The place to go away bunker rakes? This course designer has the definitive reply

As a seasoned golf course architect, Forrest Richardson offers loads of thought to the trivia of the sport.

Among the many subjects he has been inclined to ponder: the right placement of bunker rakes.

If Richardson had his druthers, there can be no want for him to wrestle with this matter, as a result of bunker rakes wouldn’t exist. 

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that they dumb down the sport,” Richardson says. “However they don’t make issues higher for golf.”

One disadvantage, after all, is that they get in the best way. Contemplate the incident Richardson witnessed final month whereas enjoying in an outing on the Olympic Membership in San Francisco. It was the form of factor he’s seen extra instances than he can rely. On the par-3 fifteenth gap of the Lake Course, one in every of Richardson’s companions hit a wayward shot that obtained hung up on a rake on the steep face of a green-side bunker. When the participant moved the rake, as he was entitled to do by the Guidelines of Golf, his ball stayed the place it was, leaving him with a more difficult lie than he doubtless would have had if the rake hadn’t been there. 

Was there elsewhere the rake ought to have been left as an alternative?

Because it occurs, Richardson has achieved greater than ponder this query. He has researched it, conducting a survey which may qualify as essentially the most exhaustive exploration of bunker rake-placement ever carried out. This was greater than 16 years in the past. Richardson initially printed the ends in a 2008 article in Golfdom Journal. Clearly, although, the difficulty hasn’t gone away. And after final month’s Olympic Membership outing, Richardson was impressed to recirculate the article in his on-line e-newsletter. You’ll be able to learn it in full right here. 

Meantime, right here’s a take a look at his methodology and findings.

For the survey, Richardson centered on the three commonest choices for rake placement: contained in the bunker, exterior the bunker and partially in (he selected to not contemplate extra obscure alternate options resembling subterranean rake compartments, or these long-out-of-fashion spike-shaped rakes that may be plunged into the bottom like spears, as a result of the overwhelming majority of programs don’t use them).

Richardson then canvassed guidelines officers, course operators and different trade figures, asking them to assign letter grades — A, B, C, D and F — in eight classes of concern: interference with play; ruling complexities; entry to the golfer; interference with upkeep; aesthetics; put on and tear to the rake; pace of play; and recreation traditions. These grades have been then averaged into an general grade for every of the three placement choices.

Not surprisingly, every choice confirmed totally different strengths and weaknesses. Whereas the inside-the-bunker choice obtained nice grades in “aesthetics” and “upkeep interference” (an A in each classes as a result of the rakes are largely out of view and don’t must be moved for mowing), it flunked “ruling complexities,” incomes an F for all of the funky issues that may occur, resembling balls hitting rakes within the sand and the opposite approach round.

The surface-the-bunker choice, in contrast, obtained an A in “ruling complexities” as a result of it not often creates sophisticated choices. But it surely was assigned a D in each
“upkeep interference” (the rakes get in the best way of mowing) and “recreation traditions,” as a result of, as Richardson wrote in his summation, the rake “has the potential to deflect a ball towards or away from the bunker, constituting a man-made affect to the sport that will change the end result of a match.”

There’s extra. Rather more.

Leaving rakes exterior bunkers, Richardson’s survey discovered, makes it simple for gamers to get their arms on them (a grade of B for “entry to the golfer”), however it’s arduous on the rakes themselves, as they usually wind up mendacity in moist turf (a grade of D for “put on and tear to the rake”). Not that leaving rakes contained in the bunker is a good answer both. “Not solely moist, but in addition gritty,” Richardson famous. “Grade: C.”

You get the image. The man went deep. 

When all the person grades have been tallied, the within and out of doors choice each wound up with the identical general grade: C+. The third choice, partially in, referred to within the survey because the “propped place,” fared finest throughout most classes, incomes an general grade of B+.

Together with that grade, Richardson provided steering. “On this place,” he wrote, “the rake is positioned within the bunker with the tines down and the deal with propped on the lip. Ideally, the deal with can be a foot or much less past the lip so it may be grabbed, but doesn’t place the tines too far up on steeper slopes.” On this approach, he famous, the rake has little contact with the bottom (good for longevity), is essentially out of view (good for aesthetics) and solely scant probability of interfering with a ball in play.

“There, you have got a realistic evaluation of bunker-rake positions,” Richardson wrote. “Half scientific, half physics, and half as if Olympic gymnastics judges have been accountable for the scores.”

Or a strict highschool instructor. 

Although Richardson didn’t say it, he would possibly as nicely have. Eliminating rakes altogether would doubtless be the one strategy to get an A.