There are many root causes for a lack of decorum and course etiquette – one reason is the primary focus of PGA professionals on swing mechanics. The golf swing is challenging enough to teach that everything else becomes secondary. Another reason is a lack of course marshalling – on most courses you’re on your own out there. I’d love to see the PGA professionals (or experienced staff) out on the course offering instruction (especially about course etiquette). Most players cannot successfully fix a ball mark or rake a bunker, and a two-minute instruction on each is not going to affect the pace of play at all. The last reason is simply entropy – society is hesitant to point out breaches in decorum. Players see someone walk out of a bunker without raking it and figure if that’s good enough for them, they don’t need to rake one either. Which leads me to my final thought for this week – the state of the bunkers at Ruggles. Over the last year, every single bunker has been redressed with new sand. The amount of time and effort to accomplish that task is certainly significant, and once everyone gets used to the new sand, will make the course much more playable. However, I hypothesize that a vast majority of the daily players at Ruggles (the 7 AM through 1 PM tee-timers) are still playing the course with the old mentality that raking the bunkers isn’t worth the time and effort. Our evening league players are forced to play many shots out of footprints and other poor lies as a result. I know bunkers are a hazard to be avoided, but if you get into one, the lie should be fair. At the captain’s meeting this year, our head PGA professional had indicated that prior to league play, all bunkers would be raked by the staff. It’s pretty clear to me that those words were an empty promise. I understand that raking all of the bunkers is time consuming, but if it can’t be done before league play, I’d instead ask the staff to take the time to get out on the course during the day and help educate the playing populace on raking of the bunkers (EVERY DAMN TIME!!!!).
We’d also heard that hazard boundaries were going to be defined better all throughout the course (maybe some new stakes, painted lines, etc.). I think we’re still waiting for those improvements. Someone brought up the fact last night that the creek across hole #2 is currently unmarked – is it a hazard???? Can you ground your club in there???? There are a couple of things to explore regarding this issue. The first is the responsibility to establish hazard boundaries. In the Rules of Golf, that is the responsibility of the committee holding the event. For REGL, this means that the commissioner should talk to the course superintendent or PGA professional about marking or defining the hazards. Clearly, although there have been discussions, the execution of marking the hazards hasn’t happened. The staff needs to get out to each and every hazard and clearly mark those hazards with stakes or lines. But, are markings the only way to define a hazard? A water hazard is defined in the Rules of Golf as “any sea, lake, pond, river, ditch, surface drainage ditch or other open water course (whether or not containing water) and anything of a similar nature on the course. All ground and water within the margin of the water hazard are part of the hazard. ” So, even if it isn’t marked, the creek (Romney Creek by the way) running through #2, #7, next to #3, through #18 and #15 is a water hazard, and if you’re ball is on the bank of that water hazard, you’re definitely “in the hazard” even if it’s not marked. And no, you can’t ground your club there, and you can’t remove loose impediments, etc. Usually a good scorecard will define water hazards and out-of-bounds on the course, and the Ruggles scorecard says that OB areas are denoted by white stakes (please remember that for REGL play, the parking lot and approach roads are also OB (a local REGL rule)), and that the creek is a lateral hazard (red staked (ha ha)) that runs through holes 2, 3, 7, 15, and 18. So, the intent is there, even if the markings aren’t. So, we’ve talked about water hazards – how about bunkers? You may remember the 2010 PGA Championship played at Whistling Straits (another great Pete Dye creation) in Wisconsin alongside Lake Michigan. The tournament committee that year decreed that any sandy area on the course (and there are a TON of them of various sizes and shapes) was to be considered a bunker for tournament play. Many of these bunkers were outside of the ropes and were trampled by the spectators, unraked, and generally unmaintained (Dye’s contention was that historically bunkers weren’t meticulously raked and dressed on many Scottish courses until Augusta National set a really high bar for bunker maintenance, and Whistling Straits was a throwback to old Scottish-style links golf). Dustin Johnson forgot about the rule and grounded his club in a trampled bunker on the 72nd hole. Instead of being in a playoff, he had to accept a two-stroke penalty and watch the playoff in agony (won by Martin Kaymer). By definition, a bunker is “a hazard consisting of prepared area of ground, often a hollow, from which turf or soil has been removed and replaced by sand or the like.” Obvious, right? Not so fast. How about the old bunker on #7 to the left of the fairway and over the creek that has the shape of a bunker but turf has been allowed to regrow? Is that a hazard? Because turf is now growing in that bunker and there is very little sand in it, that portion of the course is no longer considered a hazard, and you’re allowed to ground your club like any other part of the rough. I can also think of old bunker areas on #12 (the new right-hand bunker has been redesigned so it no longer appears as a giant horseshoe), #14 (left of the old fairway), and #16. If it’s no longer maintained as a bunker, it’s not a bunker. Ground your club to your heart’s content. There is probably a current exception on the new turf area covering the old portion of the right-hand bunker on #12 (it’s probably painted with a white line denoting Ground Under Repair).
Comment 1: (From Jim K.) Amen to your point on raking bunkers. It's so simple to do yet so hard to get many to accomplish. I can tell you that I said something a couple of weeks ago to a foursome on #9 in which one of the players failed to rake the bunker to the right of the green (I happened to be walking to the clubhouse from the parking lot at lunchtime, not playing). I was told in varying terms from the group to mind my own business and who the heck was I. Disappointing to get such a hard time for trying to point out something that makes the course better for all. You can add ball marks on the green to the discussion as well.
Comment 2: (From TM). Very well said. Stories like yours emphasize my point that the course staff needs to engage people like the jerks you talked to. A warning from them may actually carry more weight (maybe a few ejections might be appropriate). Ruggles staff in the past few years has been all about having a good time and getting as many people out on the course as possible. That's nice, but shouldn't be at the sacrifice of course playability.