Recently, and in the past, I have heard questions about the "lips" or edges on the bunkers and why are they there. Well, lets first discuss why they are there ... every two weeks we edge and remove bermudagrass runners from the edges of the bunkers which leaves an "lip" on the bunker. We use to pull the sand back up on the edge but due to the lack of sand in the bunker this ended up causing a groove along the rake line that our members did not enjoy.
After several discussions with our Green & Golf Committees it was decided that we needed to address these grooves which inferred with the playability of the bunker. We decided to treat the edges of a bunker in the same manner that we address the the cleanup pass on the greens ... we do not rake them every day. Instead we go in rotation from pulling the edges out, then no edge raking, then pulling the edges in, and back to no edge raking. We continue this pattern all the time now and during the last Green/Golf Committee meeting the net effect was enjoyed. I should note that over the past two years quite a bit of effort has been put to reshaping and addressing these bunkers at little to no additional cost to the Club.
Back to the "lips" on the bunker again. Every attempt is made to ensure that the edge of the bunker that experiences your back swing stays flush to the turf near it. The reason for this is because if during your back swing your club strikes the bunker's edge it counts as a penalty stroke. As far as the front lip or the one closest to the green we do little to correct this lip because it is not a penalty if your ball strikes it on the way out of the bunker if you hit a "line drive" instead of lofting your ball out.
One day we will add and rebuild the bunkers but sadly that day is today. The good news is that we do rake them every day and put as much effort into them as we can to keep them attractive.
No comments:
Post a Comment