Unraked Bunkers?

[Evan_Green]

Watching Si Woo Kim's bunker play in the final round at the TPC was remarkable - he like the other elite pros on the PGA tour are incredibly skilled at bunker play. Not a novel concept, but bunkers aren't much of a hazard for these guys...especially when they are as perfect as can be for a PGA tour event.





Some theoretical questions that came to mind after watching Kim dismantle the bunkers yesterday...


I. Would architects design courses differently if they knew all the bunkers would be unraked? If so, how?


II. Would tournament golf be more/less fun to watch or do a better/worse job of identifying the best player if bunkers were left unraked?


III. Would recreational golf be more/less more fun if bunkers were left unraked?

[Tom_Doak]

I. Would architects design courses differently if they knew all the bunkers would be unraked? If so, how?
     I think there would be fewer bunkers if the penalty of each was more severe.


II. Would tournament golf be more/less fun to watch or do a better/worse job of identifying the best player if bunkers were left unranked?
     Unfortunately, the concept shows its worst at tournament play, when you've got 150 players a day going through them.  By the end of the day, some bunkers would be in really tough shape.  Even at Oakmont, back in the day, those furrowed rakes made the bunkers tougher, but consistent ... "unraked" bunkers are more of a crapshoot, and you would certainly have complaints from guys who got a bad break late in the day.
     Also -- when I interviewed David Eger years ago on this subject, he pointed out that it's pretty tough to make a ball stop on a green running at 13, out of a footprint in the bunker.


III. Would recreational golf be more/less more fun if bunkers were left unranked?
     I don't mind a bit playing a small course where they don't have the money to rake bunkers all the time, or one of my own where all the sand is considered "through the green" and none of it is raked.  I don't know that it's more fun, it's just more natural, and presumably keeps the maintenance costs down a bit.

[jeffwarne]

I. Would architects design courses differently if they knew all the bunkers would be unraked? If so, how?
     I think there would be fewer bunkers if the penalty of each was more severe.

you had me at hello
as in hello?




Just did a similar rant on the air
lakes everywhere-no recovery.(Tom explained the "swamp" reasons yesterday for the lakes existence)
perfect bunkers-near perfect recoveries


less bunkers but make them something you consider before taking a shot.

[Thomas Dai]

Unraked sand bunkers with the option of a drop outside the bunker under penalty would be fine. It's been discussed herein a few times before including quite recently.
Atb

[Ian Andrew]

I'm convinced that I could build a better test with 20 bunkers than 50. If you consider the alternative of short grass slopes and even rough slopes, I think I could make it far tougher than I could with well conditioned bunkers full of modern manufactured sand.


It's not the test that people would miss with far less bunkers, it would be the clarity that have come to rely on with what they tell you about your shots.

[Sean_A]

Cue David Tepper.  He will tell you that the best pros are 50% from sand. Its hard to fathom the idea of that not being a worthy hazard especially for those people who are all for seeing low 60s when a golfer is on...ie the course should allow for a great day.  Regardless, if there were far fewer bunkers and the option to take a penalty drop I wouldn't have a problem with encountering a footprint in sand if I could pay less money to play a game.  But my reasoning for this opinion has absolutely nothing to do with what the pros do.  Archies already pay far too much attention to the very best golfers when designing courses.

Ciao

[David_Tepper]

"Cue David Tepper.  He will tell you that the best pros are 50% from sand."

Sean A. -

Yes, indeed they are! And remember, these guys are great putters as well, which is the other reason the sand save percentages are as high as they are. 

DT

[jeffwarne]

what percent do they hole out out after dropping from a water hazard?

[Sean_A]

what percent do they hole out out after dropping from a water hazard?

What does that have to do with bunkers?

Ciao

[jeffwarne]

what percent do they hole out out after dropping from a water hazard?

What does that have to do with bunkers?


Ciao

oops wrong thread..

[A.G._Crockett]

So when would the bunkers be raked?  Unless the answer is "Never!" it sort of becomes an unworkable solution to a problem that doesn't really exist anyway, doesn't it?  If the bunkers are in good shape for the first group out in the morning, and then increasingly worse all day, whether we're talking about on Tour or at the local goat ranch, there is an equity issue there.

Also, I think what is being missed in the discussion of the sand save percentage of pros is WHICH bunkers they find themselves in relative to that day's pin position.  Being a better ball-striker doesn't just mean that you hit more greens; it also means that you miss in places where you can get up and down.  There are bunkers that you just don't see Tour players come close to, and there are bunkers that they prefer to the rough, and that can vary day to day according to the pin. 

In other words, that the top Tour players get up and down from the sand 50% of the time says as much about how well they control their misses as it does their sand play and putting.

[Kyle Harris]

“The question of bunkers is a big one and the very best school for study we have found is along the seacoast among the dunes. Here one may study the different formations and obtain many ideas for bunkers. We have tried to make them natural and fit them into the landscape. The criticism had been made that we have made them too easy, that the banks are too sloping and that a man may often play a mid-iron shot out of the bunker where he should be forced to use a niblick. This opens a pretty big subject and we know that the tendency is to make bunkers more difficult. In the bunkers abroad on the seaside courses, the majority of them were formed by nature and the slopes are easy; the only exception being where on account of the shifting sand, they have been forced to put in railroad ties or similar substance to keep the same from blowing. This had made a perfectly straight wall but was not done with the intention of making it difficult to get out but merely to retain the bunker as it exists. If we make the banks of every bunker so steep that the very best player is forced to use a niblick to get out and the only hope he has when he gets in is to be able to get his ball on the fairway again, why should we not make a rule as we have at present with water hazards, when a man may, if he so desires, drop back with the loss of a stroke. I thoroughly believe that for the good of Golf, that we should not make our bunkers so difficult, that there is no choice left in playing out of them and that the best and worst must use a niblick." -Hugh Wilson, 1916

Hugh Wilson makes the very point about the drop from a bunker in 1916. Most would misinterpret this to mean he was advocate for the idea, but rather, he was advocating for a chance of a recovery in bunkers, both in maintenance and construction.

The last thing golf needs is another area from which a player may pick up their ball and drop.

[John_Cullum]

Raking bunkers is a courtesy, not a rule. Please be courteous to those who follow your ass.

[mike_malone]

I think many feel unraked bunkers is a sign of a unkempt course. So I suggest rakes which leave ridges.


I don't care if bunkers are raked but hate when the practice is to rake them and people don't ! 

[Jon Wiggett]

I would go back to either not raking or the old fashioned back of the club or foot raking.

[Kalen Braley]

In my opinion,  bunkers need to be returned to their former glory as an actual hazard to top notch players.  I'm not suggesting just leave them be, but get rid of all the rakes.  Use your club or foot as I suspect they did in the old days.


One thing is for certain, I think there are too many snowflakes who demand pristine conditions on every tour stop....

[Carl Rogers]

I have not played Dormie in more than a year, but they had no bunker rakes.  but there was also very little play.

Tobacco Road has local rule(s) for smoothing out and placing a ball in a bunker and grounding your club.

[Josh Stevens]

I would not be in favour - largely from the position of fairness to the field. We rake bunkers not only because it is polite but because it is the only way to level the playing field.  Everyone in the field is playing the same course.

I have no issue with a course being unfair, if it is unfair for everyone in the same way and that the unfairness stems from nature.

But the hazard arising from an unraked bunker is man made  - and therefore the group ahead has the ability to vary the severity of the hazard for those coming behind.  The last group in the field would be facing a very different course to the first group after a couple of hundred pairs of feet had danced through the bunkers.

[Kalen Braley]

josh,

How do you account for?

Rain that comes thru midway thru the day and softens everything?
Or Wind that picks up in the afternoon after a calm morning?
Slower and bumpier greens late in the day?
Footprints around the hole location?
One player teeing off in cool conditions, and the last one in the hot afternoon?
etc...


The reality is, the course can never be exactly the same for the field, even under the most ideal conditions.

[Greg Chambers]

What's the difference between being in somebody's footprint and being a victim of somebody's shitty rake job?  Bunker rakes unnecessarily clutter a golf course and really have no business being there.

[Sean_A]

josh,

How do you account for?

Rain that comes thru midway thru the day and softens everything?
Or Wind that picks up in the afternoon after a calm morning?
Slower and bumpier greens late in the day?
Footprints around the hole location?
One player teeing off in cool conditions, and the last one in the hot afternoon?
etc...


The reality is, the course can never be exactly the same for the field, even under the most ideal conditions.

Note Josh stipulated "stems from nature".  The only item on your list not attributable to nature is footprints and players take care to reduce this relatively minor issue which is hard is impossible to completely redress.  It helps to read what folks write.

Kyle

I would take a different view and say the last thing golf needs is varying rules as to how and when drops are made from hazards.  Keep the rule the same for all hazards and golf would be simpler.  Plus, I think archies would have carte blanche to create proper deep, nasty, horrible (unraked even!) pits which would have a greater impact in how better players go about their business.  I certainly wouldn't stand on pride if I didn't think I could advance the ball reasonably well....much like any other part of the course...no?

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

I would take a different view and say the last thing golf needs is varying rules as to how and when drops are made from hazards. Keep the rule the same for all hazards and golf would be simpler.  Plus, I think archies would have carte blanche to create proper deep, nasty, horrible (unraked even!) pits which would have a greater impact in how better players go about their business.  I certainly wouldn't stand on pride if I didn't think I could advance the ball reasonably well....much like any other part of the course...no?

Spot on.
atb

[Kyle Harris]

josh,

How do you account for?

Rain that comes thru midway thru the day and softens everything?
Or Wind that picks up in the afternoon after a calm morning?
Slower and bumpier greens late in the day?
Footprints around the hole location?
One player teeing off in cool conditions, and the last one in the hot afternoon?
etc...


The reality is, the course can never be exactly the same for the field, even under the most ideal conditions.

Note Josh stipulated "stems from nature".  The only item on your list not attributable to nature is footprints and players take care to reduce this relatively minor issue which is hard is impossible to completely redress.  It helps to read what folks write.

Kyle

I would take a different view and say the last thing golf needs is varying rules as to how and when drops are made from hazards.  Keep the rule the same for all hazards and golf would be simpler.  Plus, I think archies would have carte blanche to create proper deep, nasty, horrible (unraked even!) pits which would have a greater impact in how better players go about their business.  I certainly wouldn't stand on pride if I didn't think I could advance the ball reasonably well....much like any other part of the course...no?

Ciao

Sean,

The rule is the same for all hazards. It's really quite simple to understand that you shouldn't gain a distance advantage because of the rules. Everything stems from that.

Furthermore, the rule is the same for all bunkers. Bunkers are not hazards. Again, quite simple. You are meant to play from bunkers. You are not meant to play from water.

P.S. The whole reason Hugh Wilson made the statement is that architects WERE taking carte blanche with regard to bunkers. That's why the "White Faces of Merion" came to be.

[A.G._Crockett]

Somebody help me out here:  What is it that's wrong with what we're doing now? 

Why are bunkers from which everybody plays from more or less the same conditions a bad thing?  Why is it that I should play out of some asshat's size 13 footprints just because a kid got up and down from everywhere at Sawgrass?

Just another thread that comes across as a bunch of grumpy old men longing for the good old days.  You know; the days when there were no refrigerators, kids died from whooping cough and typhoid fever, and bunkers weren't raked.  Those good old days...

[Sean_A]

Kyle

I haven't paid much attention to the latest rule changes, but certainly sand bunkers used to be classed as hazards...hence all hazards are (were?) not treated the same.  I would prefer if all hazards were treated the same where dropping is concerned...its clean and simple.  Why should I lose distance for a sand hazard, but not for a water hazard...again...consistency?  That is the consistency and simplicity I seek and why I would like a complete overhaul of the rules.  Its fine if you disagree....no worries.

Ciao