Furrowed Bunkers Return to Memorial

[Phil Benedict]

Jack says the point of the furrowed bunkers is to preserve the strategy of the course:  he doesn't want players to intentionally aim for greenside bunkers.

I start a thread months ago about bunkers no longer being much of a hazard for the pros, but someone provided data to the effect that even the best bunker players get down in two about 65% of the time from greenside bunkers.  I saw something recently that the tour average is a little under 50%.  In other words, greenside bunkers are about a half stroke penalty on average.  Seems about right to me.

Jack is overreacting.

[JESII]

Not when you consider that the tour average from 6 or 8 feet is 50%...based on that, it stands to reason that the average bunker shot leaves a 6 or 8 footer. Not much of a penalty if there is some worse trouble on the other side of the green, such as on #5...

[Phil Benedict]

Bunkers may be less of a "hazard" than high greenside rough for a contemporary Tour setup.  However, that may be because the rough is too high rather than the bunkers too easy.

I guess the question is should hitting into a greenside bunker cost more than half a stroke on average?

[JESII]

My general philosophy is that greenside bunkers should be fewer and more penal...real nasty, hit it too the other side of the planet to avoid them type things...but I don't build courses or prepare them so it's just an IMO thought.

For the tour guys; I think to walk into a bunker and EXPECT a good lie and a playable shot is too much so anything countering that mindset will get my support...

[Peter Pallotta]

Phil
I'm not sure why Jack focused on greenside bunkers in his comments. I'd have thought furrows in fairway bunkers have more potential to demand challenging/different shots from the pros. Do they? Or are they not furrowing fairway bunkers?

Peter

[Patrick_Mucci]

Phil Benedict,

Bunkers are created for a purpose or purposes, or in the case of TEPaul, Porpoises.

Their function is meant to differ from the function of "rough"

When their function is diminished vis a vis equipment and maintainance, the architectural intent suffers.

I think Nicklaus is right on this issue.

Robert Randquist wrote a great white paper on bunkers.
All three (3) parts appear in the "feature Interview" section.

Please read Robert's treatise and let me know if you still think that Nicklaus is wrong on this issue.

Thanks

[Phil Benedict]

Here's a link to an article Jack and Jaime Diaz wrote for Golf Digest.  All the bunkers (fairway and greenside) are furrowed but the article references percentage of saves from greenside bunkers.

http://www.golfdigest.com/majors/usopen/index.ssf?/majors/usopen/gd200706furrowed.html

[PThomas]

but wasn't the percentage of sand saves at the Memorial last year about the same as it was in the pre-furrow days??

maybe they need to make them deeper?  Jack has modified them somehow from last year

and I guess no furrows at Oakmont for the Open, huh?  

[Doug Siebert]

Jack says the point of the furrowed bunkers is to preserve the strategy of the course:  he doesn't want players to intentionally aim for greenside bunkers.

I start a thread months ago about bunkers no longer being much of a hazard for the pros, but someone provided data to the effect that even the best bunker players get down in two about 65% of the time from greenside bunkers.  I saw something recently that the tour average is a little under 50%.  In other words, greenside bunkers are about a half stroke penalty on average.  Seems about right to me.

Jack is overreacting.

It doesn't matter how much of a penalty being in the bunker is, you need to compare how often pros get up and down from bunkers versus how often they get up and down from greenside rough.  I think they are something like 70% overall up and down, but that would include stuff like putting from the fringe so you'd need to crunch some Shotlink data to get a proper picture.  I would bet there's not a whole lot of difference.

Even if the up and down percentage is slightly higher from greenside rough, I could see pros still wanting to go for the sand, even knowing this, because bunkers are so overprepared that the lie they will end up with is a known quantity.  They know they will do no worse than a bogey.  With rough there's always the chance of a terrible lie that results in fluffing it or having such a deep lie that you leave yourself such a long putt that it brings three putting into play.

I will once again bring up my plan for making bunkers more of a hazard.  Instead of dictating sand type, depth, etc. in such a way to almost eliminate the possibility of a buried lie like the tour and USGA do, they should attempt to increase the odds of buried lies.  This type of bunker makes the perfect hazard for challenging good players because lesser players are hitting the sand on a lower trajectory and are much less likely to go into the sand on the fly, so the 100 shooters won't see too many buried lies, but the 70 shooter who plays a poor shot or challenges a tight pin and loses should see them often enough to make them think.  Not every time, but if you have a bad ball striking day and hit a half dozen bunkers, one of them should be a buried lie.

[Jon Wiggett]

To me the best idea is still don't rake em at all!!!

[Jim Nugent]

Not when you consider that the tour average from 6 or 8 feet is 50%...based on that, it stands to reason that the average bunker shot leaves a 6 or 8 footer. Not much of a penalty if there is some worse trouble on the other side of the green, such as on #5...

PGATour.com has stats for almost everything...including proximity to hole on sand shots.  

Leader in 2007 so far is Mike Weir, at 6'1".  The median for 184 players listed is about 9'8".  Those numbers are in line with 2006, though the leader then (Corey Pavin) averaged 7'.  

So the average for the past two years has been close to 10 feet.

Traps penalize more than the up-and-down stats show, though.  When pro's hit the green, they can putt for birdie.  Which they make a fair amount of the time.  From traps they almost never make birdie, and from time to time make double.  

I once did the numbers, and it looked to me like hitting into a greenside trap cost about 0.8 strokes compared to hitting the green.  Furrows seem to me like overkill.  

[JMEvensky]

Are these rakes ever used for normal member play or just brought out for the toonamint?

Last year,the Pro's referred to them as "Jack's Amish rakes".Apparently,that's who made them.

[Kalen Braley]

I still think its interesting that Jack waited to bust these rakes only after deciding not to play in his toonamint anymore.  Is these mere coincidence?  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Robert Randquist's treatise on bunkers, a three (3) part series that appears in the Feature Interview section should be required reading.  It's most informative and deals with maintainance, playability and architectural intent.

Jack Nicklaus is attempting to reinstate the significance of bunkers.

We should applaud his efforts rather than second guess his motives.

[Craig Sweet]

Patrick Mucci....

"Jack Nicklaus is attempting to reinstate the significance of bunkers."

When the average tour player is successful 50% of the time JUST WHAT significance are you suggesting be "reinstated"?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Craig Sweet,

I've always maintained that their are golf clubs that are icons in American golf, be they Oakmont, Pine Valley, CPC or other clubs.

Many clubs imitate what they see these icons doing.

Forget the PGA Tour Pros, the real benefit would be if more and more clubs undertook this practice.

Years ago, I think PV raked their bunkers periodically, not daily.  That's great for keeping costs down and presenting a "TRUE" hazard.

Hopefully the concept of returning bunkers to their architectural intent, as hazards, will take hold through maintainance practices when viewers see and hear what Muirfield is doing this week.

[JR Potts]

If bunkers are designed to suit a purpose of proving the player with a penal hazard, should Tom Fazio be considered the greatest bunker architect of all-time?

His bunker designs in my opiniion are the most penal bunkers....especially if you don't go in them.  The numerous cuts and inlets provide the greatest challenges I have ever had in and around bunkers.

Thoughts?  Am I alone?

[Craig Sweet]

Judging by the bunker play that I witness...on mediocre courses...by average golfers....bunkers are still hazards and still have their "architectural intent" intact...I seriously doubt the architectural intent of bunkers on the courses you mention has changed enough due to maintinance practices to be an issue.

You have to be more clear in discribing what jack is trying to "reinstate".

[Chris Cupit]

Jack says the point of the furrowed bunkers is to preserve the strategy of the course:  he doesn't want players to intentionally aim for greenside bunkers.

I start a thread months ago about bunkers no longer being much of a hazard for the pros, but someone provided data to the effect that even the best bunker players get down in two about 65% of the time from greenside bunkers.  I saw something recently that the tour average is a little under 50%.  In other words, greenside bunkers are about a half stroke penalty on average.  Seems about right to me.

Jack is overreacting.

I love it.  A bunker is a hazard and if even average players are getting up and down half the time, I think that is too easy.  I think getting up and down from a hazard should be 20-30% tops and maybe with no chance at all sometimes.

Maybe more akin to being able to play out of a fairly dry creek bed.??

With unraked or furrowed bunkers then you wouldn't need all the damn fake lakes and water hazards to actually scare the best players

Go Jack.

[Craig Sweet]

Patrick Mucci....isn't the intent of the furrows to take the spin off the ball?  So even though 50% of the time, the very best golfers in the world can't get up and down out of a bunker, you and jack feel they need to be "toughened" up?

And you are also suggesting this would be good for the average joe as well?

Here is my observation from watching PGA golf on TV and in person...the pro's like every shot into a bunker to roll to the bottom of the bunker and they want consistant sand depth in the bottom of the bunker...a solution might be a maintinance set up where a ball that hits the slope of a bunker stays there and the sand is deep and lose...and rarely will a ball roll down into the bottom of a bunker...

[Craig Sweet]

Doesn't the USGA consider a bunker a 1/2 stroke penalty?

[CHrisB]

This quote from Nicklaus caught my attention:

It's like the 18th hole here. They look at the water hazard on one side and they've got bunkers on the other side. They say, well, obviously I don't want to be in the water so I'm going to make sure I tug the right side, and if I put it in the bunker it's no big deal. They whip out the driver and put it in the bunker and knock it on the green. Well, if they put the ball in the bunker this week on the right side, they could get a decent lie or they might not get a good lie. So they're going to say, hey, I'm not so sure I want to be in there, maybe I ought to play this hole the way it's designed, maybe I ought to take a 3-wood or 5-wood or 2-iron and put it down there in play and play the way the hole is designed.

Is he saying he has designed the 18th to dictate that players lay back off the tee and have a longer shot in?  Is that good design?

[Patrick Glynn]

Is he saying he has designed the 18th to dictate that players lay back off the tee and have a longer shot in?  Is that good design?

He is not saying that. If you can hit driver and find the fairway - hit driver. It puts a premium on accuarcy as well, not just distance. What Nicklaus is trying to do, I think, is put a bit more strategy back in the game - as opposed to the whole Bomb & Gouge Mentality.

[Jim Nugent]

This quote from Nicklaus caught my attention:
Quote:
It's like the 18th hole here. They look at the water hazard on one side and they've got bunkers on the other side. They say, well, obviously I don't want to be in the water so I'm going to make sure I tug the right side, and if I put it in the bunker it's no big deal. They whip out the driver and put it in the bunker and knock it on the green.

One question, then, is how much harder is it for the pro's to hit the green from fairway bunkers?  Is Jack right, that bunkers don't penalize the pro's?

Haven't found any stats for that.  I do see that average (median) GIR from off the fairway is about 47.5.  Average GIR overall is 63.25.  But the overall figure includes the lower %, when the players miss the fairway.  Their GIR % from the fairway must be considerably higher.

I used the average fairways hit on tour, to extrapolate that from the fairway on average tour pro's hit the green 73.4% of the time.  If so, that's 54% greater than when they miss the fairway.  Course, that doesn't distinguish missing in the rough from missing in the sand.

I'd really like to see hard numbers on this.  If Jack doesn't have those hard numbers, then he's just working on impressions.  I would be willing to bet almost any amount of money that on average, tour players hit the green less from fairway bunkers than they do the fairway itself.  The numbers I ran suggest the difference might be real large -- i.e. that fairway bunkers DO significantly penalize the best players in the world.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Judging by the bunker play that I witness...on mediocre courses...by average golfers....bunkers are still hazards and still have their "architectural intent" intact...

I seriously doubt the architectural intent of bunkers on the courses you mention has changed enough due to maintinance practices to be an issue.

Then you'd better question your "serious doubt"

Oakmont maintained deep furrowing in their bunkers.
They changed that maintainance practice.

Nicklaus is making an attempt to restore the intended penal nature of the bunkers as hazards.

Did you read all three parts of Bob Ranquist's treatise prior to responding to my earlier post ?[/color]

You have to be more clear in discribing what jack is trying to "reinstate".

Returning bunkers to the hazards they were intended to be.

Nicklaus understands that, I understand that, and hopefully, you understand that.[/color]