Matt Shaffer shares his perfect bunker program

I am not sure why Seth ever asked me to write columns in Golfdom … perhaps it’s because I think unconventionally. For instance, he has asked me to write on the topic of bunkers this month! Anyone who has worked for me is laughing at the thought of that and saying, “Hang on!”

I have always fought how expensive golf has gotten and railed on the cost of perfection. There is absolutely no doubt that superintendents can do anything if they’re given the resources.

Bunkers, in my opinion, have pushed the boundaries of out-of-control at a major cost to golf overall. When I was a young man edging bunkers with a half-moon edger and prematurely wearing out my Herman Survivor boots, I thought there has got to be a better way.

After a big rain, we’d fix all the washouts and then listen to the boss light us up because the sand distribution was out of kilter because we didn’t shovel it from the bottom of the bunker back to the top. Out came the wheelbarrows.

You haven’t lived until you’ve filled up a big wheelbarrow with wet sand and pushed it uphill while standing in sand. Or hand-raking bunkers when it was 85 outside the bunker and ridiculously hotter inside the bunker.

But for all you younger readers that never had to do any of that because riding bunker rakes with plows, reciprocators and edgers were invented by the time you entered the business — good for you!

By far, the best bunker invention was porous bunker liners. Goodbye bunker washouts! Prior to these, we had liners that were made by several companies, and we used sod staples to hold them in place. But if you lived in the north and the frost came, out of the ground all those hundreds if not thousands of staples pushed out as well.

To solve this problem, we would put a dab of liquid nail on top of every staple. And if you ever caught a liner with a riding bunker rake, it was a monumental mess. One turn taken too tight and you’re cussing up a storm because now the bunker rake is in park and you’re once again playing with sand.

If golf is to become sustainable and affordable to the masses, then costly bunker programs need to be reconsidered. I always told my close friends, who nicknamed me “Nuts,” that the perfect bunker program would be to only rake when crusty, spray weeds when necessary and only edge when they start to get noticeably smaller. Who cares if they have ridges, are inconsistent, are wet and dry! They are hazards, for Pete’s sake, on purpose.

Think of the man-hours you would save. But at the end of the day, we work for the members, and it is their demand to have perfection. Just remember, when they start squeezing you about your budget, let the bunkers go for a couple of weeks and tell them you are saving money. The budget rumbling will settle down, and you’ll go back to perfecting a hazard.

Our bunkers at Merion were brutal because I had total disregard for their perfection. I cut the grass around them three times a year. The Pros lived in fear of losing a ball in the bunkers. Guess what? They avoided them. Just one of the few reasons +1 won it on a little dinky golf course that never played to 7,000 yards.

Yep, it is amazing that Seth lets me contribute to this magazine, but guess what? He is an out-of-the-box kinda guy as well!

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