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Why British Open Bunkers Are So Penal This Year: 'Who’s Annoyed the Green Keeper?'

There’s an explanation for why the bunkers at Royal Liverpool are more challenging than they normally are.

Gabrielle Herzig

Why British Open Bunkers Are So Penal This Year: 'Who’s Annoyed the Green Keeper?'
Why British Open Bunkers Are So Penal This Year: 'Who’s Annoyed the Green Keeper?' /

Royal Liverpool member Matthew Jordan has played this year’s British Open host venue hundreds of times, but he’s never seen the bunkers play like this. 

“I don't know who's annoyed the green keeper,” the 27-year-old local said after posting an opening round 69.

Pot bunkers challenge the best players in the world at all the courses in the Open rota, but this year at Royal Liverpool those devilish little sinkholes sprinkled throughout the links are particularly difficult. 

It’s not the placement of the bunkers or the steepness of their ridged faces that makes them so penal at Hoylake, though—it’s the surface of the sand itself. 

At Royal Liverpool, the Open Championship grounds crew has shaped the bottom of the bunkers to be completely flat, preventing balls from rolling down into the center of the small hazards where players often find the least-intrusive lies.

Hit it in one of Hoylake’s pot bunkers with some speed and there is a solid chance that you won’t have any stance whatsoever because the ball will hang up near the face.

“They're just so flat and they're so penal,” Jordan continued. “We know how penal fairway bunkers are, but even the greenside bunkers this week you can drop two shots just like that.”

It will be commonplace to see players balancing a foot or a leg on the fairway while they bend over to simply try to get their ball back in play. On Thursday morning, the 6’8” amateur Christo Lambrecht demonstrated that as perfectly as he could, but not everyone will be so successful. 

Lucas Herbert held a share of the lead until he reached the dreaded new 17th hole. The greenside bunker at the 136-yard par-3 snatched that hot start away from him in an instant, and he walked away with a triple bogey. 

“Yeah, look, that's links golf. I think everyone this week—I had another one on 18 where you hit it in the fairway bunker and just grab your sand wedge straight out sideways. You're not getting on the green from in there,” Herbert said. 

Stewart Cink, who opened with a stellar round of 3-under 68, echoed his competitors’ statements, putting it just a bit more bluntly: “The more you hit into these bunkers you’re going to end up getting hosed big time.” 

Earlier this week, Ireland’s Padraig Harrington shared his common observation about the bunkers’ flat surfaces on social media, after video surfaced of him practicing and failing to execute daunting pot bunker escape shot. 

“Interesting bunkers this week. They’ve flattened out the bottom so the ball will not roll back from the face. So a double whammy of being stuck close to the face without the benefit of a slight upslope which you would normally expect,” he wrote. 

Michael Kim, another PGA Tour player who is active on Twitter, also posted some thoughts on the Royal Liverpool setup, and pointed out another interesting detail about the bunkers that viewers might not be aware of.

According to Kim, the rakes that the grounds screw and the caddies will use to clean up footprints in the bunkers have particularly wide teeth. Upon entering the sand, balls tend to roll down into the crevices that those rake marks create. 

“It’s not plugged but [definitely] not a good lie especially if you’re in a fairway bunker. Auto 60-degree pitch out. They might change rakes but it’s something to note,” Kim wrote. 

Whether it be the flat surfaces or the unconventional rake patterns, the bunkers at Royal Liverpool were not crafted for the weak. 

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Gabrielle Herzig
GABRIELLE HERZIG

Gabrielle Herzig is a Breaking and Trending News writer for Sports Illustrated Golf. Previously, she worked as a Golf Digest Contributing Editor, an NBC Sports Digital Editorial Intern, and a Production Runner for FOX Sports at the site of the 2018 U.S. Open. Gabrielle graduated as a Politics Major from Pomona College in Claremont, California, where she was a four-year member and senior-year captain of the Pomona-Pitzer women’s golf team. In her junior year, Gabrielle studied abroad in Scotland for three months, where she explored the Home of Golf by joining the Edinburgh University Golf Club.

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