The pros make it look incredibly easy. For the rest of us, though, the mere sight of a bunker is enough to send our scorecards all of a quicker.
A skirmish with the sand is just a regular fact of life during a round but, even if you do have trouble extricating yourselves from them, do you know how the Rules of Golf treat a bunker?
Of course, you all know not to ground your club either right in front, or behind, the ball and I’m sure you don’t need me telling you not to take some sand with you on your backswing.
Sahith Theegala certainly didn’t need reminding of this at the Tour Championship in 2024. In fact, he called a penalty on himself after he felt he’d clipped the sand on his backswing when playing out of a fairway trap at East Lake Golf Club.
But there’s plenty more to know about bunkers and Rule 12 in the Rules of Golf reveals all. Get your bucket and spade ready and ensure you’ll never fall foul again when you’re ball falls into the yellow stuff…
What are the golf bunker rules?
When is my ball in a bunker?
Let’s kick off with something that should, you might first think, seem obvious: when is a ball in a bunker?
I do get quite a lot of questions about this and, thankfully, Rule 12.1 provides a full definition.
Your ball is in a bunker when any part of it either “touches sand on the ground inside the edge of the bunker” or, is inside the edge of the bunker and rests “on ground where sand normally would be”.
