point is: How much money does a club want to spend to maintain “consistent” bunkers? A better question is: “How much money should a club spend to groom their HAZARDS?” These are places where the golf course architect made it clear to the player: “Don’t hit it here!” Exactly how many man hours per week do you want our superintendent to spend tending to hazards? Should we spend less time filling divots in the fairway? Or less time cutting and rolling greens, mowing roughs, edging bunkers and sprinkler heads, trimming overhanging trees , repairing equipment, or a host of other tasks that need to be completed? Our grounds budget is above average, but it has limits. At some point, it becomes a zero sum game.
Sorry, but there is a limit to how much money I want to spend to help out players who hit where they should not have. C.B. Macdonald wrote that hazards should be “maintained” by sending a team of mules through them….
The invention of the sand wedge coupled with the “Augusta Effect” sent most golf clubs in the US on a mad rush to produce perfectly groomed playing conditions in bunkers, and this greatly reduced the penal nature of sand hazards. Simply because such pristine conditions were possible (given unlimited resources).
I say we have reached the breaking point and clubs have to draw the line somewhere. I’m perfectly OK if those clearly obvious sand hazards return a little bit to their original intent: “This is a place to be avoided. Hit your ball here and accept the consequences!”
David is a great player, and I’ve come to understand that better players have an inordinate amount of influence on people’s opinion about golf courses. So I figure that winning him over is worth 50 mid-handicappers!
Bill