Why not eliminate rakes all together. After all, a bunker is a hazard, right? I get it, you dont want to get stuck in a nasty footprint or something similar. But hazards are meant to be avoided anyway.
With this methodology of thinking then it would be yellow staked and a drop outside of the hazard with one penalty stroke would be authorizedā¦
I donāt see USGA as being relevant to us. We arenāt in the States and I would see R&A for rules then Golf Australia running Aussie tournaments and advising golf clubs here. I imagine here it is a club by club decision. Common sense really as pointing in the direction of play minimizes the chance you will be impacted by the rake. Biggest issue here is people who donāt use them and leave bunkers unraked. It was great during covid when there were no rakes and you could choose your own lie within a card length not closer to the hole. You could tee it on the side of a footprint and hit high soft shots!
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Would it have to be yellow staked? Are waste bunkers yellow staked? I have no idea if they are or not. My thinking is so many good players would rather miss in a bunker vs in the rough because they get such a better lie. Maybe I misunderstand bunkers, in my mind they should result in a difficult shot out. Tour pros are an extreme example, but they would rather be in a bunker with a better lie than the thick greenside rough. Sure they risk a fried egg or something unlucky in there.
In order to identify it as a true hazard it would have to be staked. Otherwise, itās not a hazard by the letter of the law. Bunkers have their own rules anyway, i.e. anywhere on a course to include in a hazard area, if the ball is embedded you get a free drop, not in the bunker. Someone has an evil side to them, hahaha. I get it though, you get punished by dropping one in there on a beautiful approach shot that gets knocked down by the wind. Now the skill challenge just went up. Itās just one more way to make us think or get punished.
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That makes sense. I hadnāt looked at it from a rules perspective.
Maybe its just my thinking of golf having too many rules and wanting to see some parts of the game to be played the way they were when the game was invented, but thatās an entirely different wormhole. hahah
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Wait did that change? I donāt think you get relief from embedded ball in a penalty area. They changed the rule to allow relief in the general area but that does not include penalty areas.
Iām pretty sure it changed during the rules revamp in 2019, but maybe not. I do know you can now ground your club in the penalty area. I would have to go look at the rule again. Itās nearly impossible to remember all of them.
As far as I know the change to embedded ball went from closely mown to general area.
Penalty areas; yes now you can ground club and remove loose impediments.
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Everywhere but penalty area and bunkers.
Not sure how waste areas are treated.
Waste areas are included in the General Area. The embedded ball rule applies ONLY to the General Area, but not in bunkers or Penalty Areas (16.3). You may now remove loose impediments (15.1) and ground your club in a Penalty Area, 8.1b(4)). @THEZIPR23 has pretty much everything right, from what Iāve read.
I agree that its hard to remember everything in the rules. For me, I continue to look up the various rules when I go to a post like this. It helps me to learn things one bit at a time, and it helps me learn how to find things in the rules when a new question comes up. When I contribute to a thread like this, I try to post the Rule number so someone can go look for himself, and learn the same way I have.
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Awesome, thank you, itās much appreciated.