Rules Question About Bunkers

If you want to play it by the rules you get relief from that - immovable obstruction. Nearest point of relief, keeping it in the bunker. If you have to go outside of the bunker to get relief, it's a 1 stroke penalty.

if you have to move out of the bunker, you can move to a similar bunker equal or farther distance away from the green without a stroke penalty FYI
 
Move it out of bunker. GUR. Now if you can't get good footing because the sand is thin and your shoes are down to the metal, can't you get free relief from the bunker?
Could have swore I seen a pro do this?
 
AS others have said, I'd treat it as GUR.
 
I'm moving the ball outside the bunker, probably on line where it went in, and making sure I'm no closer to the hole. I'd rather not risk injuring myself or my clubs.
 
I'm moving it out of the bunker as well.. not worth injury or damaged equipment. If it's a casual round we usually agree on whether to apply a penalty or not if the bunkers are bad.

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Why do we have bunkers anyway? You wanna play out of the sand .... go to the beach! :act-up:
 
Really its more of a how would you play this shot, for @Lions81

Let's say you are playing a new course and you go into the bunker on the first hole and upon hitting the shot realize there is some sort of metal sheet underneath the sand. No biggie, finish out the hole. Then on the 2nd hole the same thing happens. For the rest of the round, would you play out of the bunkers, or just move the ball to not risk injury of some sort or terrible golf shot?

I'd play them as GUR. In a tournament situation, if they could not be brought up to playable condition, the committee would (or certainly should) declare them as GUR.
 
I've never seen bunkers with metal beneath the sand . Is this something new ?
 
I'd talk it over with my playing partners and more than likely we're going to agree to drop it behind the bunker with no penalty. No sense in risking getting hurt or damaging anything.
 
Free drop from bunker liners or did they change that rule?
 
GUR as far as I'm concerned. I have run into cases where the liner is showing through the sand and at the course I belong to now they all have sweeping high lips with a gravel base and with heavy rain that all washes down to the bottom of the bunker pending the grounds crew getting out there and fixing them. I'm not playing a bunker shot out of gravel either. GUR.
 
Count me as #2 who needs a pic. I guess I'm just a visual learner.

Anyway, I'm not sure what all the hubbub is about getting hurt. Hitting off a piece of metal can't be much different than hitting of hard pan or even a cart path (yeah, I know there's free relief from a cart path, but sometimes the free relief would put you in a worse position than the path does). Just go at it smartly and move on.
 
Rules Question About Bunkers

I’d pull it out of the bunker, no need to hit metal and risk injury, to self or club.
 
try to find a spot in the bunker without the metal sheet if you can. If you can, take a drop there. My group, we'd make a gentleman's agreement on that because nobody wants to get hurt, or damage a club.
Not only would I be taking a free drop, I would be dropping on the green.
 
GUR for me

I assume this was at Bellerive?
 
Im playing it as GUR and dropping, not taking a penalty and carrying on. Which sucks because Im one of the sickos that enjoys playing out of greenside bunkers
 
Im playing it as GUR and dropping, not taking a penalty and carrying on. Which sucks because Im one of the sickos that enjoys playing out of greenside bunkers

Me too man! A one hour lesson with Roger Cleveland changed my whole perspective on green side sand traps. Love em now.
 
Given the location, I'll say that falls under GUR - the course can be expected to have sand in the traps.
 
With agreement from playing partners play as GUR. That being said, similar scenario yesterday. Most bunkers had standing water, others didn't but were rock hard due to heavy rains this week and had not been "fluffed" by crew. I tried to play out of 2 and bladed both shots leading to horrific scores. Hindsight I should've removed from bunker and played from no closer to the hole.
 
I wouldn't accept that as "normal" so would probably drop out of bunker and play on. I'm a good sand player, so dropping out of bunker is no advantage to me (maybe even a disadvantage), so if casual round I wouldn't add a stroke.

Not exactly the same, but due to the constant rain this year and inability of our club to keep up with bunker conditions, my weekend group has been playing a lot of rake and place without penalty. We're not on tour, so we're not going to get those kind of conditions, but unless we've hit it in the woods, it's my opinion that we all deserve a 'playable lie'.
 
What about this one;

One of the courses that I play a lot has terrible bunkers. I'm not talking hardpan, which it was until late last season, but the deepest softest sand you'd ever play. You don't have to even hit an iron into the middle of it for it to plug. It can plug on the bounce. I hit a full 9i into one and it plugged at least 8" down. I'd have taken an unplayable but I honestly wanted to see what it would take to get out of that. After 4 digging shot I had my answer.

Prior to them filling them with this sand at the end of last year they were hardpan, which isn't anywhere near that difficult to play from. You just have to clip it similar to a tight lie on a hard fairway. No real issues.

I now purposely miss the green to the side away from these bunkers. I want no part of them. I'd much rather be downhill and shortsided than to be in them. Bunkers are supposed to be a hazard and these ones truly are. They're not bad to play out of if you gently roll into one but hitting a full iron into them will find your ball roughly halfway to China.
 
It was more of a retaining wall holding the green up and the lip of the bunker. It's still nightmare inducing.
#4 Dubsdread? Very surprising!

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