Bunker Shots.........Easy or Difficult?

First topic message reminder :

After MPB's extracting the urine about my comment on The Fear thread I thought I would do a scientific poll which will prove my point.
State your handicap after comment.

Me
Easy -14

Greenside - easy
Fairway - only easy if I'm not overly greedy on the length needed.

16

I think my scientific poll has proved that bunker shots simples.

Oh yes Doon irrefutable scientific proof that once you have the technique right bunker shots are simple.
Just like the rest of the game

I'm pretty confident in getting the ball out of a greenside bunker, getting it close depends on where the pin is and the lie. Conditioning on the course left a lot to be desired; I remember one shot I had recently which was in a deer hoof print, it was almost like a fried egg. The pin was on the top tier close to the edge and I managed to get the ball onto the right level. I was quite proud of that but still missed the putt

Our fairway bunkers are just as great too, this year the sand was replaced but conditioning not so great. Stepping in some you almost waded to the ball and hoped you would still be upright when you started your downswing. I normally have a reasonable contact and can advance the ball close to where I want it.

Handicap 10

I'd like to throw a spanner in the works of your scientific data doon and change my statement.

Based on this sundays performance I worked out bunkers cost me about 5 shots.....

So Compacted sand to the point a JCB would've been needed to extract ball - hard

Maybe Doon needs to factor ideal conditions and non ideal conditions into his theory

1GrumpyGolfer wrote:Maybe Doon needs to factor ideal conditions and non ideal conditions into his theory

Good point....

Doon new equation for working out bunker play, need to factor in types of sand... e.g. totally drenched..

How many people saying easy get up and down 2 out of 3? Getting out, easy. Up and down every time (surely easy) hard.

My head is hurting

Out of interest, what is the most people have taken to get out of a bunker?

I've taken 7 blows to get out of a nasty deep,little number on a par 3 on the New Course. Unfortunately it was a Club Champs qualifier.

I couldn't go forward, back or to either side, should have taken a penalty drop, but you always think the next one will see you out.
Hamlet cigar time.

Think my worst has been 3 shots. There have been times in stableford comps though where I've given up after 3!

Interesting... Most taken to get out of a bunker...

I remember taking 5 to get out of a pot bunker once when I should have just played out backwards then pitched onto the green... That was at Knowle park about 13 years ago.

3 - front left bunker on the 12th at Birkdale. After 2 fruitless attempts I aimed at an angle to at least get on the front right part of the green. In my defence, I could just see the top of the flag.

super_realist wrote:Out of interest, what is the most people have taken to get out of a bunker?

I've taken 7 blows to get out of a nasty deep,little number on a par 3 on the New Course. Unfortunately it was a Club Champs qualifier.

I couldn't go forward, back or to either side, should have taken a penalty drop, but you always think the next one will see you out.
Hamlet cigar time.

I might be wrong as I'm no rules expert but I'm pretty sure you can't take a drop out of a bunker. Think you can take a drop to a different place in the bunker but not out of it. I'm guessing during the seven shots you probably used pretty much every part of the bunker anyway.

No, you can't drop it out of the bunker, but you can take an unplayable within it and move it back for a penalty shot.

Can't you go back and replay from the original position under penalty of stroke and distance?

i don't think so, once you are in a hazard I don't think you can move it out.

so do you keep hacking when you put your ball in the lake?
you can always replaqy from previous spot as far as i am aware

I think bunkers are different Hendo, in a water hazard you can play from the point of entry, I don't think you can do that in a bunker.

SpacemanSpiff wrote:How many people saying easy get up and down 2 out of 3? Getting out, easy. Up and down every time (surely easy) hard.

Ah Spaceman - but then I have to rely on my very flakey putting. So getting out of bunkers easy - holing out hard!

I certainly had the hamlet cigar moment about 10 years ago at Grand Cypress in Florida. Went into one of the greenside bunkers on the first hole. Lost count in all honesty, tried forwards, backwards, sideways. Went back to where I put it into the bunker and played from there.

What made it worse was that I had the missus with me and I had been trying to get her to take up the game. Didn't matter that I parred 7 out of the next 8 for the rest of that 9 she was never taking the game up.

Looking back, it obviously wasn't my fault but the super game improvement big bertha SW monstrosity that I was trying to use.

I was once 2 under thru 8 holes at my old course and playing brilliantly, had missed so many other makeable chances for birdie.

Then put it in the green side trap at 9, in two, five swipes later including hitting myself with the ball in the process after it hit the lip, meant an NR that occured a few holes later wasnt that surprising.

Bit like SR
I think it was 6 but could have been 7.
Caught in the corner or a fiercely revetted bunker on the 7th of Belleisle in a medal. They have since redesigned the bunker!
After 3 shots it becomes a 'man challenge' thing.

I think it was then that I decided to give up competitive golf.

Sand wrote:I was once 2 under thru 8 holes at my old course and playing brilliantly, had missed so many other makeable chances for birdie.

Then put it in the green side trap at 9, in two, five swipes later including hitting myself with the ball in the process after it hit the lip, meant an NR that occured a few holes later wasnt that surprising.

dude you remind me of my mate- not a bad bunker player really but he could a mind freeze on them recently and did almost exactly what you did

however funny name to call your self

Davie wrote:Can't you go back and replay from the original position under penalty of stroke and distance?

Davie - that's correct. One of the options when you have declared a ball unplayable is to go back to where you played your last shot from. It doesn't matter whether you are in a bunker or not. The only place where you cannot declare a ball unplayable is when it is in a water hazard. (Rule 28 clause a)

But surely once you've starting whacking and hacking and slicing and dicing at it you don't have that option. Never really thought about this too much I think red mist descends as Doon notes and you keep going. Can you use one of the different options such as back along the line of the pin to get out instead?

Handicap - 7

Away from hope - easy
At Home - moderate

We have crap sand in our bunkers (I'm on the Greens committee & raise it every meeting - it doesn't half upset everyone )

Good bunker sand is quite expensive and clubs will always try to cut corners and buy inferior sand.
The pro's/ low handicappers like to have the sand shallow, firm and consistant wheras the club golfers seem to want it to be soft and 'fluffy'.

At my old course some bunkers would fill with water after rain, and the ruling was, you could take a free drop out of the water, but still in the bunker, but at times the bunker was full of water, so you had to take a penalty drop out of the bunker no nearer the flag.

Wet hard sand is always very hard to play out of, I just try and play as a normal chip shot

Easy ... with the caveat that that is not say I haven't made a complete 'horlicks' on occasion.

Anyone ever played out of bunkers made of crushed marble? Lovely stuff.

gaelgowfer wrote:Easy ... with the caveat that that is not say I haven't made a complete 'horlicks' on occasion.

Anyone ever played out of bunkers made of crushed marble? Lovely stuff.

No I haven't but I have played out of ones made from crushed down recycled glass. They gave a very silvery green(well you get the idea of the colour) hue to them, but they were magnificent to play from

So that's where the empties end up!

The clubhead went through the crushed marble like a knife through butter. Sounds like your crushed glass would have given you a similar experience.

Spot on Gael it was so fine you barely felt the club glide through the sand.

From what I was told by the club's pro it was actually cheaper to buy in than the sand most clubs buy in to use in their bunkers, problem is not many places sold the stuff.

Maverick wrote:No I haven't but I have played out of ones made from crushed down recycled glass. They gave a very silvery green(well you get the idea of the colour) hue to them, but they were magnificent to play from

Ditto and completely agree
Sutton Green have this stuff in their bunkers and as well as looking nice in the sun, the club goes through it so smoothly. I guess the glass stuff is lighter than sand, particulalry slightly wet sand.
The main advantage i think is that the recycled glass doesn't clump together so you get a consistent lie throughout all the bunkers, and that can only be good

Not sure if I would want crushed glass blowing into my eyes.

Joking apart......... I have been told that the problem with crushed glass in bunkers is that it blows away too easily. Not sure if that is the case or not.
I suppose glass is sand so it should not make any difference.

MustPuttBetter wrote:
Sutton Green have this stuff in their bunkers

I hadn't realised that.

I was in a bunker when playing the 7th (albeit one of the 8th greenside ones) and it didn't register with me.

I suppose crushed glass has got to be better than some of the courses thsts have Jewson's building sand in them. With stones the size of fists in amongst it.

Doon, it's not quite as fine as sand so doesn't really seem to blow up and around your face, or i'd guess blow away but who knows!

Merc, yep definitely
Incidentally (and off topic sorry), did you take part in the night golf at your place on Friday? I did, came 3rd

Super, sand with rocks in?? That's shocking! And really cheap!

Don't recall any issues with sand up around the face or blowing away, actually seemed in all ways better than regular sand.

SR. I've played those Jewson courses. I remember about 5 or 6 years ago, playing a course in north kent (will remain nameless), was in the car park putting my shoes on for a courtesy round on a wednesday morning, whilst pulling the clubs out of the car a BATS builders merchant truck pulled up and offloaded what must've been a good tonne or more of sand. On the way round could see the green keepers piling the stuff into bunkers.

When I returned to the course on the Sunday for league match it was raining, and the builders sand was unplayable, you were better off playing a chip and run out of them with an 8 iron.

I was disappointed to have missed this, even more so as you were playing, but I'd organised a Poker Night at my place in advance of the announcement and it took so long to organise that I didn't want to reschedule.

I played in the first Night Golf event at Cranleigh a few years back and really enjoyed it.

When you say you finished 3rd do you mean your team finished 3rd? I thought they were team events.

I would have been more interested in the poker night, where was my invite to that??

It was a team event. My team were 3rd, according to the pro in charge. I say my team - i was drafted in last minute only to find out that two of our 4 pulled out so that left just two of us. There was no spare players so we had to go out as a two and hit two shots each as it was Texas scramble.
Was actually a really good laugh and I played surprisingly well considering it was dark! We were 3 over gross between us

I might suggest it at my club

Apologies for the O/T continuation, but I'd be interested to hear some soundbites about Cranleigh (CCGC I mean) from Merc / MPB. I've noticed they have a winter warmer type thing on, which I presume is aimed at visitors - something like £25 per head for fourball round of golf and lunch. Quite tempted to try out with a few friends, seeing as I visit that part of the world every now and again anyway.

I note in their Blurb that they say that they are Surrey's top golf course.
Is it really better than Walton Heath, Sunningdale, Wentworth etc.
[or are they just a bunch of liars.]

For winter golf in that area I would pop down to Puttenham GC.

I think it actually says 'surrey's finest golf and country club' but don't they all say something like that?
It makes me laugh when the Foxhills advert comes on the radio. Nice course but 'the home of golf in surrey' it is not!

Skydriver, Merc's a member so will be able to offer more than me but I've played it twice and have found it enjoyable both times. Not overly long. Narrow-ish fairways. Reasonably priced. Worth a go for sure

gaelgowfer wrote:Easy ... with the caveat that that is not say I haven't made a complete 'horlicks' on occasion.

Anyone ever played out of bunkers made of crushed marble? Lovely stuff.

It's great in good weather and impossible in the winter.....