Did you know that Russley has the best bunkers in Canterbury?  Or the worst depending on to whom you are talking. The raging debate continues on what constitutes a good or bad bunker. Why do we have bunkers? They are a hazard.  Some would say they are there to penalise you for going in the wrong direction or are there to increase the challenge of the game, whilst others would say they are there purely for aesthetics and most would agree they are simply there to annoy us. Whatever the reason we have 47 of them here of varying size, shape and design, so we are looking at the best way to deal with what we have. “Fill them in” some cry! There is no question that they do enhance the golf course so I’m not sure filling them in will get the vote, however they are a very labour intensive and costly item to maintain and some design issues make this worse. It is not that we don’t have enough sand in them but a lot of the sand is in the wrong place. Often we can have half a metre on the edge and not a lot where most of the play takes place.  What is causing this? Well the list is long and includes some of the following. 

·          in some bunkers the base is very uneven so the blowing wind can leave varying depths of sand

·          players moving the sand when they play their shots and raking the sand to the edge when tidying their foot marks

·          the bunker bike used to flatten the bunkers pulls a lot of sand behind it especially when the sand is wet

·          the base sand is often contaminated by the wash out of silt from around the edge 

Our greens staff work hard to maintain the condition of the bunkers and push the sand back but it does not take long for it to be displaced again. Unfortunately the bunkers can not be pristine all the time.

As players, we are required to meet the challenge they create and learn to play the shot that lies in front of us.