How to play poorly maintained greenside bunkers with thin sand and a hard substrate?

I recently played Poppy Hills, which is one of the courses in the Pebble Beach group near Carmel, CA.  The course is pretty, with the odd deer wandering about the fairways, and the greens are tough but fair (multilevel, lots of ridges etc).  Unlike Pebble Beach or Spanish Bay, none of the holes are along the shoreline, it's all a bit inland - more like Spyglass, but the latter does have a few holes near the shore as I recall.

I would have enjoyed the round more if the bunkers had been much better maintained - in all my golfing experience (not so much compared with many here but still ....) I don't recall a worse set of bunkers.

They are planning to completely renovate the course fairly soon and I am assuming that they have let the bunkers go with little maintenance as a result.  One of the staff there told me, after the round unfortunately and while cleaning my clubs, that the bunkers are the worst aspect of the course and that they should be played as if "off of dirt".  There is only a thin layer of sand, below which is a hard, sometimes moist layer of something like dirt or clay or something.  If you play a standard bunker shot, using the bounce on a SW, you end up thinning the shot because the clubhead does NOT descend into the sand but rather just scoots laterally along the surface - disaster!  Hardly any sand is lifted up, with a wide open clubface and hitting about 4-6 inches behind the ball.  Not good.

Three questions:

1) has anyone else come across this sort of a bunker condition?  I lost quite a few strokes failing to exit these bunkers the first time, whereas  normally this just isn't an issue.  I stuck with the standard SW shot-with-bounce, probably a mistake.

2) how exactly are you supposed to play a shot from a bunker, to a pin let's say 30 or 40 ft away, if conditions are like this?  "Picking" the ball would be extremely difficult but I can't think of another way to do it.

3) would you want to play a course like this, esp. if you'd paid >$100 for the privilege.  I played as a guest of a NCGA member and got almost a 50% price break, otherwise I would have paid about $200.  Not a trivial sum.

Otherwise the course was fine if challenging - many severe doglegs with long approach shots to well-protected greens.  I shot a high number, sadly not entirely due to the bunker issue.  My driver completely deserted me - not good with tree-lined fairways, many doglegs and well-protected greens.

1. Was a member of a course that used river sand - not soft and underneath was clay.

2. I used a sand or lob wedge but did not open up the club - played it square - lots of wrist hinge and just relaxed - would take a little bit of sand, would not dig but just take a normal stroke, although that stroke might be a quarter to half swing with a smooth tempo, because if you're not taking much sand, you're imparting more energy to the ball. Typically, the follow through on this type of sand was not all the way through, but you can't be passive either. You must experiment and see how much stroke works for you.

3. I'd want to be warned of conditions beforehand.

Thanks, that is helpful.  I did try squaring the clubface on one shot, an act of sheer desperation at the time.  I increased the strength of the shot as well, which I now realize was a mistake.  The ball flew over the green and I had a chip over maybe 20ft of fringe grass to get on the dance floor.  Double bogey.

You comments make a lot of sense.  I suppose that I should practice shots like this sometime.  Would the method you describe also be useful for hitting out of very wet sand, or is that something else entirely?

Hard-packed or wet sand requires a club with less bounce.  You want to slice through without taking much bunker material with you.  A lob wedge usually has 1/2 the bounce of a regular sand wedge, so it is a good choice.  You could even open up a pitching wedge for longer shots.  But, the bottom line is that bounce is not your friend in these kinds of situations.

One of my regular courses that I play have horrible bunkers (fairway and greenside). They have a very thin layer of large grain sand (looks similar to cat litter) on top of rock hard clay. When its dry, it is very hard, like playing off of cement. If it rained recently, they are completely flooded. Still haven't quite learned to play them properly, but closing the face a little and taking a longer but smooth swing seems to work for me.

The staff should definitely warn you prior to the round if any aspect of the course is not up to their usual standards. I would expect any course over $100/round to be in excellent condition as the default, and at a $200 rate, you're entitled to expect immaculate. (Your discount doesn't affect this, they're billing themselves as a $200/round course.) I'd be pretty upset if I got out there and found bunkers like you describe---given the comments after your round, they're not like this on purpose. Bunker types and sand types vary from place to place, so hard ones aren't automatically junk, but they wouldn't be apologizing if they meant for them to be like that.

I played on a course sort of like that once, it was like a half inch of sand over a concrete floor. You couldn't play a blast at all, you just had to chip out.

I see the golf staff mentioned that their greens there aren't in the greatest shape, but bunkers are a hazard afterall and don't necessarily need to be groomed to perfection with soft, fluffy sand. I play a course that has the same makeup to the bunkers you describe, and have no plan of renovating them. That being the case, I've learned how to play from the hardpan bunkers.

All it takes are soft hands. No need to blast through the shot. Think regular bunker shot but half the energy.

You don't by any chance mean Oak Quarry, do you?

hahha, no, but now that you mention it, I do remember the bunkers there being like that! I'm talkin'bout Brookside!

Ben: yes, bunkers are a hazard and I shouldn't have landed in so many, but hazards likes this should be the subject of a warning before the round imo - a bit like greens that are being aerated.  I wouldn't mind as much if I'd been told beforehand, and might have played more conservatively to avoid them.  OTOH my play was pretty bad that day so it mightn't have made much difference.

Erik: point taken about one possible tactic.  I thought about doing that but decided it was too risky (direct ball contact leading to gross overshoot) - maybe I should have tried it.  I have hit out of my share of the bunkers at Torrey and don't have any real problem - the club gets under the sand fairly easily as long as you open the face and swing through.  I normally like greenside bunker shots, much nicer than many short chips from nasty rough around the green like at Torrey.  I'm not good at judging distance travelled out of sand but have rarely fail to get out in the last few years - until Poppy that is.

I profusely thanked the staff member after the person admitted to the problem - I then felt a teeny bit better about a very bad round of golf.  I think if I were to play this course again next week I'd do better, 1) by respecting the tree-lined fairways more (use 3W or even less off the tee on some holes), and 2) by avoiding bunkers like the plague, 3) by using another technique in the bunker - such as one of those mentioned in this thread.

If my aim had been to get bogey on each hole rather than par I'd have done better I suspect - just lay up in some cases, even on par 4's.

Zeg: you have it precisely.  I can understand why they aren't spending much money on the bunkers right now (prior to the major renovation), but how about warning people in advance?  Maybe it's hard to do that when charging the rates that they charge.  I will most certainly NOT play there again, at least not until after the renovation and when I'm sure thinngs have changed.  I like your idea about pinching it off with a a chip shot, as from hardpan.  That might have worked much better.

But still .... no excuse for a very bad round.  When you hit two or three FIRs, the wheels will come off early, esp. when the first hole is rated #1!  Uuugly ....   I actually righted the ship for a while after the first 2 holes but later the bunkers were my nemesis.  What the heck has happend to my driving ?????? Time to hit the range I guess.

Note added: it wasn't ALL bad.  I did stick a full SW from 90 yds to a couple feet on the 18th and made the putt.  Also hit some decent 3 hybrids and middle irons.  Oh well ......

Yes, I've used similar technique out of damp sand. It's a matter of getting a feel for the shot. In damp sand, I'm thinking about taking a shallow slice of sand. Erik's comments about a shallow angle of attack are spot on...

Yes, I see Erik's point.  If you try to dig in deep using a steep angle of attack bad things are likely to happen.  Shallow, with soft hands and less force, does make sense.  Even if you thin it a bit you won't go all that far long.

My response was to really POUND a few inches behind the ball with the bounce of the club using main strength (open face), which might work with a fried egg in fluffy sand but not with thin sand on top of "concrete".   I sort of knew that what I was doing wasn't going to work but frankly the round was a write-off when I started hitting bunkers and I was not in a creative frame of mind ....

No mention of the bunkers here:

http://www.cybergolf.com/golf_news/robert_trent_jones_ii_to_renovate_poppy_hills

I did notice that the dirt/clay/whatever just below the thin sand layer seemed to be somewhat wet (I dug down a bit in a couple bunkers to see what was going on), which might relate to the drainage issue mentioned in the article.  I assume that in the remodel they'll put plenty of nice sand into the bunkers and the problem will be solved.

Unless, I read the OP incorrectly (a possibility), his problem was hitting out of bunkers with a thin layer of sand over clay, which he said didn't allow the club to dig into.  In those cases, trying to use a club with a lot of bounce, even with a shallow swing, will result in the clubhead "bouncing" off the clay and skulling the ball over the green.  That's why I suggested using a club with less bounce, like a lob wedge, and trying to slice under the ball.

In any case, these types of shots require some practice to get familiar with how the club reacts to different conditions.

Firm sand is much easier to get out of than sand that's too deep and too soft.  I've taken good swings out of fluffy lies in bunkers with a lot of new sand, and on more than one occasion have looked down to see that the ball didn't move.  Plus, the fluffier the sand, the more likely your ball will be buried.

My philosophy for bunker shots is pretty simple:  every bunker shot is a tempo shot with soft hands and a very weak (i.e. knuckles on top) grip.  Hit down and through with a confident, though not necessarily "hard" strike.  The only adjustments I make are

--fluffy lies I open the face a lot; thinner lies only a little (or not at all if the ball is buried).

--If I want the ball to get up very fast, I exaggerate a very early wrist hinge and downward strike; otherwise, the angle of attack is very similar to what I would use on a 40-50 yard pitch.

I can hit a medium-high, soft shot out of thin, firm sand by using my 58* (12* bounce) wedge with the club slightly open, ball about 2 inches forward of center, using a soft, tempo swing and making sure to release the club through the ball (and down into the sand).

k-troop:  I am not talking about "firm sand" exactly, which is something I've often played out of.  I am talking about a thin layer of sand sitting on top of a very hard substrate - something like clay or hard dirt.  But your last paragraph may cover it to a certain extent - I'll try what you suggest also when I get the chance.

On the different but related subject of wet sand, also a major challenge, my best bunker shot was at Pebble Beach on one of the par 3's - about 100 yds to a green well below the tee and surrounded by rocks and the lovely beach.  I missed left into a bunker (strong wind from the right) and had about 30 ft to a short-sided pin.  It had been raining hard basically the whole round so far and the bunker was very wet (but no actual standing water).  I managed to get about 15 ft past the pin and ended up with bogey, which was a great relief on that hole I can tell you.  I think I played with an open face as usual and used extra muscle, which may not have been the right method but it sort of worked on that occasion.  I was afraid the ball would end up in the Pacific or behind a rock or something.

We don't get much practice with bunker shots under these conditions here in San Diego.