Bunker Etiquette

RAKE PLACEMENT - PLACE RAKES IN BUNKERS
There always seem to be some confusion regarding where to place the rake when your finished smoothing out your tracks in a bunker.  This is understandable as different courses handle this detail differently based on their specific set of circumstances.  The USGA and the PGA prefer that rakes are left outside the bunker to minimize the need for any type of special ruling and to prevent an in-coming ball from being trapped in a precarious lie.  But here at Greensboro Country Club and a great many other courses the staff is instructed to place the rakes in the bunkers after each raking.  This is done to minimize the amount of time spent mowing around the bunkers.  With over 50 bunkers on each course and well over a 100 rakes at each property, when the rakes are left outside the bunker in the grass it requires a considerable amount of time for the equipment operator to get off the mower and move each rake out of the mowing zone.  During the growing season bunker surrounds are mow as much as twice a week.  Therefore, rakes left outside the bunker will  and does add countless hours to mowing bunker surrounds and ultimately that is time lost to doing other and more constructive things on the course.  While we do not always expect members to place the rake in the appropriate position once their done using the rake we do hope with continual communication on this subject we can get the vast majority of members at our club to understand the wheres and whys of our preferred rake placement.

In addition to placing the rakes in the bunkers, versus outside, the staff is instructed to place the rakes in a specific way, which is intended to benefit the golfer.  Rakes are to be spread uniformly throughout the bunker to minimize the distance a golfer will need to walk to retrieve a rake before smoothing his tracks.  Rakes are to be installed in a way that is parallel to the line of play of the hole and set at a 45 degree angle along the inside edge of the bunker in an effort to minimize the chance of trapping an incoming ball against the edge of the bunker.  Staff is instructed to not place rakes on steep slopes that will entice golfers to enter or exit in these portions of the bunkers for the safety of the golfer and to avoid golfers from making deep footprints in the steep face of a bunker.

REMEMBER TO ALWAYS RAKE THE BUNKER
If you are unfortunate enough to hit your ball in a bunker please remember to always rake behind yourself.  Golfers failing to smooth out their tracks in a bunker only ranks behind golfers failing to fix their ballmark.  At Greensboro CC bunkers are not raked everyday by the staff.  During the playing season bunkers are raked on an average of 4 days a week.  This can result in a lot of golfers playing out of a bunker before it is completely re-raked by staff.  Everyone knows bunkers are hard enough to get out of with a good lie.  It becomes even much harder and much more frustrating when a golfer is forced to hit out of someone's footprint because some golfer before him failed to give golfers playing behind them due consideration.