One of the impediments for new people coming to the game is how difficult it is. With the average handicap just south of 18, do we really want to make golf harder?
Lou, I feel certain that if bunkers were less well tended, you would be among the first to adapt and give them their due. No way it would cost you two shots a round, except maybe at places like Winged Foot with greens pinched by bunkers on every hole.
Aren't you usually in favor of keeping the game difficult and not pandering to weaker players? Why the concern trolling here? It's the same with John Kavanaugh, the tune suddenly changes when a change is proposed that would require a change to your own approach.
I do understand that this discussion is purely hypothetical. We didn't put bunkers out at Barnbougle when it opened and that experiment lasted maybe a month -- and only because it took that long to get rakes to Tasmania once the complaints started!
I have watched clubs where I consult spend ridiculous amounts of money putting perfect sand in the bunkers to make them play easier and "reduce maintenance costs" [while they spend 5-10x as much on bunker maintenance now as they did 20 years ago]. Luckily it helps to keep my employees well fed and hopefully able to send their kids to college, but it would be nice if we were making those courses more interesting, instead.
The issue, I think, is making the present C-19 motivated bunker maintenance practices permanent. From my standpoint, the variety of bunker construction, sand, and normal maintenance practices is so great that what might work at one place relatively well (shallow bunkers with firm sand and an attentive player base) would change the game considerably elsewhere.
For example, my home course has over 50 large, mostly deep bunkers with few shallow entry points and filled with large varieties and quantities of cheap sand. I think that the bunkers are presently raked by machine once a week, and perhaps spot raked manually another time. It is nearly impossible to foot or club rake with adequate results.
As an experiment on Wednesday I played all bunker shots as the ball lied. I was in five green-side bunkers from which I took seven strokes to get out (twice it took two shots). I got it up and down once. I hit one fairways bunker where in trying to dig the ball out, it ended up near a creek with an impossible pitch to the green (into a green-side bunker where it took two sand shots to get on the green- my second ending 3' from the hole as my sole up and down).
Yes, I would learn to adapt, but if I, a self-proclaimed reasonably good bunker player has such problems, how much fun can a 15 have with C-19 bunker maintenance? I find it odd that some folks believe that tougher lies make it harder for the good player and to a lesser degree for the high handicapper.
Funny that you mention Winged Foot. Many years ago I played Bethpage Black from the accessible back tees one afternoon and but for the last hole I would have broken 80. Next morning we went off the West at WF, second set of tees, hit the ball reasonably well and didn't break 90. Had a hard time reconciling that both courses were designed by the same architect (and I do know of the controversy about who really designed Bethpage).
No, I am not a proponent of designing golf courses that only the top 1% can play. Though I don't think that a course can serve the needs or desires of all players, I do believe that it is an aspirational goal. I do enjoy playing a demanding course like the Black.
I would go back to WF where I do have some access, but would much prefer playing Friar's Head and Fishers where I don't. Both times I've been to Bethpage it was a zoo with near fights breaking out between guys from the walk up list in my groups, once with the starter, the second time on the Red with a group of detectives and police in front of us who took exception to the young man asking them if we could play through. I don't think I've been to NY since!
My position on what people choose to do with their money is different than yours. What constitutes interest to you is probably similar to mine, but I suspect not reflective of the mainstream of golfers. I do think that more clubs are cognizant of maintenance costs, but if they have the type of clientele with the expectation and willingness to pay for a different level of conditioning, who am I to object? Do you not believe that the Augusta National Syndrome is highly exaggerated? The vast majority of the clubs I visit- 40 to 50 in some years- don't even try to pretend. Despite efforts by the USGA and the magazines, irrigation and possibly drainage appear to be bigger problems than expensive bunker liner systems and sand (for which there are good data supporting the economic value).
Having been introduced to golf on mom-and-pop rudimentary courses with no bunkers, I was blown away with the bunkering at the OSU's courses. They were not MacKenzian in style, but the impression was made. I appreciate great bunkers even or maybe especially on parkland courses. It does not usually take great effort or time to return the lie and disturbed area to an acceptable condition with a relatively inexpensive rake. I don't see this as an issue of consequence to the game.