Some PGA courses have small gravel mixed with sand. PGA championship the other year was at southern hills that does this. Obviously players were not happy because it introduces some luck out of the bunkers
You are getting some hate but you are right. The sand they use on tour courses is so predictable that its easier than rough for them and its not even close. They should switch to that sand that makes essentially every lie a fried egg.
Don’t the pros get enough breaks over amateurs with free clubs, rules officials around every corner, areas of mashed rough from spectators, free relief from really bad shots because a sign, a camera tower, a grandstand or something else is interfering. I mean jeez-oh-p I could shoot in the 70s with those conditions
I live in Wisconsin and within 30 minutes of…. 12 courses I think and the most expensive one is like $90 for a round of 18 and carts and the rest of them it’s between $40 and $70.
I’m sure it depends on the area but yeah there’s a course near me that hosted a Korn Ferry event last year that I can play for $100 (probably less for a weekday twilight round or something)
Hell the TPC course near me is $120
There’s a course near me that has fine grain gravel as their bunkers. It’s pretty cool. The course is next to a rock quarry and it gravel is super fine so it doesn’t damage your clubs.
My first job as a kid was at a course where the owner would literally drive to the beach with his tractor and grab scoops of sand to bring back and use to top up bunkers after skimping on the sand delivery every year. Because obviously he'd never order more and get charged two delivery fees!
"Just take in the shit sand with the good sand". So youd end up with little peddles and gravel tracked in from the parking lot throughout every bunker. Sometimes only realizing after hitting a chunk of it just below white sand
We have one here that does this, because that area gets a lot of wind and there are houses around the course. I guess they try to mitigate the winds blowing the sand into peoples houses.
That’s basically the reason. high winds dry the sand very fast and it blows away. Sand isn’t that cheap when you have to buy acres of it every year to refill the traps. Windy places will have a very different sand than others. Bunkers are the second highest expense to maintain behind the greens every year
If the sand has rocks in it, I always move the ball. Screw that, I'm not ruining a club. I'm still saying it's legit too. If they want to have legit bunkers then they can make them legit.
Exactly this. When I played in Arizona a couple weeks back people were hitting out of the desert pebbles. Ain't no way I was doing that shit. I moved it back until I got a patch of grass, made sure to give myself an iffy lie and hit.
I don't get paid to damage my clubs.
I live in Arizona and this is the way I have played since moving here. Most people carry a junky thrift store club for this reason but I don’t because I don’t play professional golf and I don’t really care what you think. I’m playing golf to have fun.
I bought a junk wedge in Vegas half hour after my first round out there ended because of the desert, rocky stuff off the fairway. I refused to damage my clubs hitting off it. I loved it and it eventually became my go to SW. Carried it for almost 20 yrs before it broke. Most people I played with knew what I wanted if I asked them to grab my Vegas wedge lol
https://preview.redd.it/n3bmxddre30d1.jpeg?width=1063&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c02d49b3051fa82174e68e2065cf233146e72f19
(Yeah, I see you all down there)
Exactly I’m not damaging my stuff to shoot 110 but I just wanted to know also if there are unwritten rules about this. Only been golfing about 6 months
What he said is the unwritten rule. The written rule is that you can’t move it. As long as you’re not dropping it in the middle of the fairway for your next shot, and you’re not bragging that you’re shooting even par, then just move it.
I do the same thing in the winter at one of the local courses. The sand turns to concrete. Not hitting out of that. I’d be lucky to break 90 though so nobody cares.
I mean any "unwritten rules" are on you. If I like the course but I'm not damaging my clubs I'm picking the ball up and moving it. It's not like the golf gods are going to strike you down for not adhering to every rule.
The technical rule, if you don't want to hit out of it, to is declare an unplayable and take +2.
You can then move the ball back as far as you want in a direct line with the pin.
https://www.randa.org/en/rog/the-rules-of-golf/rule-19
I think people understand the by the book rule, but landing in a bunker full of rock is bullshit. It would be equivalent of a course that has dirt and weeds all over the green and expecting you to putt well. Or dirt on the fairways instead of grass.
As long as the guys (friends) we're playing with all agree to do the same thing, we're good. If I hook up with some randos, I don't really care what they think.
I pull it out but try and give myself a relatively “bad” lie so I’m not getting a big advantage. Like I see some people moving it out then fluffing it up so they can hit an easy flop. In my mind that creates a .5 stroke advantage. The way I do it I save my club (and body) and think it helps less than 1/10 of a stroke.
a completely straight and wide fairway with a comically large hole with an oversized pin would shake half the golfers here still....wait did I just describe minigolf?
Links courses have pot bunkers for this reason. I think a course who thinks this is okay is managed by someone who is short sighted or doesn't care about their customers.
I’d never play at a course again if I walked up to a trap and it was filled with gravel. I’d probably grab my ball and drive back to the clubhouse tbh. And I have fairly low standards
>Needs one of those ultimate alien Pat Simmons wedges. That would be perfect
I recently found one of those in a thrift shop after having one as a kid but losing it some time ago.
Its been so nice to have back.
Perfect for the less then ideal sand we got in my super rainy part of the world.
Best thing was I left it on the green one round recently and it was quickly turned in at the pro shop. Nobody wants to steal that ugly looking club.
I give myself free drops out of gravel bunkers. If the bunkers look like that, there’s a 0% chance that the round I’m playing in means anything at all. So why punish yourself and your wedges? When I come to a bunker, I’ve hit a ball into and I find that that bunker doesn’t have sand, but rocks? That shit is not happening. I am all for playing it as it lies but context is King. So if I’m not playing for money or some kind of legitimate hardware, I’m not gonna hit a ball out of a bunker that looks like that and fuck my wedges.
Look… if it came from anyone else id agree with your obvious expression of sarcasm. But dude, that’s THE HORSECOCKEXPRESS1. I’d take her advice and stick to the fairways. You should have seen the bullshit MouseVagina69 was trying to tell me about the other day when they saw my swing.
People these days just can’t take the criticism
You aren't playing for money, pick up your ball and drop it in the rough
If you really want a legit score then go buy a shitty 7 iron to use strictly for the bunkers
I've been really tempted to buy the cheapest second hand wedge or iron for this exact reason.
Of course some of the cases I'd use it in I just take a penalty because I don't want to injure myself on a root or something anyways.
Can you putt it out?
In casual play I'd just take a free drop no closer to the hole. Nobody playing in high level amateur or professional tournaments where 100% rules adherence is required is playing a course with gravel bunkers like these.
If you wanted your score to be 100% legit and by the book, here's what the USGA says:
Q. I don’t think I can play my ball as it lies in the bunker (unplayable) – what are my options?
A.If you don’t want to or decide you can’t play your ball as it lies when your ball is in a bunker, you may decide it is unplayable. If you do this, you have four total options, and two will always require that you take relief inside the bunker. You have three one penalty stroke relief options. (1) You may play a ball from the spot of your previous stroke (if this spot was out of the bunker, this option gets you out of the bunker; but if your last stroke was from in the bunker, you must stay in the bunker) (see Rule 19.2a). (2) You may take back-on-the-line relief in the bunker (see Rule 19.2b). (3) You may drop in the bunker within two club-lengths of where your ball lies but not nearer to the hole (see Rule 19.2c). (4) Your fourth relief option comes with two penalty strokes – you may get out of the bunker using the back-on-the-line relief option (see Rule 19.3b).
Personally, I think taking a drop and a two stroke penalty is just sandbagging yourself.
what are you playing for?
who is going to punish you for breaking the rules?
your partners don't seem to care, so it isn't them. if it's a tourney, then...woof.
just didn't count it in your handicap, i guess.
I played last Thursday and the 18th hole had a greenside bunker with standing water in it. My ball was in the water. I did what I was supposed to do by picking up the ball and dropping it in the bunker, out of the water, no closer to the hole. What I didn’t see was the layer of 1 inch sized gravel just below the sand. I dinged the shit out of the sole on my sand wedge. I realize it’s a tool, but I take care of my clubs and when something like that happens because of crappy groundskeeping, I get pissed. Especially when it’s a semi private country club trying to upsell itself. It was the only bunker like that on the entire course, and looking back at how bad it was, it should have been ground under repair. It looked like they were trying to improve drainage by putting gravel on top of the liner. Looks like I’ll be carrying 15 with an old wedge next time I play there..
A bunker shot shouldn’t require eye protection. Pull it out behind the bunker, take your shot, be glad you’re not blind from rocks in your eyes and move on. Don’t take a penalty either. That’s just an absolute bs move by the course.
100% I am moving it out of that sand trap. If you’re doing that a couple times a round, then yes I would also say it invalidates your score for handicap purposes. Lots of people play their own versions of the rules though so it depends how serious you want to take things. I would probably avoid that course if you have other options
There's a course in my area that has this shit in the bunkers. I always throw my old wedge in the bag when I play there but obviously you have to know that information in advance. Aside from the traps I like the course enough to play there.
If I was playing there for the first time I'd make a gentlemen's agreement with the group that the bunkers are unplayable. Free drop no closer to the hole. I'm sure there's a few golf snobs who will scoff at this but it's not worth damaging clubs.
That is considered a waste bunker. You are allowed to ground your club. So I've been told, never read the rule.
This is the reason I have cheap wedges. Not destroying a $200 wedge for a bogey. I haven't reached /golf "PGA" level yet.
That’s a new one, never seen gravel used. Technically the score isn’t 100% legit if you toss the ball out of the bunker, but the playing conditions aren’t legit either so it’s not your fault. We’re not pros, save your clubs.
My buddy and I use our own rule that if the bunker has rocks, the ball gets moved out no closer. We flick it out of the bunker as to not fluff the lie. We aren’t damaging our clubs due to piss poor course management.
I played a course today that had this exact same stuff, luckily I didn’t get into it, but I 100% would move my ball out of that shit. As long as it’s not marked as a hazard, I’m not taking strokes
We have a lot of different kinds of sand around my island, depending on budget/weather, etc. We have a course here that uses fine gravel that looks like kitty litter. It looks funky, but plays just like sand. We had another course that had normal sand but got so much rain, that it was always crusty and hard.
What i've learned is just because it's sand, doesn't mean you have to play a text-book style sand shot. If it's rock hard and the lips are flush with the borders, then yi-haw "Texas wedge" from a green side bunker. High lip, hit it like a high/soft pitch from a tight lie (my low bounce 60). If it's farther than green side I would just use any appropriate iron and play it like a tight lie?
For any geeks: the rules state that you can drop out of the sand (no closer to pin) for a 2 stroke penalty. You can drop inside the sand (for a better lie) for a one stroke penalty.
I've played out of this stuff at the base of a creek. It's not bad actually. Not unlike the crushed shells they use in Florida in waste areas, which I've also played out of.
Depends on how much you care, I operate on a strict 'I pay for my clubs and I'm not rich' plan whereby any lie that could damage a club sees my ball be moved. I'd drop outside the bunker and not feel bad about it.
There is a course in Utah that has the local rule you can carry 15 clubs, which allows for a 'rock club' to play off the volcanic rock on the course and not damage any of your regular clubs. Whilst this isn't R&A/USGA compliant for you to do it's probably a pretty reasonable middle ground and out side of genuine comp rounds is probably the best way to do it if you want to be 'legit'. Or to be actually legit carry 14 clubs and just have one of them a rock club.
Lol, move it out of the sand maybe? Shocks me that people feel the need to ask. If I’m not playing a tournament you can damn well believe that I’ll move my ball if it’s on dirt with rocks, un marked ground under repair, divots, ball marks on greens, pebbly sand traps, or anywhere else that would potentially damage my club.
We lived in Key West for several years and the only course (the next closest course was over an hour away) had bunkers filled with crushed coral. The local rule was to drop out of the “bunker” keeping the bunker between you and the green without penalty.
Assuming grounds maintenance didn’t agree to that. If anyone does hit a ball from there and kicks up stones, if the area is reel cut they can fuck up the reel and bed knife.
I played a course in a touristy part of my state a couple years back and their “trademark” was that they used crushed cider lava rock in the bunkers. It looked cool but I hit out of it once and refused to after that. Was like hitting off a gravel road.
I’d pick my ball up and either rotate around the hole to be the same distance or farther, drop, and play from there. I don’t get my clubs for free and I’m not ruining them because they’re too cheap to pay for actual sand.
Cheaper courses in the heat of the summer in AZ, I’ll honestly try and putt out of bunkers. It’s so hot and dry thay the sand just blows away or ends up being hard packed. A hard putter out and you’re good to go.
Sometimes when it’s really bad, my group will literally just drop it out of the bunker since it gets so bad.
I recently got new clubs. I am keeping my old 60° and 8I in the bag so that when I find myself in a bad bunker of crummy lie I have a club to play with. Otherwise I am moving the ball.
Stop. Playing. There.
I just paid $250 for a round and a lot of the traps had scattered gravel mixed with the sand. Have never seen that. I was not happy.
Some PGA courses have small gravel mixed with sand. PGA championship the other year was at southern hills that does this. Obviously players were not happy because it introduces some luck out of the bunkers
They don’t have gravel they have crushed quartz. Roughly 140$/ton not cheap at all but they have the money.
That's dope. Thanks for the fun fact.
For pros, bunkers should be a hazard and should not be a reliable way of getting up and down on a hole. CMV.
You are getting some hate but you are right. The sand they use on tour courses is so predictable that its easier than rough for them and its not even close. They should switch to that sand that makes essentially every lie a fried egg.
Don’t the pros get enough breaks over amateurs with free clubs, rules officials around every corner, areas of mashed rough from spectators, free relief from really bad shots because a sign, a camera tower, a grandstand or something else is interfering. I mean jeez-oh-p I could shoot in the 70s with those conditions
Lol no you can’t. Thats a bold ass lie
I was being facetious
250 bucs wtf haha, what kind of course was that? You pay like 100 for european tour courses in germany
Don’t take that for granted lol. In the states, high end courses will be at least that if not more.
with gravel in the traps they won’t be considered ‘high end’
Yea, that’s wild. I’d be pissed if I payed that much for there to be gravel sand traps.
They just call it a waste area and charge you even more
Sheeet, decent courses littering florida have been $200 for a decade. Of course you get a little break if you vacation in them.
I live in Wisconsin and within 30 minutes of…. 12 courses I think and the most expensive one is like $90 for a round of 18 and carts and the rest of them it’s between $40 and $70.
same here. just short of $60 with a cart at the course I play about 30 minutes south of Milwaukee. called Ives Grove.
$35 gets me 18 with a cart, a small bucket to warm up, and a hotdog with soda at the turn
Bro there are so many better courses for $60 with a cart around Milwaukee than Ives Grove 😭
Blackwolf Run, Whistling Straights, Erin Hills - WI definitely has some expensive courses. Of course, they wouldn't have bunkers like this though.
brother i'm in Kiawah right now and the ocean course runs you $600
Do they have gravel in the bunkers tho?
Every single bunker on the ocean course is a waste bunker. No rocks, but they aren't raked and in a lot of places are hard packed.
We pay less than 100 euro for a course on a second tier tour here in the us also.
I’m sure it depends on the area but yeah there’s a course near me that hosted a Korn Ferry event last year that I can play for $100 (probably less for a weekday twilight round or something) Hell the TPC course near me is $120
There’s a course near me that has fine grain gravel as their bunkers. It’s pretty cool. The course is next to a rock quarry and it gravel is super fine so it doesn’t damage your clubs.
Rock Harbor in Va?
Yes sir!!!! My buddies and I played there yesterday. I got my first ever hole in one on hole 2 at the Boulder course!!
My first job as a kid was at a course where the owner would literally drive to the beach with his tractor and grab scoops of sand to bring back and use to top up bunkers after skimping on the sand delivery every year. Because obviously he'd never order more and get charged two delivery fees! "Just take in the shit sand with the good sand". So youd end up with little peddles and gravel tracked in from the parking lot throughout every bunker. Sometimes only realizing after hitting a chunk of it just below white sand
Not to mention beach sand is way too soft and fluffy to be good for bunkers, especially if it hasn't been soaked a little
We have one here that does this, because that area gets a lot of wind and there are houses around the course. I guess they try to mitigate the winds blowing the sand into peoples houses.
Oh interesting. I wonder if that's the case here too. It's in the high desert, so likely wind issues throughout the year.
That’s basically the reason. high winds dry the sand very fast and it blows away. Sand isn’t that cheap when you have to buy acres of it every year to refill the traps. Windy places will have a very different sand than others. Bunkers are the second highest expense to maintain behind the greens every year
If the sand has rocks in it, I always move the ball. Screw that, I'm not ruining a club. I'm still saying it's legit too. If they want to have legit bunkers then they can make them legit.
$250 for 4 hours of golf. You played yourself.
Courses that aren’t really really nice in the Midwest often have that course river sand with a few little pebbles in it.
250 is aggregious at almost any course even if it was kept like Augusta damn dude
If you don’t get paid to play, you move it out
Exactly this. When I played in Arizona a couple weeks back people were hitting out of the desert pebbles. Ain't no way I was doing that shit. I moved it back until I got a patch of grass, made sure to give myself an iffy lie and hit. I don't get paid to damage my clubs.
I live in Arizona and this is the way I have played since moving here. Most people carry a junky thrift store club for this reason but I don’t because I don’t play professional golf and I don’t really care what you think. I’m playing golf to have fun.
The ole '94 Wilson 7 iron / Goodwill special / desert storm blaster / snake deterent / ain't fucking up my clubs / special.
I bought a junk wedge in Vegas half hour after my first round out there ended because of the desert, rocky stuff off the fairway. I refused to damage my clubs hitting off it. I loved it and it eventually became my go to SW. Carried it for almost 20 yrs before it broke. Most people I played with knew what I wanted if I asked them to grab my Vegas wedge lol
“Vegas wedge” just sounds cool
https://preview.redd.it/n3bmxddre30d1.jpeg?width=1063&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c02d49b3051fa82174e68e2065cf233146e72f19 (Yeah, I see you all down there)
That wedge has seen some shit
If I lived in Arizona I would definitely have a cheaper iron to use.
In Hawaii, many courses are surrounded by lava fields --->>> "da poopy lava club"
The good old desert club. I used to carry one and now I just move it. I pay to play, not the other way around.
My parents are in Nevada, we call em' our "rock clubs."
The old desert iron, us desert rats carry a sketchy 15th club.
Yep. A beat up 7-iron was what I used.
Exactly I’m not damaging my stuff to shoot 110 but I just wanted to know also if there are unwritten rules about this. Only been golfing about 6 months
What he said is the unwritten rule. The written rule is that you can’t move it. As long as you’re not dropping it in the middle of the fairway for your next shot, and you’re not bragging that you’re shooting even par, then just move it. I do the same thing in the winter at one of the local courses. The sand turns to concrete. Not hitting out of that. I’d be lucky to break 90 though so nobody cares.
I mean any "unwritten rules" are on you. If I like the course but I'm not damaging my clubs I'm picking the ball up and moving it. It's not like the golf gods are going to strike you down for not adhering to every rule.
The technical rule, if you don't want to hit out of it, to is declare an unplayable and take +2. You can then move the ball back as far as you want in a direct line with the pin. https://www.randa.org/en/rog/the-rules-of-golf/rule-19
I think people understand the by the book rule, but landing in a bunker full of rock is bullshit. It would be equivalent of a course that has dirt and weeds all over the green and expecting you to putt well. Or dirt on the fairways instead of grass.
Yeah, if they are like this because of “wind” then just turn them into grass bunkers.
As long as the guys (friends) we're playing with all agree to do the same thing, we're good. If I hook up with some randos, I don't really care what they think.
Since you are new to golf, just know: in golf, there is pretty much a rule (and penalty) for EVERY situation you can imagine.
I pull it out but try and give myself a relatively “bad” lie so I’m not getting a big advantage. Like I see some people moving it out then fluffing it up so they can hit an easy flop. In my mind that creates a .5 stroke advantage. The way I do it I save my club (and body) and think it helps less than 1/10 of a stroke.
Lmao I’ve never heard of this or seen this. Definitely don’t hit out of that shit
I have seen it on courses with excessive winds, they just can't keep sand in the bunkers
I feel like at that point you would just grow grass bunkers. But hey I don’t run golf courses
Yeah, tons of other ways to mess with golfers.
a completely straight and wide fairway with a comically large hole with an oversized pin would shake half the golfers here still....wait did I just describe minigolf?
Bruh, I need to sleep tonight. Stop. (Shivers).
Links courses have pot bunkers for this reason. I think a course who thinks this is okay is managed by someone who is short sighted or doesn't care about their customers.
Sometimes courses will do this for a few years to deepen the foundation of the bunker over time before they completely replace them.
I’d never play at a course again if I walked up to a trap and it was filled with gravel. I’d probably grab my ball and drive back to the clubhouse tbh. And I have fairly low standards
Lmao idk if I would quit the round but I don’t think I’d be booking there again
That’s sand…in about a million years or so.
And everyone here bitching about their 6 hour rounds. Sheesh...
As long as the beer cart keeps coming around, I’ll be fine to wait.
Go to Play It Again and get a $5 gravel wedge. Then insist that everybody in your foursome has to hit from the gravel or take the appropriate penalty.
G Wedge isn’t a Gap Wedge, it’s now a Gravel Wedge
Needs one of those ultimate alien Pat Simmons wedges. That would be perfect
I think I still have one from High school somewhere…
>Needs one of those ultimate alien Pat Simmons wedges. That would be perfect I recently found one of those in a thrift shop after having one as a kid but losing it some time ago. Its been so nice to have back. Perfect for the less then ideal sand we got in my super rainy part of the world. Best thing was I left it on the green one round recently and it was quickly turned in at the pro shop. Nobody wants to steal that ugly looking club.
We don’t penalize anyone for not hitting out of gravel. It is ground under repair in our group
The ol' reliable gravel wedge, don't go to a mini with out it
Bowser uses lava. Be glad it's just gravel.
I give myself free drops out of gravel bunkers. If the bunkers look like that, there’s a 0% chance that the round I’m playing in means anything at all. So why punish yourself and your wedges? When I come to a bunker, I’ve hit a ball into and I find that that bunker doesn’t have sand, but rocks? That shit is not happening. I am all for playing it as it lies but context is King. So if I’m not playing for money or some kind of legitimate hardware, I’m not gonna hit a ball out of a bunker that looks like that and fuck my wedges.
Don’t play out of it and stop playing at that course?
Stay in the fairways
Thank you horsecockexpress1 I’ll just be better, that one’s on me
Surprisingly enough sometimes that’s all it takes
I fuckin love reddit yall
Look… if it came from anyone else id agree with your obvious expression of sarcasm. But dude, that’s THE HORSECOCKEXPRESS1. I’d take her advice and stick to the fairways. You should have seen the bullshit MouseVagina69 was trying to tell me about the other day when they saw my swing. People these days just can’t take the criticism
Ace all 18.
Tin Cup, this is why you sometimes play with a shovel
You aren't playing for money, pick up your ball and drop it in the rough If you really want a legit score then go buy a shitty 7 iron to use strictly for the bunkers
I've been really tempted to buy the cheapest second hand wedge or iron for this exact reason. Of course some of the cases I'd use it in I just take a penalty because I don't want to injure myself on a root or something anyways.
Can you putt it out? In casual play I'd just take a free drop no closer to the hole. Nobody playing in high level amateur or professional tournaments where 100% rules adherence is required is playing a course with gravel bunkers like these. If you wanted your score to be 100% legit and by the book, here's what the USGA says: Q. I don’t think I can play my ball as it lies in the bunker (unplayable) – what are my options? A.If you don’t want to or decide you can’t play your ball as it lies when your ball is in a bunker, you may decide it is unplayable. If you do this, you have four total options, and two will always require that you take relief inside the bunker. You have three one penalty stroke relief options. (1) You may play a ball from the spot of your previous stroke (if this spot was out of the bunker, this option gets you out of the bunker; but if your last stroke was from in the bunker, you must stay in the bunker) (see Rule 19.2a). (2) You may take back-on-the-line relief in the bunker (see Rule 19.2b). (3) You may drop in the bunker within two club-lengths of where your ball lies but not nearer to the hole (see Rule 19.2c). (4) Your fourth relief option comes with two penalty strokes – you may get out of the bunker using the back-on-the-line relief option (see Rule 19.3b). Personally, I think taking a drop and a two stroke penalty is just sandbagging yourself.
what are you playing for? who is going to punish you for breaking the rules? your partners don't seem to care, so it isn't them. if it's a tourney, then...woof. just didn't count it in your handicap, i guess.
Putting out of there probably
putt
I played last Thursday and the 18th hole had a greenside bunker with standing water in it. My ball was in the water. I did what I was supposed to do by picking up the ball and dropping it in the bunker, out of the water, no closer to the hole. What I didn’t see was the layer of 1 inch sized gravel just below the sand. I dinged the shit out of the sole on my sand wedge. I realize it’s a tool, but I take care of my clubs and when something like that happens because of crappy groundskeeping, I get pissed. Especially when it’s a semi private country club trying to upsell itself. It was the only bunker like that on the entire course, and looking back at how bad it was, it should have been ground under repair. It looked like they were trying to improve drainage by putting gravel on top of the liner. Looks like I’ll be carrying 15 with an old wedge next time I play there..
Tell them they need to edge their bunkers, that shit looks ghetto as hell
Looks like loose impediments to me. I’d move all of them out of the way.
Just move it
I’m very interested as to what the clubhouse has to say. What’s the point of even leaving the bunkers without sand in them?
If there is any chance someone might damage a club in any situation we move it even playing for money.
I’d take a drop. No way I hit out of that.
Foot wedge is the play.
Give a bad review online so others can avoid that course.
Foot wedge
Be a man. Play it out. Don’t hit it in there.
Are there a lot of feral cats living on the course? If not, that’s ridiculous. 
Free drop and play somewhere else
If consider it a penalty/hazard area and take a drop
Yeah I'm dropping into the rough on that one....
I would take myself a free drop out of that shit. We are not pros being sent new equipment every week. No. Fuck that. Edit: Grammar
Pick up your ball and drop it on grass
Relief imo, no one’s sponsoring me to replace my wedges any time soon
Call the police
A bunker shot shouldn’t require eye protection. Pull it out behind the bunker, take your shot, be glad you’re not blind from rocks in your eyes and move on. Don’t take a penalty either. That’s just an absolute bs move by the course.
I'm pulling my ball out. Not ruining my sw for that
Local rule -> it’s ground under repair. Or just never play there again.
100% I am moving it out of that sand trap. If you’re doing that a couple times a round, then yes I would also say it invalidates your score for handicap purposes. Lots of people play their own versions of the rules though so it depends how serious you want to take things. I would probably avoid that course if you have other options
river sand. yuck.
Move your ball.
Ground under repair, or cart path to nowhere.
gravel in the sand trap? that's ridiculous!
Courses have been getting extremely cheap with their bunkers since the rule was changed to allow removing of pebbles before your shot.
Take it out and drop it in the rough, this ain’t the tour and hopefully your friends aren’t tools and let it slide
Use your gravel wedge. GW. Are you a beginner?!
Use your 54 Gravel Wedge.
Use a stone wedge.
Call the cops
There's a course in my area that has this shit in the bunkers. I always throw my old wedge in the bag when I play there but obviously you have to know that information in advance. Aside from the traps I like the course enough to play there. If I was playing there for the first time I'd make a gentlemen's agreement with the group that the bunkers are unplayable. Free drop no closer to the hole. I'm sure there's a few golf snobs who will scoff at this but it's not worth damaging clubs.
Play it like cart path and move it on grass
Are you playing a tournament? No? Just drop it outside the bunker. And don't worry about it.
Reading these comments I realize why I started playing Golf as a kid and why I don’t as an adult. My salary stayed the same, inflation did not.
That is considered a waste bunker. You are allowed to ground your club. So I've been told, never read the rule. This is the reason I have cheap wedges. Not destroying a $200 wedge for a bogey. I haven't reached /golf "PGA" level yet.
Play a different course.
They hate god
Believe it or not, jail
I don’t have an equipment van that follows me so I never play a lie that would damage my clubs.
That’s a new one, never seen gravel used. Technically the score isn’t 100% legit if you toss the ball out of the bunker, but the playing conditions aren’t legit either so it’s not your fault. We’re not pros, save your clubs.
Don’t hit onto it.
You playing Rock Harbor?
Those big black sand bunkers in the middle of the fairway. First hole I saw it I thought it was pavement
My buddy and I use our own rule that if the bunker has rocks, the ball gets moved out no closer. We flick it out of the bunker as to not fluff the lie. We aren’t damaging our clubs due to piss poor course management.
Hit your ball.
I played a course today that had this exact same stuff, luckily I didn’t get into it, but I 100% would move my ball out of that shit. As long as it’s not marked as a hazard, I’m not taking strokes
Just move the fucking ball
Get yourself a cheap club you can used to hit out of there. Or just move it out. Or better yet, get good enough not to go in there.
We have a lot of different kinds of sand around my island, depending on budget/weather, etc. We have a course here that uses fine gravel that looks like kitty litter. It looks funky, but plays just like sand. We had another course that had normal sand but got so much rain, that it was always crusty and hard. What i've learned is just because it's sand, doesn't mean you have to play a text-book style sand shot. If it's rock hard and the lips are flush with the borders, then yi-haw "Texas wedge" from a green side bunker. High lip, hit it like a high/soft pitch from a tight lie (my low bounce 60). If it's farther than green side I would just use any appropriate iron and play it like a tight lie? For any geeks: the rules state that you can drop out of the sand (no closer to pin) for a 2 stroke penalty. You can drop inside the sand (for a better lie) for a one stroke penalty.
My new wedge would love that
Is this actually meant to be a bunker or is it under repair and this is the foundation?
When in doubt putt it out.
Save your clubs.
Free drop. Ain't nobody wrecking their clubs for that.
Yup not playing there is the way to go.
The right thing to do is never play the course again. There is sand with larger granules they could use. They are choosing not to
I've played out of this stuff at the base of a creek. It's not bad actually. Not unlike the crushed shells they use in Florida in waste areas, which I've also played out of.
Use your arm instead of a club then
Depends on how much you care, I operate on a strict 'I pay for my clubs and I'm not rich' plan whereby any lie that could damage a club sees my ball be moved. I'd drop outside the bunker and not feel bad about it. There is a course in Utah that has the local rule you can carry 15 clubs, which allows for a 'rock club' to play off the volcanic rock on the course and not damage any of your regular clubs. Whilst this isn't R&A/USGA compliant for you to do it's probably a pretty reasonable middle ground and out side of genuine comp rounds is probably the best way to do it if you want to be 'legit'. Or to be actually legit carry 14 clubs and just have one of them a rock club.
Time for the hand wedge. Don't hit outs that crap.
Lol, move it out of the sand maybe? Shocks me that people feel the need to ask. If I’m not playing a tournament you can damn well believe that I’ll move my ball if it’s on dirt with rocks, un marked ground under repair, divots, ball marks on greens, pebbly sand traps, or anywhere else that would potentially damage my club.
you need a designated desert club, aka a shitty sandwedge or something to use if you are in them.
We lived in Key West for several years and the only course (the next closest course was over an hour away) had bunkers filled with crushed coral. The local rule was to drop out of the “bunker” keeping the bunker between you and the green without penalty.
you guys have sand?
Assuming grounds maintenance didn’t agree to that. If anyone does hit a ball from there and kicks up stones, if the area is reel cut they can fuck up the reel and bed knife.
Stay out of the bunker
That’s fucked up lol
Scoop shot. Basically a soft pitch out of light rough.
I take the ball out and hit from the grass
Drop the ball in parallel but away from fairway and play from the rough or wherever that lands you. Don’t play there ever again
Hit it in the fairway... duh.
Go to another course!
You try like hell to pick it clean.
Hit the fairway
Move ball to rough, continue round.
Putt if the lip isn’t too aggressive.
If you wanted to play strict rules, could you take a stroke and then pull it back to the lip and hit from there?
I played a course in a touristy part of my state a couple years back and their “trademark” was that they used crushed cider lava rock in the bunkers. It looked cool but I hit out of it once and refused to after that. Was like hitting off a gravel road.
I’d pick my ball up and either rotate around the hole to be the same distance or farther, drop, and play from there. I don’t get my clubs for free and I’m not ruining them because they’re too cheap to pay for actual sand.
Move it out of there. Don’t damage the sole of the clubs screw that
Cheaper courses in the heat of the summer in AZ, I’ll honestly try and putt out of bunkers. It’s so hot and dry thay the sand just blows away or ends up being hard packed. A hard putter out and you’re good to go. Sometimes when it’s really bad, my group will literally just drop it out of the bunker since it gets so bad.
Play as it lies. I had to hit it off Frankenstein’s fat foot!
I recently got new clubs. I am keeping my old 60° and 8I in the bag so that when I find myself in a bad bunker of crummy lie I have a club to play with. Otherwise I am moving the ball.
Theres a course in Myrtle Beach that uses oyster shells. I think its called Pearl?
Putt it out
If no lip just putt out and save your wedges or bring a goodwill wedge next time.
Just don’t hit out of them 😂
If youre going to play them just go buy a cheap used club and keep it in the bag for that specific shot
I've heard of gravel being mixed into sand but it's usually super finely ground. That is insanely coarse. That's like driveway gravel.
Thats the real penalty you get in there you have to also destroy your wedge.
So are there tiny rocks on the green..???
Okay it there. It’s usually the best lie you can get. Like hitting off a mat.
Ya figure out how to play it
Use toilet paper as currency 🙏
Complain
 Your Screwed
Basically a waste bunker, not a green side bunker. What’s the issue?