Are Our Bunkers Too Perfect?

[Jason Goss]

Last I checked bunkers are still defined as hazards.  To expect a perfect lie, or the ability to easily recover from hitting a shot into a hazard is asking too much.  If you are able to hit an EXCEPTIONAL shot to recover you should be rewarded with par.  To expect to be able to hit an average shot out of a hazard without penalty is not in the spirit of the game IMHO.  

The problem has been touched on here already.  It is all about TV golf and the PGA Tour.  We have hosted PGA events and the expectation and demands that the players put on the PGA Tour agronomy staff is out of touch with reality.  I can honestly say that we spent more time making sure the HAZARDS were maintained perfectly so the players could feel like hitting it in the bunker wasn't a penalty.  Ridiculous. We would have to go re-reke a bunker if a bird landed in it so there wasn't any bird footprints.  NO, I'm serious.  Bird footprints.  

Until the public golfer stops expecting what they see on TV on Sunday, we all suffer.  Sadly I don't think this is going to happen anytime soon.  I wish the Tour player would be more accepting of the flaws that all golf coursed have on any given day.  Not holding my breath on that one.  

[John Percival]

A few years back, played a cse in western, Metro Phoenix that had rakes that made the tiniest furrows. Even in the fwy bunkers, a well-struck shot would fly well, but a one grove miss meant a heavy 100 yarder. There must be dozens of ideas that the Grounds crews play with along those lines, even with whisks, rope or funky teeth. Any ideas out there from Supers?
Soft sand is the bane of good players, yet allows all others some ease in moving sand for escapes. So, just deep tine the sand to keep it fluffy, and rake LESS to keep the softness.
 
As a low hdcp player, IF   I hit an off-line shot, I ask it to go into a bunker rather than rough. A bunker is the single greatest separator of the low hdcp and the average player. Even if a greenside bkr is deep, it presents less of a challenge (for me) than a pitch from rough. That is why the bkr centered in front of a green seems so unfair. If the avg player flies it, the approach will often carry thru the green, and those approaches that don't carry it leave the player the difficult sandy.

Better to position bunkers along flanks (especially with appropriately positioned fwy challenges) to allow running access, while still providing tucked pin positions when needed.

Lastly, if u want to make greenside bkrs more daunting to the advanced player, make the topside slope down towards the pin. This makes the short side recovery very difficult and channels water away from the bunker, thus reducing washouts.

[Thomas Dai]

Are our SAND bunkers too perfect? For golfers of some ability yes. Which is one of the reasons that I'm a great fan of GRASS bunkers and grass depressions.
All the best

[Randy Thompson]

Without a doubt, there too perfect. Its very to difficult to educate the decisión makers to the contrary. There minds are posoined by TV golf week in and week out. There definition of what is right and good comes from the USGA and PGA tours telecast. Bunkers should produce different skill level shots by alternating the stance and how the ball lies and neither should ever be consistent. I am ok with consistent sand and consistent depths. Our Jobs of educating clients would be so much easier if the USGA and PGA would lead by setting examples. Everybody seems to want a flat cosnsitent lie and requires perfecting that one particular shot and nothing more. Tom Doak mentioned in the thread about Yale that he doubts there is an archtiect alive that could present such a bold course today. He is right, no there is not but not because we don´t have the balls, the problem is finding a client and membership that will, GET IT and support it and not change it. In the current decreasing market for jobs, it´s not the time to build something controversial that goes over everybodies head. So, if anybody can pull it off, it will be one of the five architects that are currently growing in the current crappy market!

A very understandable position Randy but I've yet to meet the golfer that didn't 'get it' when faced with small pot bunkers.

The sand can be as well manicured as you like but a sheer lip two foot in front of the ball isn't easy for anyone.

Less sand is less expense and so on and so forth.......

Believe me they are out there! I have a course not even opened for a year, I had a par three where the Green was built into the slope of a hill. the easiest way to catch the wáter coming off the hill was with two large grass depressions or grass bowls. Wanted a Par three without sand and so created two other grass bunkers, one left and one right of the green. Lots of movement in the Green. The owner recently changed three of these depressions or bowls to sand and filled in the remaining grass depression. He has also filled in three other depressions on other holes. In another instance at a re-do, had a skyline Green and the back half of the Green sloped away towards the back. I made the Green slope back left in that part carrying surface wáter and poorly struck shots to a minor grass depression. Plans were given approval by some forty memebers before and then also approved by everybody before seeding. Month after it opened they filled in the depression.

[John Percival]

To be fair to the 'evil' sand pits...they are a beautiful frame to many shots (when done well) and a great contrast to acres of green. For example, imagine ANGC #13 without bkrs at the green. And, there are many more examples.

[Garland Bayley]

John,

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. IMO the white bathtubs at ANGC are not beautiful.

[Jeff Goldman]

One other thing is that bunker sand is a big item.  Best Sand in Ohio has become the bunker product of choice for many top courses and wannabes, I think as much  because it is the easiest for good players to play out of (which is nuts), leaving aside the color.  It also costs a fortune.   

[Carl Rogers]

Ian,

The hard part about this discussion is how quickly it goes to tour players, when they should have zilch effect on what the average course does.  IMHO, the USGA and PGA Tour can do what they need to do to make bunkers relevant for their players, and we can do what we need to do elsewhere.  Its really two different games, no? ...

This rings true for me ....
I play primarily on 2 courses in SE Virginia.  They have given up replenishing the bunkers and raking them 3 days a week.  As a result there are a multitude of variables when in a bunker. How much sand?  How much of a fluffy layer above a harder packed layer? etc.  Local knowledge, square foot by square foot is the key to playing them effectively.  Fairly taking your stance does not provide enough information. They are real hazards.

[Lou_Duran]

REALLY?  Is Katz around any more?  Want to make them more penal for the good players?  And what's going to happen to the rest of us?  Bifurcate the rules and allow lift and toss with the non-dominant hand?  I played with two mid-single digit handicappers today on a course which holds a Tour event (translation: bunkers are "too perfect").  I don't think anyone got it up and down a single time.  I was 0-3, including one shot that airmailed the green.

Mr. Goldman- by far the best sand I've played is Premier White Sand out of Arkansas.  I think it is a granite synthetic, and it is pretty expensive.

[Jeff Goldman]

Monsieur Duran,

Au contraire on less good sand making it harder for mediocrities.  I don't think the quality of sand affects us schleppers at all--we're just trying to accelerate through and get it out somewhere near the hole; unlike you folks, we don't really judge sand by how much we can spin the ball out of it.

[Greg Chambers]

I am starting to think that the best hazard around a green is a mound at the edge (or even partially in the green) that requires you to play over it, but I am having a hard time reconciling that with my goal of making courses look natural.

Tom,

Have you played Santa Anita?

[Jim Nugent]

Bunkers take a big toll on pro golfers.  Average (median) up and down on tour this year is 50%.  Meaning on average the pro's hole out in two from greenside bunkers just half the time. 

The very best tour player averages 67.8% this year.  A number of pro golfers average in the 30s, and one is even in the 20s. 

i.e. compared to hitting the green, bunkers cost the pro's a lot.  I'm guesstimating around 0.7 strokes or so on average.  That's a big price to pay.  For average golfers, bunkers have to be a whole lot harder. 

So it seems to me bunkers ARE still strategic.  Even the best players pay a big penalty when they hit into them. 

As to whether bunkers are easier now: sand saves on tour are lower now than they were in 1995 or 2000.  I think in the 1980s, though, the sand save % was worse.   

John Percival: according to the PGA Tour, the pro's recover better from the rough than they do out of sand. 

[Sean_A]

Jim

I am with you.  First, pros ain't got nothing to do with it or much or anything else to do with architecture. People reference pros only because there are extensive stats for pros and pros are on tv.  These are hardly good reasons to extrapolate as to what is best for the paying customer.  

Second, the pros are penalized for hitting bunkers.  Maybe folks are arguing that the best sand player should get up and down 25% of the time?  Honestly, it shouldn't matter a tosh.  

Third, where is it written that bunkers should be a more difficult recovery than rough.  In the very real and original use of the word "hazard" in golf, both are hazards.  

Fourth, folks worry far too much about the secondary aspects of sand.  The main thing to get right is efficient placement.  We aren't at that stage yet in architecture.  Archies still use bunkers as non-hazards far too often.  In fact, we should have different names for different bunker purposes.  If the golfer could have framing, aiming, saving and safety bunkers all properly labelled they would clearly see that, well, many bunkers aren't really hazards.

Ciao

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ian & Tom,

Robert Randquist wrote a terrific "white paper" on bunkers and bunker maintenance.

I believe that you can access it in the featured interview section (2005)

He emphasizes that bunkers are, first and foremost, hazards.

It's definitely worthwhile reading and in line with your thoughts.

[John Percival]

Bunkers take a big toll on pro golfers.  Average (median) up and down on tour this year is 50%.  Meaning on average the pro's hole out in two from greenside bunkers just half the time. 

The very best tour player averages 67.8% this year.  A number of pro golfers average in the 30s, and one is even in the 20s. 

i.e. compared to hitting the green, bunkers cost the pro's a lot.  I'm guesstimating around 0.7 strokes or so on average.  That's a big price to pay.  For average golfers, bunkers have to be a whole lot harder. 

So it seems to me bunkers ARE still strategic.  Even the best players pay a big penalty when they hit into them. 

As to whether bunkers are easier now: sand saves on tour are lower now than they were in 1995 or 2000.  I think in the 1980s, though, the sand save % was worse.   

John Percival: according to the PGA Tour, the pro's recover better from the rough than they do out of sand. 
Jim,
I aint no Tour Pro 

[Jud_T]

If an average player with a half way decent sand game like myself doesn't fear 'em unless there's either 1) a large lip on a fairway bunker 2) little green area to hold on recovery, i.e. Kingsley #2 or 3) REALLY cavernous bunkers, i.e. Old Mac/Pac Dunes/Harrison Hills/Tamarack then the answer is yes.  Even "enlightened" folks like ourselves get quickly spoiled once they experience sand that you can hit a perfect lob wedge flop out of with less than perfect technique and start whining as soon as they encounter heavier indigenous and/or unraked sand.  As mentioned, currently only senior/junior/ladies/high handicaps are penalized.  My dad used to bunt the ball down the middle and onto the green in part to insure he never went in the sand.

[Matt Osborne]

I am in total agreement with Ian's post that most bunkers are to manicured and costly.

A bunker is a hazard first and foremost.  It is the only hazard that is groomed to be perfect and consistent.  

A number of the courses here in the UAE even groom the waste areas.  I can't imagine the bunker maintenance budget at some of these courses.  

I also tend to find that (in my playing experiences) it is usually the better player that complains of a "bad" lie in a bunker.  The higher handicappers tend to just go with the flow and accept it as it lies (as a sand shot for them is tough regardless of the lie).  

Why not a simple courtesy rule to quickly smooth out the area where you plant your feet/ hit your shot?  

[Thomas Dai]

Anyone else remember the days when rakes were not actually provided at each sand bunker but instead players smoothed out their footprints and splash marks with the back of a club? You could do this easily with a blade, which is what we all played back in yee olde days. I'm not sure you could do it now though with a wide flanged deep cavity back shovel.

I do not like the modern practice of raking bunkers by maintenance staff using ride on machines. It might save labour but IMO it has both led to over manicuring and to the furthering of the horrid and utterly vile design/construction practice that is massively sized, frequently low-lipped sand bunkers. Sand bunkers are hazards. As to sandy waste areas, they should be just that....waste, not manicured. Rant over.

All the best.

[Andrew Buck]

If an average player with a half way decent sand game like myself doesn't fear 'em unless there's either 1) a large lip on a fairway bunker 2) little green area to hold on recovery, i.e. Kingsley #2 or 3) REALLY cavernous bunkers, i.e. Old Mac/Pac Dunes/Harrison Hills/Tamarack then the answer is yes.  Even "enlightened" folks like ourselves get quickly spoiled once they experience sand that you can hit a perfect lob wedge flop out of with less than perfect technique and start whining as soon as they encounter heavier indigenous and/or unraked sand.  As mentioned, currently only senior/junior/ladies/high handicaps are penalized.  My dad used to bunt the ball down the middle and onto the green in part to insure he never went in the sand.

From reading this thread, I guess I have the worst sand play for a scratch golfer here, because I undoubtedly would rather play from rough than sand on 95% of the rounds I play.  Maybe bunkers should provide "MORE" of a penalty, but I'm certainly going to catch about 20 - 30% of fairway bunker shots a touch heavy, and I'm going to be forced to take more lofted clubs at times.  With greenside bunkers, maybe it's because most courses I play don't have perfectly consistent sand every hole, but I certainly feel there is more variables to getting up and down from a sand bunker.  Now, if a course is trying to make the rough overly penal, it doesn't make sense to me that the sand should not be as well.  

That said, I'm all for less maintenance of sand (and less sand overall on courses).  IMO, it isn't the best use of club resources and we should ask golfer to accept the occasional poor lie.  Since I try to walk a round before work most summer days when the early sun allows, I'm used to playing many bunkers before the daily maintenance work, and it's really not that bad, and you deal with the occasional odd lie.  

[Andrew Buck]

As to waste areas, they should be just that....waste, not manicured. Rant over.

I'm not sure if this is discussing sandy waste areas, or native grass areas.

I agree that native grasses shouldn't be manicured, and maybe the call for wispy grass has gone too far.  That said, if it exists in abundance, it can really lead to slow play if you can't find your ball.  Under the rules of golf, the punishment is too severe for a lost ball, and since unmaintained areas can't be deemed a hazard unless connected to a water feature, players are going to try and find the ball rather than going back to the tee. 

[Thomas Dai]

Andrew,

I meant sandy waste areas. My apologies for not making this clear. I have edited the original post to reflect this clarification.

All the best.

[Jeff_Brauer]

If it is true that tour pros recover at 50% I would submit that we finally got them about where we want them....

Did we ever want bunkers harder than costing tour pros the much discussed half stroke penalty?

[Jon Wiggett]

If it is true that tour pros recover at 50% I would submit that we finally got them about where we want them....

Did we ever want bunkers harder than costing tour pros the much discussed half stroke penalty?

Jeff,

the question is what is a greenside bunker? Often you are left with 20+ yards to the flag from a bunker which is a distance where I suspect the 3 putt stats are probably also about 50% so the bunker does not add any significant penalty. I still think not raking would be the best idea.

Jon

[Brent Hutto]

So with no rakes are you also going to make a rule that players must not smooth over their footprints after playing their shot?

Or better yet a rule that even the players who don't hit into a bunker should walk through it to keep the sand sufficiently stirred up to randomize the lies.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff,

the question is what is a greenside bunker? Often you are left with 20+ yards to the flag from a bunker which is a distance where I suspect the 3 putt stats are probably also about 50% so the bunker does not add any significant penalty.

I agree with this.  You want the bunker to be enough of a penalty that players actually think about trying to avoid it.  If they don't, then it's not really adding any strategy at all, it's just punishing misses.