Does a bunker need to be better maintained than this?

[TEPaul]

Of course you wouldn't want a bunker that looked like that one on any course but it looks great at Maidstone. It sure would look odd at ANGC though!

[RJ_Daley]

Well Tom, I certainly don't feel compelled to dig my heels into the sand   on this discussion and don't feel without playing the course that anything further than the superficial thoughts I have rendered based on the picture are worth much.  

So, maybe if I ever pass by that way, you could arrange for a first hand experience.  Then I can feel more confident to ground my club in an opinion.

[Mike_Cirba]

Fellas;

What's this nonsense about grounding your club?

How about this for a simple, common-sense, rule full of integrity?

If you have any doubt whether or not you're in a hazard, DON'T ground your club.  

It is really that simple.  Don't you think?

[Joel_Stewart]

Mike:
In all fairness, what year was the photo taken?

[Mike_Cirba]

Joel;

I'm not sure, but I believe no more than 2 years ago.  I simply lifted it from Ran's course profile, which I think was updated with new pictures in the past 2 years.

Why would that make a difference?  I played it around that timeframe and thought it looked and played stupendously.  

[ForkaB]

Mike

I think that is a great big bunker and there is room enough in it for everybody!

More seriously, that bunker and its surrounds seem eminently playable, and if the Club is happy with it, case closed!  I do wonder if there is/will be a long term "problem" with sand build-up on the faces which will affect shape and playability unless the faces are vacuumed regularly.  Vis a vis Dick Daley's comment on the bush, I don't see why that bush is any different than a bush sitting in the rough.  You know it is there, and if you hit it in it, you take the consequnces.  One caveat to that is whether or not there is enough space to allow a proper drop (i.e. in the bunker, no nearer the hole)under the unplayable lie rule?  If not, one could be (may I say?) stymied..........or even f****d!

[Kelly Blake Moran]

RJ Daley

I had not thought about the grounding helping you judge sand, however I would think 90% of the players would not know what to do that information once they gathered it from grounding the club.  Furthermore, walking in the bunker, and working your feet into the sand when taking your stance gives you some insight.  

Nicklaus reportedly never grounded his club anywhere through the green.  It prevented him from dragging the club on the back swing, kept him loose on the back swing, and if the ball moved he wouldn't be penalized cause the club is not grounded.  

Mike says when in doubt don't ground the club, but I believe most golfers do not pay that close attention to the rules.  Most are respective of the game's rules for honesty, but I think player's just feel that a little infraction here and there is no big deal, or they may be ignorant of the rules.  So Mike's declaration is probably how some of us would deal with it, but do not expect it from most of the other players you encounter on the course.  I remember being in a particularly lousy part of the fairway at Sand Hills, the turf was severely damaged coming out of winter, and in deference to the superintendent I probably should have moved my ball, but it was not marked ground under repair so I played away, I saw no choice, even though it was just a friendly match.  Someone noticed and commented.  I say this not to claim high ground on the issue but just to illustrate the need to have simple, clear cut rules about a situation like the bunker or waste depicted in the picture.  Either I get to ground in all the hazards or I do not, do not make something like that a judgement call.  Allowing the grounding of the club in all bunkers I think gives the architect a lot more flexibility in the bunkering design.  If not, then you always have the rules committee, or some stickler for that rule looking over your shoulder telling you that design is no good because people do not know whether they can ground or not. It limits creativity.

[TEPaul]

That cavernous bunker to the greenside right of #9 at Maidstone looks that way today no matter when that photo was taken.

I never exactly thought of it until this thread but there has been some discussion on here about when a golfer actually knows if he's within or without that bunker (or numerous other bunkers throughout the dunes section of Maidstone).

That's a good question and although I've played that course God knows how many times over the last 25 or so years--and almost always in and around a tournament (The Maidstone Bowl) I don't know the answer to that question and frankly I never even thought about it before. I'm sure I have a Maidstone scorecard or Tournament sheet around here somewhere---maybe it says something about that on there but I'd doubt it. (Wait a minute, I don't think the Maidstone Bowl ever had a tournament sheet, the pro on the first tee just sort of gives you a few basic instructions).

The rather large bush to the right of that photo should probably not be considered within that bunker, although again, I don't think Maidstone even bothers to try to make any distinctions as to when you're within or without bunkering on certain dunes holes. If that photo could pan to the right you'd probably see why I say that. That bunker, and many like it in the dunes holes section simply melds or bleeds out into sandy dunes completely indistinguishably!

So if any golfer in tournament or recreational play has any question about whether they're ball is within or without certain bunkers they should simply apply that old fashioned common sense prescript of golf and;

NOT GROUND THEIR CLUB!!

[Kelly Blake Moran]

RJ Daley,

From what I can gather from the origins of the grounding rule, it is in place not so much to prevent the player from gathering knowledge about the consistancy of the sand, as to prevent the player from improving their lie.  According to one source it goes back to 1773, but specifically in the 1815 code of the Aberdeen golfers they wrote:

"In playing out of sand or loose ground, the player shall neither beat down nor draw away the sand or soil from the ball, nor shall the player through the green beat down or alter the ground about the ball before playing, under the penalty of one stroke."

So, there is a long history in this rule.  the intent I guess is to prevent the player from altering the hazard, and gaining advantage from a bad lie in the hazard by altering the ground in the process of grounding the club.

[TEPaul]

Kelly Blake Moran said this:

"I say this not to claim high ground on the issue but just to illustrate the need to have simple, clear cut rules about a situation like the bunker or waste depicted in the picture.  Either I get to ground in all the hazards or I do not, do not make something like that a judgement call."

Kelly:

In the context of the historic "principles" of the rules of golf that is a most interesting thing to say!

Here's why:

Initially, in the beginnings of the game, or probably best referred to by what C.B Macdonald called 'the old spirit of the game of St Andrews' prescripts against something like grounding your club were not exactly the primary issue. So that today's rules afficionados don't freak out that's not to say there were no rules because there were but the ideas were basically simpler and more of an understood code of honour amongst golfers.

Macdonald mentioned that those old St Andrews golfers who played within the "spirit" of the game of St Andrews may not have actually known the rules that well but they all did sense basically what was the right thing to do.

It was considered then that a golfer should never take advantage of his opponent through the rules or through abridgement of what was considered natural golf (do not improve your lie)---that the idea was to try to beat the best your opponent could throw at you unencumbered by the rules.

As Macdonald implied and Max Behr later elaborated on in one of his essays the original idea regarding grounding one's club (anywhere) was not exactly that the club was or wasn't grounded but that the lie of the ball was not improved by it.

As to whether the lie was or wasn't improved anywhere on the golf course was basically a matter of honour! Today that rule can be found as Rule 13-2 which is now supported in the Decisions on the Rules of Golf by approximately 37 decisions! In the old days that sort of thing was basically left up to the golfer himself and his code of honour of not improving his lie (and anywhere because in those days of natural golf there were no real distinctions between different parts of the course in this way).

And furthermore Behr made a point very similar to the one you just made, although perhaps in the reverse. Behr said when golf legislators demarked areas where the club could and couldn't be actually grounded they then basically began to distinguish between "good" areas and "bad" areas in the mind of the golfer (and architects). Behr's point was that nature itself made no such distinctions!! Behr elaborated that making this distinction (somewhat of penalty) between the fair green on the one hand and hazards on the other hand golf began to become subject to what Behr referred to as the "game mind of man"---eg things should and had to be clearly demarked as to what was good and bad, right and wrong as in more standardized games.

Why did that happen or why did that have to happen apart from the way the game once was played? The answer implied by Macdonald and Behr was that the "spirit" of the game and its minimal rules, probably better referred to now as "principles" that were basically conformance to an understood and accepted "Code" or "spirit" did not transport or transport well when golf left the linksland to go around the world. Simply put Macdonald mentioned those players new to the old game did not understand or accept that old "spirit" or "code" of honour.

And so rules needed to be more specific and defined (the "game mind of man" again).

In those old days it was not a matter exactly of whether any golfer did or did not ground his club in a sand or bunker area it was only a matter of whether or not he improved his lie by doing it. This used to be just an honourably understood and accepted fact left to the player himself and an extension of the first of the "Two Great Principles" of golf that simply said;

"You play the course as you find it."

So you see in the context of some of the questions that are being asked on this thread regarding how does one know if they're within or without a bunker area in some areas of Maidstone like that photo above, the answer is---you really don't know and Maidstone will probably not help you know.

The only way then to proceed properly logically just reverts back to that old code or spirit of golf to personally do the right and honourable thing and do not improve your lie (whether or not that entailed grounding your club). In some of those sandy waste areas of Maidstone that meld or bleed indistinguishably into areas some might consider bunkers that old code or spirit is probably the way to proceed or at least it's the way I'd let my opponent proceed and I'd expect hopefully the same from him.

Today golfers and rules officials seem to need to know whether the sand area was actually touched by a club and the old principle of whether or not the lie was improved is secondary. And because golfers and rules officials seem to need to know these things today architects and maintenance people are expected to make those areas very clear to them!

And furthermore most golfers and even rules officials seem to have forgotten or perhaps have never known that that determination used to be left to the golfer playing that shot!

How different it used to be once and how much simpler it was as well. And somehow with their old "code" or "spirit" they apparently all got along in the playing of golf just fine!

   

[Willie_Dow]

Some of the most memorable shots are made from bunkers like this one.  How about David Graham's shot out of the scotch broome to the right of #13 during the US Open?

[TEPaul]

Willie:

I believe that was to the right of #14 and it was one helluva photograph! I sort of miss a bunker like that one and more so the ones to the right of the fairway on #10 where it looked like you could hurt yourself in that jungle within those bunkers just entering them. If you didn't hurt yourself there was a very good expectation, though, that you could forget about ever wearing again the clothes you had on!!

[A_Clay_Man]

Tom P- It would be fascinating to know exactly how the "code" was transfered from one golfer to another. Repeated exposure?

I wonder what made those old scots so honorable? And why that whatever "it" is why it has failed to translate to todays newer golfer. Money? Rules? The game mind?

[Kelly Blake Moran]

Great narrative Tom.  Very enlightening.  Again, I say give the architect the maximum creativity for bunker designs by allowing the player to ground their club, or not ground their club in any hazard, no distinctions between sand bunker and sandy waste.  A hazard is defined in the rules, so for ALL HAZARDS, you can ground, or you can't ground one or the other period.  I just thought it more simple to say you can ground anywhere, and then as you said you rely on the honor of the player to ground their club in a manner that does not improve their lie.

Willie and Tom,

With regard to the last day at Merion, Graham was never in a fairway bunker as I recall, in fact my recollection was he hit all fairways for sure, and I thought all the greens.  I remember watching on TV and thinking it was one of the most remarkable I rounds I ever saw.

[George_Bahto]

Mike, I like the unkempt bunker. The golfer cleans it up a bit to get the heavy prints out. This make the hazard much more fearsome - which is what it is supposed to be:

H - A - Z - A - R - D .... don't go there!!

I doubt if this will ever happen given what the players have gotten used to over the years.

There are old pictures of, I think, Hell's Bunker: the golfer is hitting the ball from the sand, his caddy, his playing partner and his caddy are all standing in the sand-bunker. I like it.

One more thought about grounding a club. Playing public courses most of my life, I used to play with a guy who "somehow" always seemed to drag his club back on a sand shot which flattened out any irregularity behind his ball. He was a good golfer but a crappy sand player so I never called him on it. I think "guilt" often caught up to him also 'cause he skulled a lot of sand shots.

Perhaps this was one of the reasons for the not grounding rule - you think?

I think guys who played a lot on public courses are much more tolerant about footprints and irregularities in the sand bunkers.

[Kelly Blake Moran]

Adam,

I believe each club in the Isles had written codes as far back as the early 1700's maybe earlier.  Eventually all of the codes were brought together into one governing body, I assume the R&A.  A good primer on this is Kenneth Chapman's book "The Rules of the Green": A History of the Rules of Golf".

[Willie_Dow]

Gosh Tom, #13  must be my unlucky number!  Stupid mistake.

But, I remember the USGA rules guy was in there too, wondering about building a stance.  Tough call, but what an outcome!

Willie

[Joel_Stewart]

Why would that make a difference?  I played it around that timeframe and thought it looked and played stupendously.  

I think this picture was taken more than 2 years ago.  The bush has been removed and the bunker cleaner than it appears.

[TEPaul]

Adam & Kelly:

Good questions about why was St Andrews that way and imbued with that 'spirit'?  

St Andrews itself was a small town with a good many interesting and intelligent people there (probably drawn by the wonderful eons old university). But most everyone played together there (probably like a club) whether shoemaker or King! Somehow, according to Macdonald and others they just all understood that code or spirit---even if they weren't that up on some partiuclar. The principles of golf were pretty basic and simple really!

But golf was simpler then, and so was architecture. Behr, obviously a purist in some sense was also a realist though. He understood (and so did Macdonald, although resignedly) that that spirit may not be transportable and transferable to the rest of the world who was quickly learning the game. Macdonald (one of the first on the USGA rules committee) could see that Americans were just going to do their own thing because they were naturally innovative people and proud of their own culture of change!

Behr worried about what he called the "game mind of man" and its incursions into the type of golf he called a "sport" (as opposed to the completely standardized playing field dimensions and arrangement like a tennis court or chessboard complete with its standardized rules). Behr worried about those "game mind" incursions into golf itself, its architecture and its rules because he believed that golf as a sport depended upon Nature itself to make up the necessary balance of what golf was supposed to be. If you took away Nature's part of the balance, in Behr's mind eventually things became far too defined, a kind of definition of equity (fairness) and such that simply never has existed within raw Nature!

Kelly:

Certainly if the rules allowed for the grounding of one's club anywhere without a golfer improving his lie golf would survive just fine, as it once did. And there's no question that architects would thereby have a good deal more latitude in the things they did, the things they built and the demarcations (or lack thereof) of them.

But that's just not the way golf, its architecture or it rules evolved, and there are many reasons why--most not very good reasons. They didn't listen to the likes of Behr or Macdonald regarding rules back then but they could and should listen to them now.

Of course rules applications would cease to be so precise and golfers would all have to go back to depending upon each other's honor (so to speak) to do the right thing. Could that happen and be effective? Probably it could but what would the lawyer's mind argue over then?

If it was again the way it once was what would eventually stop some golfer from taking advantage of another golfer and cheating or whatever?

In the end, just like in the beginning, the thing that would minimize and regulate it would probably be what PJ Boatright used to refer to as the 35th Rule of Golf!! That's a principle that will never be in the rules book--it will never need to be---it's just a principle that will probably always be in all golfers!

[RJ_Daley]

So Tom, does this mean you actually do play as it lies in regards to stymies are OK when you play Maidstone with Pat?

[John_Cullum]

 One caveat to that is whether or not there is enough space to allow a proper drop (i.e. in the bunker, no nearer the hole)under the unplayable lie rule?  If not, one could be (may I say?) stymied..........or even f****d!

That is not a problem. If a ball is in the bush, by definition it is not in the bunker.

[TEPaul]

RJ:

No, it doesn't mean that. I play golf by the rules as they are in 2004 just as I did in 2003 by the way they used to be in 2003. But if the regulatory rules bodies want to return the rules of the game to that simpler time that would be just fine by me.

[ForkaB]

Sarge

I know that a ball lying on an island of grass inside a bunker is not deemed to be in the bunker, but if your ball is on the sand, near the base of (say) a gorse bush, is it not deemed to be in the bunker?   Seems to me it is, but I could very easily be wrong!

[W.H. Cosgrove]

I would very much like to hear from the superintendent about how much time they spend maintaining this unmaintained bunker.  

My guess is that it requires more time than we might think to keep this look.  

[TEPaul]

Rich and Sarge:

It doesn't matter where the bush is, under the Unplayable Ball rule (Rule 28) one can always avail oneself of Rule 28a which is stroke and distance if one thinks they're going to be stymied or even f....ed by either option b or c of Rule 28. But be sure to consider Rule 28a before you drop that ball under Rule 28b or c because once you do and get stymied or f...ed under b or c there won't be a thing 28a can do to unstymie or unf... you at that point! The only way to get unstymied and unf...ed is proabably to take a series of two club length drops with the appropriate stroke penalty for each until you get yourself unstymied or unf...ed. At that point you're not only going to be incredibly mad but you're gonna feel like a damn fool too! And you're gonna feel like a damn fool because you are a damn fool for getting hoodwinked into misunderstanding Rule 28a, b, and c and allowing rule b or c and some damn bush to stymie or f... both your ball and you! And if that's not enough when you get into the clubhouse some guy like me is going to heckle the Holy Hell out of you for being a damn fool for getting your ball stymied or f...ed by rule 28b and some damn bush and somebody like me is gonna tell everyone else in the clubhouse what a damn fool you are to get hoodwinked and stymie or f...ed by rule 28b and some damn bush so the rest of the clubhouse can heckle the Holy Hell out of you. Then we're gonna call up your wife, all your girlfriends and other friends and all your enemies and your boss too and tell all of them you're a damn fool for getting stymied or f....ed by Rule 28b and some damn bush. We're even gonna tell your children and all your childrens' friends and enemies, even your dog or your cat and their friends and enemies what a damn fool you are for getting stymied or f...ed by Rule 28b and some damn bush so none of them will ever have an ounce of respect for you again! I'm personally going to put it on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com in capital letters that you got stymied and f...ed by Rule 28b and some damn bush and blast it all over the world so wherever you go for the rest of your life people everywhere will always say---"There's that damn fool who got stymied and f...ed by Rule 28b and some damn bush!!" You'll pretty much have to completely give up golf or better yet just kill yourself!

Do yourself a favor and when you see an unplayable lie and a bush think Rule 28a first before you drop your ball in or around a bush under Rule 28b and ruin your entire life!!