Trying to get the bunkers just right

The golf course has been in good condition so far the past several months, but the pro shop still receives a lot of complaints about the bunkers. The sand is too hard, too soft, it's not consistent, and the ball plugs in the face every time are some of the most common remarks about the bunkers at Glendale. The maintenance crew has been working to try and get them just right for the past two months. We stopped raking the faces and sides of the sand to try and get it to firm up so balls won't plug there. After two months of raking with the back side of the rakes and just smearing the faces or not touching them at all, the sand has packed down and is firmer. Balls are not plugging in the faces. A shot hit into the face usually hits and rolls down into the bottom of the bunker. Problem #1 solved. In an attempt to get the bottoms of the bunkers to get firmer, we used leaf rakes and the sand got firm. Too firm for most players. So we are alternating rakes each week, one with teeth and the next week no teeth. I think we are getting very close to finding the best means of maintaining our bunkers. We still have root problems in all of the fairway bunkers but that will have to be dealt with this winter. Below is a photo of the right side green-side bunker at # 9 green.

Look closely and you can see the edges and bunker face are not raked. The bunker floor is lightly raked and the sand is firm. We will continue this program until the rainy weather returns in the fall and we have to change our maintenance to get conditions..............................just right.
Steve Kealy
Golf Course Superintendent