Furrowed bunkers at the Memorial

[Jim Sweeney]

Mark,

You and I agree. The furrows defintiely accomplish their objective. My point is only that the furrows are unnatural. Minimal bunker maintenance would over time create unpredictable lies, which is a hazardous condition. This is easily proved on many of the fine muni tracks I visit every season!

[Rick Shefchik]

I remember turning to Dan Kelly a week or so ago, after I barely managed to get out of a poorly-maintained bunker, and expressing the wish that pros would have to play out of the same bunker conditions we do.

A step in the right direction, if you ask me.

[J_McKenzie]

Hypothetical-  last hole of a major championship; both players hit their approach into a greenside bunker that is not maintained or it is raked with furrows; one player's ball draws a clean lie, the other is practically unplayable- tournament over.  Is this really what you want to see?  

I know the game of golf isn't supposed to be fair and some guys are going to get good bounces and others won't, luck is simply inherent in the game.  But if you make your living playing golf, wouldn't you want skill to play the biggest role in deciding who wins?

John

[Mike Benham]

With all the rain the Memorial Tournament traditionally gets, do you think the furrowed bunkers improve bunker drainage?

Has there been a study to see if bunkers furrowed vertically or horizontally are more "fair"?

[Matt_Cohn]

John,

The Memorial tournament some years back. Perfectly maintained bunkers. Payne Stewart and Paul Azinger come to the final hole, and both hit their 2nd shots into the left bunker. Azinger's lands in a good lie. Stewart's doesn't. Azinger holes it to win. Stewart...doesn't.

Just an reminder that regularly raked bunkers aren't always "fair" or consistent, either. Even at the Memorial.        

[J_McKenzie]

Matt,

Good point and one that shows that luck is a big part of the game regardless of how well a course is maintained.  However, the more consistent the playing conditions, the less "luck" becomes a factor and therefore "skill" plays the largest role in determining the end result.

John

[Mark_Fine]

John,
Luck is as much a part of this game as skill.  Example: Two great shots are played on a 200 yard par three hole.  One goes in for an ace and the other ends up 6 inches from the hole.  Is the golfer who's ball that didn't go in any less "skillfull" than the one who holed it or did the other golfer just have good fortune on his side  

There are many elements of design that are lost in the "pursuit of fairness".  The game would be very dull if everything about it was deemed as "fair" and this pursuit must be tempered at all cost.

[J_McKenzie]

Mark,

I agree and have said that luck is an accepted part of the game.  I would respectfully disagree that it is as much a part of the game as skill or that it should be.  Tournament golf is about identifying the best or most skilled player, not the luckiest.  I just think that non-maintained or "tricked-up" bunkers adds too much to the element of luck.

I will say that I respect Mr. Nicklaus' attempt and that it will make for interesting viewing this weekend.

John


 
 

[Rick Shefchik]

I would respectfully suggest that the meticulously raked bunker is the tricked-up bunker, as opposed to the one where you smooth your indentations with you foot and go on about your business.

Nicklaus's furrowed bunkers fall somewhere in between.

[Mark_Fine]

John,
As Jack has said on the telecast, he is trying to make the bunkers "hazards" again.  It is really not about increasing the element of luck.  Yes some players will draw good lies and some bad and luck will play a role.  But more importantly, Jack wants the bunkers to be unpredictable and dangerous.  By raising the bunker's hazard value, this will have an impact on the players in more ways then just the lie they get.  There will be an increased mental challenge and that will test skill which is what you are looking for.  That is the beauty of a good hazard.  We talk a lot about this in our book.  

Rick,
You make a very good point.  Which conditioning is more tricked up.  A perfectly conditioned "hazard" doesn't make real sense does it!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Hypothetical-  last hole of a major championship; both players hit their approach into a greenside bunker that is not maintained or it is raked with furrows; one player's ball draws a clean lie, the other is practically unplayable- tournament over.  Is this really what you want to see?  

I know the game of golf isn't supposed to be fair and some guys are going to get good bounces and others won't, luck is simply inherent in the game.  But if you make your living playing golf, wouldn't you want skill to play the biggest role in deciding who wins?

John,

Should Fred Couples ball have rolled down into Rae's Creek on the 12th hole of The Masters instead of coming to rest on the steep bank ?[/color]

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

Did your playing strategy change in the past 30 years as the bunker maintenance became more refined?   Did you purposely try to avoid the unkempt bunkers more so then compared with the smoothly raked bunkers of today?

Gary,

I think my play changed dramatically when the L-Wedge was invented and I adopted one.

It allowed me to be more aggressive in going for pins because I became more proficient at favorably extracating myself from bunkers.

[Ryan Crago]

I agree and have said that luck is an accepted part of the game.  I would respectfully disagree that it is as much a part of the game as skill or that it should be.  Tournament golf is about identifying the best or most skilled player, not the luckiest.  I just think that non-maintained or "tricked-up" bunkers adds too much to the element of luck.

how are these furrowed bunkers any more "tricked up" than narrowing fairways, or growing rough up?

[Anthony Butler]

I agree and have said that luck is an accepted part of the game.  I would respectfully disagree that it is as much a part of the game as skill or that it should be.  Tournament golf is about identifying the best or most skilled player, not the luckiest.  I just think that non-maintained or "tricked-up" bunkers adds too much to the element of luck.

how are these furrowed bunkers any more "tricked up" than narrowing fairways, or growing rough up?

This development at the Memorial kind of flips the equation on its head. Used to be that when a pro drew a sub-optimal lie in a bunker the commentators called it a 'bad' break. Now if they draw a good lie it will be described as a 'lucky' break. Since we are talking about a 'hazard' that seems about right to me.

[Matt_Cohn]

John,

I see your point about consistent conditions and I absolutely agree with you.

One thing I heard Nicklaus say was that the PGA Tour decided to rake the bunkers going towards the target because the players would always get an iffy lie; or at least that would happen quite consistently.

If they raked the bunkers perpendicular to the target, Nicklaus said, the players would get a great lie half the time and an absolutely terrible lie the other half of the time. So, it seems the Tour is trying to make things somewhat consistent yet still difficult.

How does the rake job this week compare to recent U.S. Opens, where the USGA has placed soft sand in the bunkers? In recent years we've seen balls in the sand at U.S. opens sit much less cleanly than usual, making it much harder for the players to control the resulting shot.

Thoughts?

[Doug Sobieski]

I was listening to the XM Radio coverage of the Memorial today, and they revealed that the proximity to the hole on shots from greenside bunkers last year was approximately 9'6". Through the time of the broadcast today, the average proximity this year was approximately 11'6" (or thereabout). So about a 2 foot difference. Not exactly the end of the world, but the complaints of the Tour players certainly make it sound like it is  

[paul cowley]

post from reply #36 [I don't know how to bring forward the picture that accompanied the post] "Here is an excellent shot of the rake and the bunkers courtesy of Dr. Karl Danneberger from The Ohio State University."......if this is the 'new' rake they are using this week on tour, it is hardly new.

It is a 14 tooth hay rake that was standard issue for bunker maintenance at Pebble and Spyglass in the 70's.....I know this from from weekly bouts using them there. Mondays [or after rain events], all the bunkers were hand raked using these rakes and then touched up occasionally by staff.....if we got real far behind we would bring out the new fangled 'sand pro', but this was generally discouraged due to its entry and exit wear.

...if these indeed are the rakes that are causing the furrows, that are causing the concerns...well let me tell you some stories of how I used to walk three miles each way to school carrying my little sister and delivering papers as I went.

Could someone please confirm whether or not these are indeed the bunker rakes being used....before my appreciation of the 'fairness' quotient and its impact on the modern game sinks to a new low.

[Jim Nugent]

John,
Luck is as much a part of this game as skill.  Example: Two great shots are played on a 200 yard par three hole.  One goes in for an ace and the other ends up 6 inches from the hole.  Is the golfer who's ball that didn't go in any less "skillfull" than the one who holed it or did the other golfer just have good fortune on his side  

There are many elements of design that are lost in the "pursuit of fairness".  The game would be very dull if everything about it was deemed as "fair" and this pursuit must be tempered at all cost.

Mark, you picked an extreme example that rarely comes up.  If luck is as much a part of the game as skill, were Tiger, Jack, Bobby Jones and the other greats real lucky?  Are the guys who sit near the bottom of the tour real unlucky?

My sense is that luck comes in about 1% of the time or so.  Skill about 99%.  I'm picking the numbers out of a hat, but they show you how qualitatively different I see the two.  

Furrowed bunkers raise the luck factor a little.  But probably not over a full season.  Would expect that to mostly even out over the course of a year.  

[paul cowley]

....and if these indeed are the rakes, Jack surely would remember them.
I'm not sure when they abandoned them, my guess would be 20 or so years ago and went to the shorter rake of today....maybe it was part of the attempt by the Tour to provide more consistent conditions on the different courses they play.
The long flexible handle made them great to work with, especially as you didnt have to stoop to use them.
You would start out in the broadest part of the bunker and rake out backward creating parallel rows as you went ....you would then exit the bunker and reach in and pull a cleanup pass as you worked around the entire edge, pulling the sand back up the faces as you worked your way around....young strong backs only need apply.
 Over time I would dabble and create individual rake patterns for different bunkers..... the front crossing bunker on #16 fairway was especially adaptive to a Zen and the Art of Bunker Raking style, taking on an islands in the stream motif.

We might have used a 18 or 20 tooth rake, but from the picture shown the furrows seem about right.

[paul cowley]

....and going back to the picture of reply #36....I remember the rake head being 28", which looks right and if you divide that by the 13 gaps you come up with a space of 2.15", which also seems right......they did [and still do] make rakes with a smaller gap and more teeth but you end up pulling too much sand....the sand really needs to flow between the teeth easily.
Now in the picture the pattern has been created by dragging the rake backwards in a continuous line and it is absent the clean up pass on the edges....dragging the is a poor way to level and maintain bunkers and the cleanup pass really helps keep consistent sand on the face and edges.

I could give the entire grooming crew a 20 minute crash course on using those things.......just send down the jet.

[Dave Bourgeois]

This has been a great discussion...

I really like seeing these types of conditions in bunkers, as I think it starts to make bunkers hazardous again (as Mark Fine and others have said).  

The aparent firmness of bunkers on tour is what often strikes me as I hardly ever see a fried egg or other types of poor lies.  This is, of course, much different than on my local muni.  Furrowing adds fluffiness and that is more like what dunes are.  I'm sure there will be whining by the pros, but the cream will rise to the top as the best will develop new skills to reflect the conditions.  I also see this as bringing strategy back into the game.

Way to go Jack.

[J_McKenzie]

Mark,

I understand what Mr. Nicklaus is trying to do, but the furrowed bunkers don't create a hazard that is consistent for the entire field, the lies you get are too random (luck).  A water hazard is a water hazard, most of the time the ball is unplayable.  Sure you can get lucky some times and have a shot (Fred Couples at Augusta- and I will say for the third time that I understand that luck is part of the game, it should be, and certainly is one of the things that makes the game what it is), but the result with a water hazard is more consistent.  

Mark you also mentioned in an earlier post that bunkers in the UK, for the most part, are more penal and therefore more of a hazard.  Having only made one fantastic trip to Scotland and therefore having very limited experience, I would agree that was certainly the case on the courses we played.  But compared to courses in the U.S., especially the courses on the PGA Tour, there are far fewer bunkers on many UK courses and therefore they are easier to avoid (thru course management).  It seems proper that the penalty should be higher there because perhaps it requires a bigger mistake to get in a bunker.  This isn't the case on most bunker-happy US courses.

I would also like to say I am speaking directly to courses being used for professional golf tournaments, although my feelings are pretty much the same for any course set-up.  These guys/gals are playing golf for their living, it's a business.  I believe every attempt should be made to level the playing field (I know I'm going to get hammered for that), so that it is ultimately the player's skill that determines the end result (knowing luck will be a part of it regardless).  

Ryan,

I'm not saying they are and thankfully courses aren't set up that way every week.  However, I do believe that rough and narrow fairways provide a more consistent challenge than unmaintained or furrowed bunkers.  There results are less random.

Matt,

You bring up an interesting point with the softer sand.  I personally think that is a better way to go because the bunker becomes more difficult while remaining fairly consistent for everyone.  

John

     

[J_McKenzie]

I guess to summarize my thoughts- luck is an inherent and an important part of the game.  I just don't think it should play a larger role than it does naturally.  Furrowed bunkers provide lies that are too random- two exact shots into the same bunker- one guy can play, the other guy is screwed.  The same with an unmaintained bunker- one guy has a decent lie, the other guy is in a size 12 heel print.  There should be some amount of consistency or fairness, especially in tournament play.  (And I'm not advocating easy, it can be as difficult as you want it as long as it is consistent.)

And one last thing,  wouldn't most of you complain or gripe about something in your business if you thought you were treated unfairly or not on the up and up?  It seems professional golfers are painted with a pretty broad brush as spoiled whiners when all they are doing is sharing their opinion when asked by the media to do so. Cut them a little slack......

John

[Mike Hendren]

A few observations:

I notice that during the "renovation" of Belle Meade CC in Nashville, three different types of sand were placed in a practice bunker for the members to try out.  A sand boutique if you will.

Also, at my club the bunkers are sand-pro'd, EXCEPT when the LPGA comes to town, then they're hand raked.  

Finally, raking a bunker is one of the simple joys in life.  I say leave the rakes but only let the golfer use them.  No other maintenance necessary.

Mike

[Patrick_Mucci]

Paul Cowley,

They showed the rakes in use in a close up.

They were long toothed rakes with every other post missing.