Bunker Maintenance

[Michael_Stachowicz]

What is the ideal way that bunker surrounds are treated?  Long and shaggy to enhance the "natural" hazard look?  Or cut the grass as short as possible to "pull" the ball that gets too close into the bunker?

A side note, I just took a tournament preparation course at the northeast turf conference.  The instructor, who hosts a buy.com event, was advocating the firmness of bunkers, raking the sand in the direction of the flagstick (to avoid any little "berms" behind the ball) and to make each bunker play the same.  It just made me want to grab an "Oakmont furrow rake" and rake in the wrong direction.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Michael,
Allow me to grab a furrow rake also and join you.

[Rick Shefchik]

I believe many golfers (on this site, anyway) are sympathetic to, if not downright adamant about, the idea that bunkers really ought to be hazards, and as such should not be smoothed out like the sand in the lobby ashtrays at a 5-star hotel.

On the other hand, etiquette dictates that we do our best to leave no trace after we've left a bunker, even to the point of raking out the footprints of other clods who tromped through before us.

So for those -- Tommy N., and perhaps others -- who would like to see bunkers be penal, how do you address the personal issue of how thoroughly to rake a bunker once you're done with it?

[Mike_Cirba]

Rick,

I suggest Pine Valley etiquette is appropriate.  Smooth anything you can with your foot or club (quickly) and go play your next shot.

It's a hazard....the fact that they are maintained as "alternate playing surfaces" is a crime against civilization.

[brad_miller]

Mike, I must have been behind you last weekend

[Steve Okula]

On a related topic, I'd like to know what people think about the firmness of the sand or lack thereof.

When I began here last year as GCS, the bunkers were nothing but puddles, mud, rocks, weeds, and erosion - absolutely unplayable. We have since renovated 45 of them, redoing the drainage, reshaping where necessary, and placing clean white, fluffy sand. The sand was selected to follow USGA guidelines for particle size and angularity.  

Now I have an issue with the greens commitee chairman - among a few other (mainly low handicap) members - that the newly renovated bunkers are unfair because they sometimes get plugged lies in the new sand. Many of the bunkers also have steep faces, so you could have a plugged lie and an uneven stance. The committee wants to see that Royal Melbourne thing where if you hit into a bunker you automatically roll to a firm lie on the level bottom.

Now, I know that with time, precipitation, and raking, the sand will settle down and firm up. But even if it didn't, it is my contention that a buried lie in soft sand is a integral part of the hazard. I say you should either learn to hit the "fried egg" or learn to avoid the bunker. It is a hazard.

What say you all?

[Mike Cirba]

Steve,

A bunker "hun" like me is probably the wrong person to listen to, but you can tell your members that both Bethpage Black and Hollywood had the exact same issue after their bunkers were redesigned and filled with new, soft sand.

Could this be a USGA-spec problem??

In the meantime, I agree....if you don't want a plugged lie, just keep your ball out of it.

If it were up to me, I'd fill them with the gooey stuff in the La Brea pits and future archeologists would find some perfectly preserved, if scowling remants from a past civilization.

[ian]

Its very often too much sand. Time helps firm the bunkers, unless the particle size is "too" uniform.