The PGA Tour Should Ban Bunker Rakes

As Bad Takes Week concludes, John Schwarb suggests that the Tour relax its manicured ways to let bunkers become true hazards again.

Welcome to SI Golf’s Inaugural Bad Takes Week, where our writers and editors have been asked to offer their worst ideas and defend them. These are columns on takes they believe in, even if they made the rest of the room groan during the pitch meetings. Keep an eye out for more bad takes throughout the week.

If my oldest daughter’s childhood sandbox was as nice as a PGA Tour bunker, she’d still be playing in it—and she’s in college.

Tour golf is a TV show and the courses are the stage, with gleaming manicured bunkers a key part of the set design. Should a player land in a greenside bunker, it’s rarely a penalty but instead a chance to show off “These Guys Are Good” skills by expertly thumping the ball out (and don’t they always talk about that thump on the broadcast?) and usually saving par.

The best scramblers from the sand on the PGA Tour get up and down nearly two-thirds of the time. Even No. 100 saves par 52% of the time. These guys are good.

But why make it so easy for them?

The PGA Tour should ban bunker rakes during play. Let sand traps have the potential to be “traps” again.

Hide the rakes and this is what you might get during a round. Let the pros figure it out / Imago

Work with me here.

At the start of each day’s play, greenskeepers may prep bunkers as a matter of routine maintenance. But that’s the last time the bunker will be touched.

If a player’s shot lands in a footprint or behind a clump of sand, so be it. Your name is on the bag, figure it out.

Lord knows weekend warriors like you and I have to. Many of us play courses with neglected bunkers that haven’t had sand since Tiger was No. 1, and on rare rounds when we do find a playable bunker, the rake jobs are suspect at best.

Even with this rule, Tour bunkers over the course of a round will likely never get that bad. We’ll settle for a little awkwardness in the weekly Tour birdiefests, though we’d take Armageddon.

One argument against this is that players teeing off early would get the best of the bunkers, creating a competitive disadvantage. On Thursday and Friday, that would even out with morning and afternoon waves alternating. On Saturday and Sunday, players with late tee times have them because they’re the best players that week—so, again, let’s see what they do from an unraked bunker. (They also have to deal with trampled greens and more heavily divoted fairways, and that’s accepted as part of weekend afternoon golf.)

Alas, the PGA Tour seems unlikely to go for this. What if sand save percentages plummeted? What if its cherished FedEx Cup came down to a bad lie at the 72nd hole from an unraked bunker?

But just like the adage “play better” is assigned to pros lamenting their plight in the game’s hierarchy, we offer this to any who complain about unraked bunkers:

Don’t hit your ball in there.

What do you think of our Bad Takes? Got one of your own? Email your feedback here (include name and hometown) and we’ll publish the best next week. 

More From SI Golf’s Bad Takes Week

Jeff Ritter: Augusta National Should Swap Its 9th and 18th Holes and Get Creative to Transport Players to Far-Flung Tees

Bob Harig: Fall PGA Tour Golf Isn't Going Away, But It Should Be 54 Holes and No Weekends

John Hawkins: It's Time to Get Serious About Putting PGA Tour Players on the Clock

Gabby Herzig: Music Does Not Belong on Golf Courses

Alex Miceli: Professionals Should Be Allowed to Make Small Bets on Golf

John Schwarb: It's Time for the PGA Tour to Ban Bunker Rakes