To depart a rake inside or exterior a bunker? That’s the query
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As a seasoned golf course architect, Forrest Richardson offers quite a lot of thought to the trivialities 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 could 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, in fact, is that they get in the best way. Take into account the incident Richardson witnessed final month whereas taking part in in an outing on the Olympic Membership in San Francisco. It was the sort 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 received 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 tougher lie than he doubtless would have had if the rake hadn’t been there.
Was there someplace else the rake ought to have been left as a substitute?
Because it occurs, Richardson has achieved greater than ponder this query. He has researched it, conducting a survey which may qualify as probably the most exhaustive exploration of bunker rake-placement ever carried out. This was greater than 16 years in the past. Richardson initially revealed the leads to a 2008 article in Golfdom Journal. Clearly, although, the problem hasn’t gone away. And after final month’s Olympic Membership outing, Richardson was impressed to recirculate the article in his on-line publication. You may learn it in full right here.
Meantime, right here’s a have 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 think about extra obscure options equivalent to 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 business 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 possibility confirmed totally different strengths and weaknesses. Whereas the inside-the-bunker possibility received 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 need to be moved for mowing), it flunked “ruling complexities,” incomes an F for all of the funky issues that may occur, equivalent to balls hitting rakes within the sand and the opposite manner round.
The skin-the-bunker possibility, against this, received an A in “ruling complexities” as a result of it not often creates sophisticated selections. 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 result of a match.”
There’s extra. Far more.
Leaving rakes exterior bunkers, Richardson’s survey discovered, makes it straightforward for gamers to get their fingers on them (a grade of B for “entry to the golfer”), nevertheless it’s onerous on the rakes themselves, as they typically 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 superb resolution both. “Not solely moist, but additionally 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 possibility each wound up with the identical general grade: C+. The third possibility, partially in, referred to within the survey because the “propped place,” fared greatest throughout most classes, incomes an general grade of B+.
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Together with that grade, Richardson supplied 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 will likely 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 manner, he famous, the rake has little contact with the bottom (good for longevity), is essentially out of view (good for aesthetics) and solely scant likelihood of interfering with a ball in play.
“There, you will have a realistic evaluation of bunker-rake positions,” Richardson wrote. “Half scientific, half physics, and half as if Olympic gymnastics judges have been in control of the scores.”
Or a strict highschool trainer.
Although Richardson didn’t say it, he may as nicely have. Eliminating rakes altogether would doubtless be the one method to get an A.
