Sunday, April 28, 2013

Bunker Tamping

Hazards were once managed with very little care, but that is not the case anymore.  Bunkers are now often raked on a daily basis to produce consistent lies.  The problem with daily raking is that it can cause the faces of the bunkers to become too soft, which can cause buried lies.  To counteract this problem we are taking on two new management practices.  The first is our daily raking method.  In the past bunkers were either raked complete, or touched up where there were any marks.  Now we've taken on the Australian method, which calls for only raking the bottom of the bunkers and not raking the sides of bunkers.  This allows the faces to harden up so the ball will roll to the bottom of the bunkers.
The sides are smoothed out using the back of a rake and the bottoms are raked  normally 


The other management practice is several times throughout the season we'll be tamping bunkers.  A vibrating plate tamper is used to compact the bunkers.  Water must be applied to the bunker first, so the sand will compact.  This process takes several days to complete as well as several workers due to it's taxing nature.  This combined with the raking method should allow any ball hit into the bunkers to find it's way to the bunker bottom.  
Watering the bunker prior to tamping 
Tamping bunker faces and bottoms







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