This summer Los Arqueros Golf improved their bunkers by coming in with fresh sand from a new quarry in the province of Málaga: a total of 263 tons. Sand and bunker are a very emotional issues, and otherwise rational persons can become quite unreasonable when discussing sand and bunkers. No doubt about this.
Only a few shots are played form bunkers during a typical round of golf, but nowhere are golfers more critical of course conditions than when it comes to the sand in the bunkers. When golfers fail to execute a perfect shot from a sand bunker, it is rarely seen as the fault of the person swinging the club. The blame invariably lies with the sand in the bunker. It is either too soft or too fluffy, too hard or too dry, too coarse or too fine, or, even more politically correct, the sand lacks consistency. Sand and bunker are a very emotional issue, and otherwise rational persons can become quite unreasonable when discussing sand and bunkers.
Bunkers are an essential part of golf for the following reasons:
1) They add challenge to the game.
2) They frame and define golf holes.
3) They provide contrast and accent.
4) At times, both sand and grass bunkers serve to catch waywards shots.
Trees or water can take the place of bunkers effectively, but when a property lacks either or both, then sand bunkers are often the only desirable alternative. Golf course architects use their creative talents to shape mounds alongside fairways and the accentuate these features by including hollows and flashes filled with sand. In that manner, they try to duplicate what the sheep and the winds did naturally in Scotland many years ago. It has been alleged that the location of fairway bunker on golf courses in olden times was often determined by the abundance of divots in certain locations. Rather than repair the divots constantly, greenkeepers would simply hollow out a bunker. Near the green, the bunkers are placed with much forethought in order to add difficulty and challenge for the golfers in reaching the putting surface. For many a golfer, to be buried in a bunker is a scary thought and often leads to a poor score. Being able to escape from bunkers or to avoid them altogether is part of what makes golf such an interesting and addictive game. Meanwhile, golf course greenkeepers have to deal with the realities of maintaining sand bunkers, which is often a much more difficult task than just growing grass. An acceptable bunker sand is hard to fine and rarely available locally. White silica sand is the favorite with many greenkeepers and golfer alike. The sand particles are uniform in size and angular, rather than rounded, which makes for a firm surface. Its brilliant white color makes the bunker stand out on the golf course. Especially when the sand is still new, it can be dazzling and almost blinding to the golfers who have the misfortune to finding themselves in such bunkers. Precisely for that reason , some architects and greenkeepers prefer a more subdued color that will bend in better with the existing hues of the surrounding landscape.
Walter Woods, a legendary greenkeeper at St. Andrews during 21 years (from 1974 to 1996), in a letter, contributed this information about bunkers in his native country:
“No one knows when bunkers came into play, and like many things in the old days, just evolved by trial and error. We do know that golf originated on the East Coast of Scotland on the sandy windswept coast from Aberdeen right down to St. Andrews and round to Edinburgh. This is where golf as we know it began, and the golfers would play on roughly-mown fairways through hollows and mounds from tee to green. Most of this land supported nothing else but rabbits and sheep and the golfers soon discovered that some areas in the lee of the hollow protected the sheep from the wind, and soon the whole depression was so severely worn that it was better to turf the banks and make the sand uniform to make it a fair hazard for everyone. As the years passed, more bunkers came into play, particularly at the greenside, for it was discovered that they did create more interest and demand more accuracy.
Owing to the introduction of the rubber gutta percha golf ball, which made golf easier and more predictable and most important, less expensive, golf soon became popular first of all in England, then Europe and Asia, followed by North America. Scottish professionals were in demand to become golf course architects, having a head start in golf course design. Bunkers provided one area where strategy could be provided and used to create interest into the concept of parkland golf courses. Architects all over the world soon realized that bunkers could improve the visual effect to what could be flat boring ground into mounded interesting land which was more appealing to the eye. American architects took advantage of this and soon constructing large bold bunkers filled with white silica sand that provided a more modern approach to golf course design”.
Although we think of greenkeeping primarily as an endeavor to trim the grass, maintaining the bunkers is equally important. It is not surprising, then, that the measure of a greenkeeper`s competency is often determined by the way the bunkers are maintained. There lies an opportunity for Greenkeepers: ¡Rake and maintain the bunkers to perfection, and be a hero with the golfers !.
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