Magazine - Bunker Tips

By Rob Jenkins in Golf on 14th Dec 2008 6:40

Bunkers, the vein of many a life, the Golfer for obvious reasons, but also spare a thought for the Greenkeeper for the amazing amount of maintenance required to keep a little hole in the ground filled with sand.
There is a lot more to a bunker than meets the eye.

Golfers hate to land in a bunker and will find the slightest fault from it. Be it not enough sand, too much sand, rocks in the sand, the ball sticking up the bunker wall or landing in footprints in the sand. All these effects can result in the golfer blaming his lack of skill with these tricky shots onto to the helpless Greenkeeper. Is this fair? Well to a degree it can be, bunkers can be one of the forgotten tasks on a golf course. Why? Because they’re a lot of work for what some Greenkeepers think shows back minimal results. A golfer will always notice, and compliment nicely cut and striped fairways, for example, but rarely make a comment on a well-maintained bunker. Yet a golfer will always complain first about a poorly maintained bunker.

Notice the bunker on the right of the text it has a few faults. Fluffy edgers on the lip which can result in a ball becoming lodged in, and also excess sand on the face; this is the most common problem which is not always the Greenkeepers fault. Many bunkers are poorly constructed resulting in excess sand needed to give the bunker a rounded smooth looking face. Most of the time excess sand can simply be pushed to the bottom of the face and spread evenly over the playing service. A bunker face is designed simply to catch a ball and run it into the bunker; it is not designed to hit off, but too often golfers will find themselves hitting off a poorly maintained face.

The Bunker on the left has a lovely lip that goes straight down with no tuffs of grass or long runners trailing down the face, its face is smooth, firm and round allowing the ball access into the fluffy sand at the bottom. It is more or less a perfect pot bunker. Also notice the sand the bottom, this can also be a bone of contention among golfers. Too much sand can bury a ball and choke the club when swinging, the same with too little sand it can cause the club to vibrate and the ball to fly. What is just the right amount of sand then? A general rule can be between 2 or 3 inches of sand but this can vary a huge amount depending on the bunker construction.

Some bunkers have a meshing under the sand to prevent stones from working their way into the sand, some have nothing but clay on the bottom and some lucky enough have sand profile that’s naturally in the ground. Either way if you push down on a poker, you don’t want to be going any deeper than 2 inches before you have to put force on the poker. The bunker rake can also cause problems. Some courses have new boxes outside the bunker that are built into the ground and these house a rake, if not, the general rule is place the rake at the start of the bunker base with the handle facing at the tea.

Now golfers are not blame free, not by a long shot, lots of golfers have no bunker etiquette; for god sake don’t walk up faces when exiting, rake your foot prints after you use it, don’t push sand into small mountains and up a face and leave the rake in the correct manner as just explained!

Read more articles in Golf, by Rob Jenkins or from December 2008.