How should Bunkers be raked by Greenstaff and Fellow Competitors?

After having a very miserable weekend on the Golf Course brought on mainly by those pesky holes filled to some and varying extents with sand. I feel I need to get the answer to the topic question.

I'm not a great player from the sand. I'll admit many times I'm in a bunker I don't know where the ball is going to go when it comes out. However I am good enough to not make the mistake of leaving the ball in the sand. Or I thought I was until this weekend.

Playing our club Championships on four holes (2 each round) I encountered Greenside Bunkers. All had same features, high steep vertical faces, bit of an over hanging lip. So anything shooting or into the face wasn't getting out. So you had to get the ball airbourne from the sand. Now to my amazement, each bunker had been raked presumably by the greenstaff before the rounds so as the sand leading into the bunker continued on a downward slope right to the foot of the face. Meaning on every shot you had a downslope lie. Now on normal ground I know the ball launches very low of a downslope. Having it in a bunker, made me wonder how the ball is supposed to get airbourne.

Sure enough on three of the holes I left the balls in the bunker numerous times before having to take my medicine and play out backwards towards the tee. Carded a 7 on a Par 3, an 8 on a Par 3 and a 12 on a Par 4 as a result of this. Completely ruined both my rounds.

The other bunker I had problems with recording a 6 on again a greenside bunker on a Par 3, had been visited before me by a fellow competitor in one of the groups ahead and they'd decided not to bother raking their great heffing hoof prints. So in this bunker not only did I have the downslope lie to contend with but also getting out of a deep footprint.

I am nowhere near being an expert on bunkers, Chris, especially those arpound the green.

I have no trouble from fairway bunkers but those pesky ones round the green are what I avoid like the plague, with the added consequence that, as I do not get in them very often, that I am not very good out of them.

Having a handicap that means I do not have to make that many pars means I can usually take the greenside bunkers out of play.

Chris welcome to the world of shite golf you are not alone most bunkers play with you taking the ball off the top of  the sand as oppossed to exploding in out ,modern golf i'm afraid.

I am sorry to say but that is what is happening at many Clubs today. Some of the Green Staff don't understand Golf. Also the people who end up as Greens Chairmen don't really understand how to look after a course, but enjoy telling the Greenkeeper what to do.

The number of courses I have played where the Sprinklers around the Greens are set at 90* spray, so the Greens are soft and the surrounds are like concrete.

TheLyth

Music to my ears Lyth ,you have hit the nail on the head , you also have the problem were the the greenstaff don't play golf and have no  concept as to where  the holes   should be or  set out or the tee box's!

Anyone read the question?

I have Sanders, and it's not only the raking of bunkers that is a problem, hence the comments.

Bunkers were designed so that the sand stuck on the 'face' and then all that was needed was to rake it back into the base. A bunker should always be raked Face to back so a ball should always run into the bottom.

Now you ask the question why isn't it done this way? The answer is that the Greenstaff are not taught it and the Greens Chairman doesn't know that it should be done this way.

On modern US style courses the bunkers don't have Faces and are built to be tendered by machine.

Christopher discribes a bunker where the bottom is raked towards the back and the Face left alone, hence the slope.

TheLyth 

Ivan,

No offence, just that some Threads on here can end up on another Planet, never mind another County.

TheLyth

Is the flag left or right?

TheLyth

https://www.bestcourseforgolf.org/content/greenkeepers/course_set_up/guidelines/bunkers

from the R&A , 100mm sand from bottom of bunker throughout seems to be the message