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Originally Posted by Enoch Root
Wow, that's a hot take.
increases pace of play? Not if your playing partners have a brain in their heads and play any kind of ready golf.
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Most groups don't. It also isn't just about your group, it's about all the other groups as well. Like a traffic jam, it cascades down from one small delay. Two or three bad groups getting worse can cause a traffic jam for all the others.
But even if your group plays ready golf, it will play ready golf slower if people are raking everything vs. not raking.
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increases maintenance costs and reduces efficiency? what? How? The average course might replace a few rakes a year? OMG!
increases capital costs? You've already listed the cost, but for ####s and giggles, the capital cost of rakes would be about 100 - 200 rakes at maybe $10 (probably less) About equal to the depreciation on one single cart in one year (and that's being generous)
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Moving rakes makes mowing a big pain in the ass. Even worse when it's in play. Moving rakes adds time to the bunker raker/crew in the morning. A minute or two a hole adds up, which will either slow down pace of play, or significantly increase maintenance time if they let golfers play through. These efficiency losses significantly mount up, to the cost of a couple seasonal employees/year/18 holes in wasted labour costs that stem from rakes and other accessories.
A few grand on rakes is a few grand not spent on something more valuable to the course.
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Creates more sources of complaints? You mean compared to non-raked bunkers? I think not.
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The complaints about rakes are ample. No rakes at least keeps it simple.
- I had to walk too far to get a rake, you should have more rakes
- Why are there so many rakes, it looks like a yard sale out there. One per bunker is all you need
- Why do you leave rakes out of the bunkers, you should leave them in the bunkers
- Why do you leave rakes in the bunkers, my ball got held up in one you should leave them out of the bunkers
- There should be a fine system for people who don't rake the bunkers
- Is the course out of money? Why are we using the small cheap rakes?
- These rakes are too heavy, I can't use them with one hand, you should get smaller rakes
- I got a splinter from one of your rakes that was damaged, no I don't remember the hole
As a general rule if golfers are complaining about bunkers and accessories, they aren't complaining about greens which is good for a golf course. But it's a comically high proportion of complaints (pace of play always being #1, which bunker raking contributes to making worse even if people pretend it doesn't).
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makes a course less aesthetically pleasing? Having unraked bunkers makes a course less aesthetically pleasing - I don't even notice rakes.
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Poorly raked, unraked, makes no difference to me, both look like crap.
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Golfers are terrible at raking bunkers? So you are arguing that a raked bunker is less playable than an unraked bunker?
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Preferred lie > golfer rake mark all day every day.
Bunkers still go unraked regardless, so I know what rule I'd rather play under.
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Did someone assault you with a rake when you were young?
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Seeing somebody take a rake from the low edge, walk out on the high edge and trying to rake their craters of footprints and then leaving the rake between the bunker and the greens edge like some psychopath is an assault on my sensibilities.
