We’d all love our bunkers to be full of pearly white soft sand that moves aside – like a knife through butter – when our sand wedge slides through it.
Well, life isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes, despite everyone’s best efforts, they look a bit more building site than beach.
I’ve taken a bit more than I can chew off the face of a club when making impact with a rock in a bunker. It wasn’t just costly to my scorecard.
Most of us will know we can remove loose impediments in a bunker (thank you Rule 12.2a) but are you allowed to touch or move sand when doing so?
If the stone was close to the ball, there’s a chance getting rid of it will alter the sand and improve your lie, right? Is that allowed? Can you touch the sand in a bunker? Let’s take a look…
Can you touch the sand in a bunker?
There is just something hard-wired into golfers that makes us nervous when we’re thinking about shifting stuff in the vicinity of our ball.
But when removing a loose impediment from a bunker, you won’t be penalised for “any reasonable touching or movement of the sand in the bunker that happens while doing so”.
If you already knew the answer to that, well done you. Now here comes the $64,000 question. What constitutes reasonable?
We know we can’t deliberately touch sand to test its condition, or to learn information for the next stroke, but what’s acceptable when removing a rock?
Can you shift it with a clubhead – so long as it doesn’t move the ball? Can you use your hands like a toddler bulldozing on a beach?
There is a clarification that provides some clues. It says when removing a loose impediment from a bunker, sand is often moved in the process and “there is no penalty if this improves conditions affecting the stroke if the actions taken to remove the loose impediment… were reasonable”.
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It gives the example of a pine cone being removed which improves conditions by dragging it away “in a way that also removes a mound of sand from the area of their intended swing”.
This is deemed not to be reasonable as the player could have used “a less intrusive way” to remove the pine cone. The clarification indicates lifting it straight up without dragging it behind the ball would be acceptable.
You’ll get the general penalty (two shots in stroke play or loss of hole in match play) if your actions aren’t reasonable but use your common sense, don’t take liberties, and you’ll generally be all right.
Got a question for our expert?
Despite the changes to the Rules of Golf in 2019 and 2023, there are still some that leave us scratching our heads. I’ll try to help by featuring the best of your queries in this column.
What do you think about these sand in a bunker rules? Let me you what you think, and send me your own rules questions, by emailing me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com or by leaving us a comment on X.
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