Tour bunkers

[avrag]

[quote name='Emthree' timestamp='1439041430' post='12100512']
Remember what you see on tv are the guys on their game that day and networks showing the best shots. Go to any tournament in person and youll see 10 fatted/clip the bank shots for every 1 perfect shot.
[/quote]

Agreed. We didn't see too much of Troy Merritt in the first two rounds of the Bridgestone on TV, and I bet we won't see much of Matt Every's third round either.

[teejaywhy]

People who play golf for a living should have no input whatsoever on our game and how it's played. A clear conflict of interest.

[putting_fore_dough]

[quote name='laguna79' timestamp='1438992488' post='12098470']
My personal pet pev, People who complain about bunkers not being consistent, "It's a hazard" !
Do we complain about the consistency of water hazards ? No

Bunkers are meant to be a hazard, if they don't cost a you shot more regularly than not what is there point ?
[/quote]

Most bunkers on the tour are not hazards. They are perfect and every pro would prefer a bunker over 3" rough any day.

[nochct1]

These are always my favorite threads. PGA Tour players hit great bunker shots because they are the best golfers in the world. They don't hit great shots because of the bunkers.
They all played junior golf, many played college golf and many of them played the mini tours. They have encountered bad bunkers and they still played great golf. They were still the best among their peers.

[PJ72]

There seems to be a consistent theme on regular courses having no sand in them. Well, I disagree.

There is plenty of sand in them. It is just in the wrong parts of the bunker. The sand is distributed more on the steep faces of the bunker than at the bottom in the middle.

When a player plays a shot out of them, they rake the bunker from the middle to the outside, usually to smooth over their footprints after exiting the bunker. This removes sand from the lowest point of the bunker and moves it up the steep faces, where the ball doesn't rest.

Green keepers do this also. They need educating on how to properly rake a bunker. A poor, flexible, plastic rake makes for an ineffective tool for the job - sometimes the sand needs to be 'pushed' towards the low point, but the rake bends too much.

So, why not spend a few minutes in one of your course bunkers and rake all the sand from the steep faces into the centre of the bunker? Really makes a big difference. Pity that this doesn't get taught to green keepers. I mean, it's common sense, no?

[Chazb]

The only thing that gets me is when they show instruction on hitting out of a bunker it is not on a course that a lot of amateurs play out of with crusty sand where there is usually only a inch of sand with hardpan dirt underneath.

[PGArox]

While I agree that TOUR bunkers could be a bit more penal, you also have to remember that these great golfers play a course for only four days a year, leaving the members and other visitors to deal with those bunkers for the other 350+ days.

Are places like Firestone expected to spend tons of cash making their bunkers scary for Jordan Spieth, but unenjoyable for their guests? Fine line, folks.

[Neige]

[quote name='PJ72' timestamp='1439069163' post='12102148']
There seems to be a consistent theme on regular courses having no sand in them. Well, I disagree.

There is plenty of sand in them. It is just in the wrong parts of the bunker. The sand is distributed more on the steep faces of the bunker than at the bottom in the middle.

When a player plays a shot out of them, they rake the bunker from the middle to the outside, usually to smooth over their footprints after exiting the bunker. This removes sand from the lowest point of the bunker and moves it up the steep faces, where the ball doesn't rest.

Green keepers do this also. They need educating on how to properly rake a bunker. A poor, flexible, plastic rake makes for an ineffective tool for the job - sometimes the sand needs to be 'pushed' towards the low point, but the rake bends too much.

So, why not spend a few minutes in one of your course bunkers and rake all the sand from the steep faces into the centre of the bunker? Really makes a big difference. Pity that this doesn't get taught to green keepers. I mean, it's common sense, no?
[/quote]
I would, but I disagree with you. Montreal courses have less sand near edges.

[PJ72]

[quote name='Neige' timestamp='1439069803' post='12102194']
[quote name='PJ72' timestamp='1439069163' post='12102148']
There seems to be a consistent theme on regular courses having no sand in them. Well, I disagree.

There is plenty of sand in them. It is just in the wrong parts of the bunker. The sand is distributed more on the steep faces of the bunker than at the bottom in the middle.

When a player plays a shot out of them, they rake the bunker from the middle to the outside, usually to smooth over their footprints after exiting the bunker. This removes sand from the lowest point of the bunker and moves it up the steep faces, where the ball doesn't rest.

Green keepers do this also. They need educating on how to properly rake a bunker. A poor, flexible, plastic rake makes for an ineffective tool for the job - sometimes the sand needs to be 'pushed' towards the low point, but the rake bends too much.

So, why not spend a few minutes in one of your course bunkers and rake all the sand from the steep faces into the centre of the bunker? Really makes a big difference. Pity that this doesn't get taught to green keepers. I mean, it's common sense, no?
[/quote]
I would, but I disagree with you. Montreal courses have less sand near edges.
[/quote]

Ok, fair enough. Obviously your bunkers are different than the typical ones found in UK.

Get your course to buy some sand. It ain't expensive really. You only need quarter tonne per bunker to make a difference. One large load (20T) would do 80 bunkers!

Phone up a local concrete supplier. They get this stuff in by the ship load. They can give you prices and supplier details.

[ssp]

[quote name='PGArox' timestamp='1439069502' post='12102168']
While I agree that TOUR bunkers could be a bit more penal, you also have to remember that these great golfers play a course for only four days a year, leaving the members and other visitors to deal with those bunkers for the other 350+ days.

Are places like Firestone expected to spend tons of cash making their bunkers scary for Jordan Spieth, but unenjoyable for their guests? Fine line, folks.
[/quote]Understood ... but I think there is logic in a way to make the same bunker a bit harder. Special rakes or something to make them less than perfect seems like an easy approach. Not sure of the answer - but they are not hazards currently. The numbers prove it.

[PGArox]

[quote name='ssp' timestamp='1439073850' post='12102438']
[quote name='PGArox' timestamp='1439069502' post='12102168']
While I agree that TOUR bunkers could be a bit more penal, you also have to remember that these great golfers play a course for only four days a year, leaving the members and other visitors to deal with those bunkers for the other 350+ days.

Are places like Firestone expected to spend tons of cash making their bunkers scary for Jordan Spieth, but unenjoyable for their guests? Fine line, folks.
[/quote]

Understood ... but I think there is logic in a way to make the same bunker a bit harder. Special rakes or something to make them less than perfect seems like an easy approach. Not sure of the answer - but they are not hazards currently. The numbers prove it.
[/quote]

Much of this depends on the mindset of the course's membership, paying customers and course operators.

Take a place like Oakmont, for example. The membership at Oakmont take great pride in knowing their course is one of the toughest in the nation, and they wouldn't have it any other way.

Here in Los Angeles, the serious golfing membership at famed and fabled Riviera have demanded an adherence to architect George C. Thomas' design legacy, which includes some of the most beautiful and penal bunkering in golf.

[IHFN]

I'm pretty sure the truth lies inbetween the two hard sides on this. I constantly play in bunkers where they haven't been raked by the club in months. The rain just mats the sand down and you basically play it as if it's off soft-pan. If you are in a raked area, it's because someone else hit before you.

The key to bunker play is knowing the depth and how fine or coarse the grit of the sand is. If you gave the pro's enough time playing on the crap traps that most of us play, they would play them better than we do. That's a given.

However, there is a 0.0% chance they would play them as well as what they do the traps on the tour. It's just impossible. On our courses, there is no consistency where the PGA courses are all about consistency. On the courses I play, it's almost impossible to get the club completely underneath the ball in the sand trap. To tight pins, it's a guessing game. If you hit it good, it's luck. You could hit 5 balls from the same area and get 5 different results from 5 swings that were exactly the same.

So yes the pro's would do better than we would do, but they wouldn't do as well as their own standards on the public bunkers.

[bladehunter]

truth that surpasses all this conjecture is that if you practice it even a little bit and have reasonably good hands a bunker shot is far easier than deep rough greenside... That's from any lie... even the dreaded fried egg...

[Lodestone]

I seem to recall that during last winter's Bay Hill, there was talk about how Arnie had replaced all of the bunker sand with the PGA approved type of sand that is specifically chosen because the ball doesn't nestle into it. That was the first I'd heard of such a thing.

At the muni I play the sand is all over the lot. We have a few local rules regarding sand play:
1. You may reach down and pick up and remove the big rocks. ( I think our sand comes from a construction company).
2. We don't play "lift, rake and place", but I heard the high school coaches telling their players prior to a match that they could do so.
3. If you are in an unraked footprint you may nudge it out to a raked area nearby (good luck finding one)...

Our sand is all over the spectrum from hard baked like a sandy cart path, to fluffy. My brother lost a ball the other night in a steep faced bunker where we are certain the ball landed, and got covered up by cascading sand.
I do better with the firm stuff than the fluffy stuff. When I play in Florida I generally really struggle with the fluffy white sand.

[Parker0065]

There's no disagreement that Tour Courses are setup more difficult than most could handle, but they really do get pampered and a huge advantage when it comes to bunkers. The fact that the PGA Tour has a set standard that courses have to adhere to when preparing the bunkers for a tour event means the bunkers, for the most part, play very consistent week after week. It's much easier to have success and become really good from bunkers when conditions are that consistent from course to course.

The bottom line is regardless if you play a local muni, or a posh country club, bunkers are by far the most neglected part of the golf course when it comes to maintenance. At my home course they have this motorized rake-thingy they attach to one of the mowers and run it through the bunkers. When they do that the bunkers are like near tour quality perfect for a couple weeks. Unfortunately they only bother to do this a few times a year and over time the bunkers begin to get rock hard again.
I played a local course last year that is considered one of the nicer ones in our area and holds a Symetra Tour event every year. When I played it that particular day the bunkers were basically lightly sanded concrete! On one particular hole I had a 40 foot bunker shot downhill to the hole. I putted the ball out of the bunker to two feet and saved par. Goofiest bunker shot I've ever hit but it was the correct play from those concrete bunkers, and I didn't have to hit it hard at all to get it out. It was like putting a ball down a cart path, lol!
I would love to see Tour Players play out of those things. I've played that same course in the past a day or two after the Symetra Tour event and the bunkers were absolutely perfect!!!! Go Figure!

[ssp]

Looks like I may get my wish at Whistling Straights based on the feedback Tiger had in press conference yesterday.

Sounds like Bunkers will be a challenge and be a 'Hazard'.

[DTXgolfer12]

[quote name='ssp' timestamp='1438986146' post='12097972']
anybody else getting tired of the pro's playing out of perfect bunkers and knocking it 3 inches all day long?

I know I am exaggerating a bit but I think they could offset all this length they have by making the green side bunkers much tougher.

Just an observation.
[/quote]

Depends on the course and the type of sand. I played Chamber's bay after the open and i thought the bunkers were extremely easy to hit out of on full shots and bunker shots. I really liked those bunkers.

However I have also played on some PGA courses where they have that "florida style" super fine white powder sand. I hate that stuff. That, to me, is the hardest stuff to play out of. The amazing thing about tour guys is they get up and down from all of it. You can put them in a muddy clay bunker and they'll still have a putt for par

[buckeyefl]

Now you hush! Talk like that will interrupt the pity party and the fringe that thinks " if only I had conditions like that..." who should spend more time practicing and less whining.

[golfdad907]

True story, I'll never forget.

Back in late 80s when the then Western Open moved from Butler National (we don't allow women in our club and don't need your money PGA Tour, so take your tourney elsewhere) to Cog Hill # 4.

They pulled all the white 'sugar' sand, where it was more than possible, in some bunkers probable, you'd lose your ball, and replaced with perfect 1.5" darker sand. Impossible to get a fried egg, plug in a steep face, etc.

Side note, they literally also steam rolled the fairways the weeks before the tournament.

[nichho]

[quote name='J - Mo' timestamp='1439005601' post='12099542']
Didn't Jack use special rakes for a tourney or two that made the sand much more of a hazard? Seems the ball would plug much more and the pros hated it if my memory is correct. I think they were only used during the tournament rounds.
[/quote]

It was the Memorial a few years ago. He used a rake with v shaped tynes that left a grooved surface. The Pro's hated it, whined like babies and Jack gave it up under protest.

[joey2aces]

It's not a wonder why you hear pros yell,"Get in the bunker" if they see their shot missing the green..... How do you suggest they make them harder?

[joey2aces]

[quote name='bladehunter' timestamp='1439091230' post='12103710']
truth that surpasses all this conjecture is that if you practice it even a little bit and have reasonably good hands a bunker shot is far easier than deep rough greenside... That's from any lie... even the dreaded fried egg...
[/quote]
I used to be good at bunker shots... now I don't have the time to practice them... I don't like them any longer

[ssp]

[quote name='nichho' timestamp='1439408072' post='12125056']
[quote name='J - Mo' timestamp='1439005601' post='12099542']
Didn't Jack use special rakes for a tourney or two that made the sand much more of a hazard? Seems the ball would plug much more and the pros hated it if my memory is correct. I think they were only used during the tournament rounds.
[/quote]

It was the Memorial a few years ago. He used a rake with v shaped tynes that left a grooved surface. The Pro's hated it, whined like babies and Jack gave it up under protest.
[/quote]Here....

[color=#708090][size=5][b]Furrowed Bunkers?[/b][/size][/color]

[color=#708090][size=3][b]Is the USGA missing an opportunity at Oakmont?[/b][/size][/color]

By Jack Nicklaus with Jaime Diaz
Golf Digest
June 2007

I wonder how seriously the USGA considered furrowing the bunkers at Oakmont for this year's U.S. Open? This might sound extreme, but it could be a little less radical than, for example, stretching the par-3 eighth hole to 300 yards.

When I won the Open at Oakmont in 1962, only the greenside bunkers were furrowed, by heavy wooden rakes with the tines spread inches apart (at the 1927, 1935 and 1953 Opens at Oakmont, the fairway bunkers were furrowed as well). The only shot you could play was a semi-explosion that carried little or no spin and had to be judged to roll out to the hole. I can tell you that every player in the field wanted to stay out of those bunkers.

With the exception of the British Open, that hasn't been the case in professional golf for too long. Bunkers are hazards, and there's supposed to be a penalty for hitting your ball into them. But the meticulous maintenance of bunkers for tournament play has made just about every lie in the sand a good one. The result is that players manage their games much differently than years ago. If they're going to miss, they often will choose to miss in a greenside bunker. And when standing on a tee with driver in hand, players have no fear of bunkers, thus they have no hesitation to aim close to a bunker.

Ironically, the Memorial Tournament was a leader in this trend. It started to gall me that players came to Muirfield Village thinking, Gee, the sand here is the same as the fairway. We reacted by constantly deepening bunkers, but it cost a fortune and reduced the fun of the course for our members. It was crazy.

Before last year's Memorial, my experience at Oakmont became the inspiration for a simple solution. Rather than taking things to the original extreme, we had rakes created that produced furrows just under two inches in width. They didn't force pitch-outs from fairway bunkers, but they definitely limited clean contact. Greenside shots had less spin, requiring more creativity and skill. Several of the better players told me it was a good move, but many others complained. One said to my son Jackie, "If Jack's going to do that to the bunkers, he ought to cut the rough. We've got no place left to hit it." Jackie said it all when he replied, "How about the fairways and the greens?"

In the end, our furrows didn't make much difference. The field averaged 44 percent in getting up and down from the sand, slightly down from the tour average of 49 percent in 2006 (players averaged 47 percent at the Memorial in 2005, when the bunkers weren't furrowed). But it was telling that the winner last year, Carl Pettersson, hit into only one bunker all week. We intend to furrow our bunkers again this year, but we'll be using rakes that produce slightly narrower, consistent and less deep furrows.

I hope the USGA changes its mind and furrows Oakmont's bunkers, so that players will try to avoid them as much as they do the heavy Open rough. In recent years, the USGA has been using fluffier sand to make lies more difficult. I agree in principle, but such sand causes more fried eggs and buried lies. Furrows are more consistent.

Oakmont's bunkers are an opportunity for the USGA. At the moment, looking back is the best way for the game to go forward.

2007 thread.

[url="http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/93065-furrowed-bunkers/page__p__580133#entry580133"]http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/93065-furrowed-bunkers/page__p__580133#entry580133[/url]

[ssp]

This small sample says 3 - 5% harder. That is a start in my book.

[buckeyefl]

[quote name='joey2aces' timestamp='1439408350' post='12125084']
[quote name='bladehunter' timestamp='1439091230' post='12103710']
truth that surpasses all this conjecture is that if you practice it even a little bit and have reasonably good hands a bunker shot is far easier than deep rough greenside... That's from any lie... even the dreaded fried egg...
[/quote]
I used to be good at bunker shots... now I don't have the time to practice them... I don't like them any longer
[/quote]

Once you have the technique what more do you need to practice to be a better than average bunker player? If you can get it out and on you are way ahead of the game. Of course I love to practice short game so I feel your pain.

[playa]

Peter Thompson has in the past advocated removing rakes from bunkers during championships. His argument is that bunkers are supposed to be penal and avoided, not aimed for like many pros do on par 5s to set up an easy birdie.

[ballneverlistens]

I'm always amazed at how pristine the PGA/LPGA bunkers look. Trying to hit out of my local muni bunkers is like trying to hit a flop shot off of concrete. I've resigned myself to just playing the ball back in my stance and use a regular chipping motion. Hit the ball first, then the "sand." Works fine if the lip isn't too high. Tough as hell to control distance though.

[One_Putt_Blunder]

Played a highly ranked local track here, with myself 2 index, former gateway tour player +2 and aspiring mini tour player also in the +2 range. Im not comparing ourselves to PGA players by any means, just listing indexes for reference. Bunkers were so bad we looked like 20 index players coming out of them. Sand so thin and firm clay base combined with high face bunkers means almost zero chance for par unless you drain a bomb or chip in because your ball rolled off the green.

Go to TPC Stadium a month later 2/3 sand saves with the longest putt being 10 feet. The comparison between the two is night and day. So much easier to control trajectory and spin out of the "tour sand" compared to the usual desert hard pack.

[RSinSG]

[quote name='llamont' timestamp='1438987238' post='12098042']
I'd like to see' em play from the dirt/gravel/hard-packed drought-ridden SoCal muni bunks that I'm accustomed to playing from ;-)
[/quote]

And dodging sprinklers too. Don't forget that part of muni play.

[ssp]

[quote name='ssp' timestamp='1439391059' post='12123358']
Looks like I may get my wish at Whistling Straights based on the feedback Tiger had in press conference yesterday.

Sounds like Bunkers will be a challenge and be a 'Hazard'.
[/quote] This sounds like a hazard.

[url="http://www.golfdigest.com/blogs/the-loop/2015/08/rickie-fowler-takes-four-shots.html"]http://www.golfdigest.com/blogs/the-loop/2015/08/rickie-fowler-takes-four-shots.html[/url]