Bunker raking

[Brad Huff]

I'm a high school golf coach.  My team and I got in a debate the other day about whether or not bunkers should be raked.  I said no, they called me a "out-dated purist" (which I took as a compliment)!  Their contention is that they want golf to be a sport won by the person with the most skill while competing on a course that similar to all competitors.  My counterpoint was that bunkers should be penal.  I see both sides.  Where do you guys sit on this?

[Ronald Montesano]

Sand is already penal.  Harder to hit from than fairway, easier than taller rough, which is second-most penal to water (not including oob).

Raking of bunkers adds to the integrity of the game...although you have been trapped and had to suffer the consequences, you still rake the bunker so that the following competitors who suffer that fate will have a decent shot out.

If bunkers didn't have to be raked, imagine how many footprints and divots we'd hit from?  People would turn away from golf, thereby leaving courses empty for people like you, Brad!

I do say that I admire how you coach; you keep your players thinking.  Never let them believe that they are entitled.

[Alister Matheson]

this should be very easy really as mostly all courses supply rakes at every bunker so if you do go in one rake it after to the standard you would expect  to  find it in.

[Kyle Harris]

The lucky are only those skillful enough to take advantage of their luck.

Skill is not learned on a driving range, as the person who is able to maneuver his golf ball from tee to hole in the least amount of strokes was most skillful for that hole.

The hazard is an area of unpredictability. The skill is in overcoming the unpredictable, not in hitting the ball from the sand.

Sounds like you have a bit more coaching to do.

[Kyle Harris]

By the way,

Start defining a good shot as one where the chances of holing the next shot are substantially increased. The more the chance is increased, the better the shot.

See if things start to "click" then.

[Tony Ristola]

Rub of the green.

They are hazards, and hazards are to be unpredictable. The more unpredictable, the greater the psychological hazard.

When you know you'll get a decent lie, Hell's Bells... half the horror is eliminated.

Should all water hazards deliver the same penalty, eliminating luck? No recovery?

[Ronald Montesano]

If bunkers were to be truly penal, we'd utilize the long-lived Oakmont rakes and the short-lived Memorial Tournament ones.

Consider waste bunkers for a moment...unraked by players, club can be grounded and practice swings taken, you get what you get when it comes to the lie.

Might we decree all bunkers to be waste bunkers?

Sand is not so easy to recover from as pros might lead us to believe.  It takes hours upon hours of practice and honing and fun words like that.  I was in a wet practice bunker this morning and hit all kinds of downhill lie, flat lie and uphill lie shots and marveled at how easy it can be when in the groove and how challenging it always is.

Add this to the mix...a difficult bunker to a green that repels...compounding the hazard, compounding the challenge.  I think that an element of fair (although not an overwhelming one) must exist, hence the raking of bunkers.

There is enough unkempt terrain on most courses (trees, underbrush, thick rough) to allow for the bunker to be an intermediate hazard.

[Kyle Harris]

If bunkers were to be truly penal, we'd utilize the long-lived Oakmont rakes and the short-lived Memorial Tournament ones.

Consider waste bunkers for a moment...unraked by players, club can be grounded and practice swings taken, you get what you get when it comes to the lie.

Might we decree all bunkers to be waste bunkers?

Sand is not so easy to recover from as pros might lead us to believe.  It takes hours upon hours of practice and honing and fun words like that.  I was in a wet practice bunker this morning and hit all kinds of downhill lie, flat lie and uphill lie shots and marveled at how easy it can be when in the groove and how challenging it always is.

Add this to the mix...a difficult bunker to a green that repels...compounding the hazard, compounding the challenge.  I think that an element of fair (although not an overwhelming one) must exist, hence the raking of bunkers.

There is enough unkempt terrain on most courses (trees, underbrush, thick rough) to allow for the bunker to be an intermediate hazard.

Ronald,

This element of "fair" which you speak of can only exist in two places. When the ball is played from the tee and when the ball is holed. Everything in between represents an understanding between golfer and golf course that the notion of "fair" is not an arbitrary value set by another man, but that fairness will eventually be found in the form of holing out and moving the ball to the next tee.

So long as the golfer can physically maneuver the ball by club or rule, and so long as the hole exists - the game remains fair regardless of the lie.

[Ronald Montesano]

My point is not complete and consistent fairness.   For that reason, I indicated an element of fairness...it seems to me that bunkers fall under the same code that houses the calling of a penalty on oneself.  It is the gentlemanly element of the sport of golf.  Yes, bunkers are a hazard, yes, they are challenging, but they are maintained.  If they are not, then relocate the rakes, call them waste bunkers and allow grounding of the club.

I believe that I have made my point that bunkers should be maintained and should be raked.  Vagaries creep in, as they do with spike marks on the greens and unfilled divots in the fairways.  Nothing to do about either of those but grit your teeth and play on.  And those are in areas marked "fair way" by many.  Shouldn't there be some balance with a properly-raked bunker?

[mike_beene]

Rake them.Bunker play is a skill.

[C. Squier]

I'm torn on this one.  Shallow bunkers w/ gravelly sand that isn't very thick....I'm all for getting rid of rakes and smoothing out footprints w/ your feet.  But deep, flashed bunkers that can have deep footprints.....I just can't get excited about finding my ball is someone's 4 inch footprint.  If your course is filled w/ people who are considerate enough to leave traps in good condition, I'm all for an experiment without rakes.

[Scott Coan]

How many of the anti-rake brigade have ever had to extricate themselves out of a pot bunker from the bottom of a 3-inch deep heel print?

You can’t take an unplayable because the entire pot is pock-marked with other, worse hoof prints.  So you proceed to hack and hack and hack and eventually your ball comes to reside in a smooth enough area from which you can finally play a credible GOLF shot.

Bunkers are hazards to be sure, but if they become 5 shot penalties then they become a joke and the game suffers for it.

A perfect case in point is the wondrous Barnbougle Dunes.  When they first opened they did not have rakes as such but what I would call a plough.  They were absolutely useless and after your first attempt at trying to “rake” you simply gave up.

What happens is the lowest common denominator prevails.  You hit it into a bunker, you find yourself absolutely stymied in a heel print, you take your 3, 4, or 5 shot penalty, and then you leave the bunker in worse shape for the next sucker.   Pure human nature.

Needless to say, BD has scrapped their bunker ploughs for proper rakes and for good reason - because they are in the business of GOLF.

Along the same lines, a good friend of mine would regularly caddy in the NZ Open when it rolled around to Paraparaumu Beach and he looped for a pretty well known Aussie touring pro.  After immaculately raking up after him the pro says “what the hell are you doing?”.  Just raking the bunker my mate says after which the pro comes back with, “Did you see the state of that thing when I got there?  Never, ever leave a bunker in better shape than you found it!”.

[Ulrich Mayring]

Raking bunkers takes some of the (possible) challenge away. However, not raking them takes some variety away from the game. Anything that needs to be done in terms of challenge can be achieved with the waste bunker. But there is no replacement for the sand shot from a mostly uniform lie, so there is no replacement for the rake.

Golf course architects can have it both ways: one way is the bunker, the other way is the waste bunker. Both can be mixed and matched. It would make the game poorer to remove one option entirely.

That being said, I'd like to see waste bunkers much more often. Any sandy area, where it takes me more than three steps to reach my ball, should be a waste area. It's a royal PITA to carve out a highway into one of those modern sandscapes and rake it all the way back out.

Do you know that old golf joke, where it is said about some random duffer that "he's so bad at golf, he had to replace the grip on his ball retriever." Well, the same laugh should be reserved for courses that have to re-sharpen their rakes every season.

Ulrich

[Kyle Harris]

And those are in areas marked "fair way" by many.  Shouldn't there be some balance with a properly-raked bunker?

No.

There exists no definition for "fairway" in the rules of golf. A ball can either lie through the green, on a putting green, or in a hazard. One has one set of rules, the other, another.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I like to pretend I'm in a Japanese rock garden, and get all zen like with the rake.... Nanananana!

[Ronald Montesano]

Scott, you've made the most cogent entry to this thread and I thank you for it.  I've nothing more to contribute to the topic beyond this:  if the anti-rake brigade ever wins the day, you'll see more bunkers removed by green committees than ever before.  And that would be a shame.  Anyone who sees the beautiful bunkering done by Ian Andrew at Travis' Cherry Hill Club in Ridgeway, Ontario would be aghast that such non-rake blasphemy be suggested.  What a ridiculous sport golf would become.  I'm off to rake a bunker or two...then perhaps I'll fix a spike mark or six...I might even sand some fairway divots.

[Mike_Young]

For all of you ODG afficianados....what year did we start to rake bunkers.....is bunker raking part of golden age golf? 

[Kyle Harris]

Scott, you've made the most cogent entry to this thread and I thank you for it.  I've nothing more to contribute to the topic beyond this:  if the anti-rake brigade ever wins the day, you'll see more bunkers removed by green committees than ever before.  And that would be a shame.  Anyone who sees the beautiful bunkering done by Ian Andrew at Travis' Cherry Hill Club in Ridgeway, Ontario would be aghast that such non-rake blasphemy be suggested.  What a ridiculous sport golf would become.  I'm off to rake a bunker or two...then perhaps I'll fix a spike mark or six...I might even sand some fairway divots.

Ronald,

There's a key difference between not raking a bunker and neglecting a bunker. If the sand maintenance were to fall solely on the hands on the superintendent and on a 2-3 times per week basis - how bad do you believe bunkers would get? I, for one, am not advocating complete neglect, but only maintenance necessary for the preservation of the hazard (object).

One of the original rules of the game was to play the course as one finds it. Your slippery slope argument aside. The ethic here is not to make hazards more "penal" but instead more "unpredictable" and "rote." Encouraging creativity in both challenging a hazard and playing from the hazard.

[Mark_Fine]

Brad,
My detailed opinion about bunkers and hazards takes exactly 308 pages to explain  ,however, my quick response it that for the most part I agree with you with the exception of the word "penal".  Bunkers and hazards serve many more purposes than just to penalize.
Mark

[Brad Huff]

Thanks for all the great opinions.  Even though you bunker-rakers make good points, I still go with making them more penal.  I believe it forces you to make a better decision with your ball.  If more amateurs were scared of bunkers as much as they are of water, their scores might go down.  That said, you really couldn't have 20 bunkers around a green like you do now....  I like the idea of more waste bunkers.  Regarding greens committees removing bunkers:  I also should have stated that my question was purely external to the economics of golf.

[Chris Cupit]

I am definitely a "no rake" guy but I had an interesting rules discussion with JVB and as I was complaining about "waste bunkers" (which I think should not exist--it is either a prepared area of ground filled with sand or the like, thus a bunker or it's not).  Anyway, his point was that maybe define ALL areas in play as "through the green".  The more we discussed the more sense it made.

But if you are going to let people remove loose impediments etc. like the rest of through the green areas, let's start putting fear back into bunkers/hazards and rake them only on an occasional (once/2 weeks or so) basis.

[Tony Ristola]

Scott, you've made the most cogent entry to this thread and I thank you for it.  I've nothing more to contribute to the topic beyond this:  if the anti-rake brigade ever wins the day, you'll see more bunkers removed by green committees than ever before.  And that would be a shame.  Anyone who sees the beautiful bunkering done by Ian Andrew at Travis' Cherry Hill Club in Ridgeway, Ontario would be aghast that such non-rake blasphemy be suggested.  What a ridiculous sport golf would become.  I'm off to rake a bunker or two...then perhaps I'll fix a spike mark or six...I might even sand some fairway divots.

Ronald,

There's a key difference between not raking a bunker and neglecting a bunker. If the sand maintenance were to fall solely on the hands on the superintendent and on a 2-3 times per week basis - how bad do you believe bunkers would get? I, for one, am not advocating complete neglect, but only maintenance necessary for the preservation of the hazard (object).

One of the original rules of the game was to play the course as one finds it. Your slippery slope argument aside. The ethic here is not to make hazards more "penal" but instead more "unpredictable" and "rote." Encouraging creativity in both challenging a hazard and playing from the hazard.

Bulls-eye.

[Sean_A]

I would like to see bunkers not raked after every use.  Every couple of days is fine for a proper raking with quick foot smoothings after shots.  However, if we were to go this route, I would advocate for even less bunkers than I do now.  Playing a course with 100 bunkers, any one of which can result in an X, isn't clever design imo.   If archies could find a way to keep the numbers WAY below what seems to be the norm, I don't have a problem with not raking them.  In fact, it could lead to a lot more interesting courses because archies would have to get much more clever about how they create challenge. 

Ciao

[Michael Rossi]

I'm a high school golf coach.  My team and I got in a debate the other day about whether or not bunkers should be raked.  I said no, they called me a "out-dated purist" (which I took as a compliment)!  Their contention is that they want golf to be a sport won by the person with the most skill while competing on a course that similar to all competitors.  My counterpoint was that bunkers should be penal.  I see both sides.  Where do you guys sit on this?

As a purist you should also be preaching Leave the course in better condition than you found it. I think that should cover off you question.

Bunkers being penal I do not agree with, hazard is my term of choice. Penal sounds like it going to cost you a shot at least where hazard to me sounds like I still have a chance, but increased diffuculty has been added.

I suppose you feel that ball marks should not be repaired or divots replaced, if you feel that a ball mark should fixed be or a divot replaced then why not rake out some foot prints?

[Kyle Harris]

I'm a high school golf coach.  My team and I got in a debate the other day about whether or not bunkers should be raked.  I said no, they called me a "out-dated purist" (which I took as a compliment)!  Their contention is that they want golf to be a sport won by the person with the most skill while competing on a course that similar to all competitors.  My counterpoint was that bunkers should be penal.  I see both sides.  Where do you guys sit on this?

As a purist you should also be preaching Leave the course in better condition than you found it. I think that should cover off you question.

Bunkers being penal I do not agree with, hazard is my term of choice. Penal sounds like it going to cost you a shot at least where hazard to me sounds like I still have a chance, but increased diffuculty has been added.

I suppose you feel that ball marks should not be repaired or divots replaced, if you feel that a ball mark should fixed be or a divot replaced then why not rake out some foot prints?

Depends on how one defines, "better."

What do ball marks or divots have to do with this conversation? Ball marks are actually covered within the rules (the golfer is permitted to repair them before playing a stroke) and divots are an integral part of the "randomness" of playing toward the hole. Both exist in an area fundamentally different from the hazard and are necessary preexisting conditions of the golf course.