Post-COVID Bunker Rakes: Stay Away or Return?

[iacas]

18 minutes ago, Sandy Divot said:

I was using a bit of sarcasm, but I think bunkers should be raked. Most folks rarely get up and down from a well maintained bunker, so, as a penalty area, it has probably done it's intended purpose, and added a stroke to a players score. I still think, for the most part, even a poor rake job is better than an unraked footprint or old divot. I've been in footprints, and divots to where I could only advance it to a better part of the bunker.

Nobody's suggesting you just go in, leave footprints, and get out. Smooth over the area with your feet or your club.

Plus, the staff will still perform some regular maintenance.

[dennyjones]

53 minutes ago, Sandy Divot said:

I was using a bit of sarcasm, but I think bunkers should be raked. Most folks rarely get up and down from a well maintained bunker, so, as a penalty area, it has probably done it's intended purpose, and added a stroke to a players score. I still think, for the most part, even a poor rake job is better than an unraked footprint or old divot. I've been in footprints, and divots to where I could only advance it to a better part of the bunker.

An emoji goes a long way to help get your direct point across.    

Edited May 9, 2020 by dennyjones

[Bonvivant]

Just now, Sandy Divot said:

I was using a bit of sarcasm, but I think bunkers should be raked. Most folks rarely get up and down from a well maintained bunker, so, as a penalty area, it has probably done it's intended purpose, and added a stroke to a players score. I still think, for the most part, even a poor rake job is better than an unraked footprint or old divot. I've been in footprints, and divots to where I could only advance it to a better part of the bunker.

I'd say the average golfer (not on TST but in the wild), doesn't get up and down all that often when they are off the green at all with a wedge or some kind of bump and run (putter off the green up and downs are more often). It should be worth a second stroke, I say. Greenside bunker should be worth 4-5 shots to an average player (100 on par 72), and 3-4 shots guaranteed to low-mid to high-mid cappers. I don't think that a bunker is a place you should be able to get out of with relative ease and scrape a net bogey no problem.

To me laying on similar, well manicured bunkers all the time is easier than playing on a grained grass or varying grass types. It shouldn't be this way. An unknown bunker should not be easier than an unknown rough or green. With modern manicured bunkers, you can learn one type of shot (for greenside) and put yourself in a place to make a two putt or maybe a one putt. With more natural, or at least not consistently maintained bunkers, you don't know what you'll get. Most of the time you are in the same place as the well manicured bunker (if the bunkers are at least checked for quality every once in a while), but when you aren't you may pay the price of hitting it to a hazard.

Last point: lots of people don't know how to rake properly as is, and would probably do better with their foot anyway. If you land in a bunker where it hasn't been raked with direction of play in mind, you could be in a pretty sick groove that may be worse than a foot-smoothed bunker.

[NJpatbee]

Bring the rakes back.  Most people use them where I play and the bunkers were designed with rakes in mind.  I see no reason to make the game more difficult.  

 

 

[DrvFrShow]

If you're not going to have rakes to maintain them and play like crap in the afternoon, treat them like native sandy areas where you get to ground your club, take practice swings and gouge the sand without penalty. Otherwise, leave the rakes there. 

 

[billchao]

I hit into a couple of bunkers today and they were fine where my ball ended up. I had some funky lies outside of bunkers that couldn't be improved (divot hole in greenside rough, bare spot between two tufts of grass on a downhill lie under a tree), so I'm starting to think the argument about needing rakes get rid of bad lies in bunkers is bogus.

I did notice that some people don't even bother smoothing out their footprints where they dug in or where their club blasted the sand out. Makes me wonder if they would have even bothered raking if there were rakes. I've seen that often enough to know that not having rakes was probably not the reason they weren't cleaned up.

[sjduffers]

I'd be ok with no rakes, I think, but I see one major area that would need addressing: steep-faced sides or front faces of light and fluffy sand that give perhaps 2 or 3 ft down when you walk on them, even if the player enters from the back (and not steep) area, as they should. Think having to deal with a plugged lie in a very steep face with fluffy sand, say a one or two feet below the lip.

When taking one's stance you could truly create a gigantic mess that is pretty hard to smooth out, even with a rake. I don't see how you would do that with just feet or a club head.

[Shindig]

I like this idea.

The fact that I haven't hit balls outside lately (and some rust as far as course planning goes) has lead to me being in more bunkers than usual the past two rounds.  In both cases, no rakes were available, I did the foot smoothing after hitting ... and had a lot better sand shots than I usually do, despite obviously not practicing them (I suspect the improved grip gets a lot of the credit, but I'm not sure why).