I see the nice white, pristine looking bunkers and think these are a cut above the vast majority of golf courses in Southern California.....until I try to hit a golf ball out of them. I think I'm a pr... Continue »

I see the nice white, pristine looking bunkers and think these are a cut above the vast majority of golf courses in Southern California.....until I try to hit a golf ball out of them. I think I'm a pretty decent bunker player. You open the club face and hit an inch or so behind the ball and let the sand pop the ball out of the bunker with a soft landing on the green. Not these bunkers. What they appear to do is pack the sand down very tight throughout the bunker and then put a thin layer of loose sand in the middle. This would seem appropriate for a fairway bunker. In a greenside bunker the ball will always come to rest in the middle of the bunker, you'll never have a fried egg or be plugged in the face of a bunker. I watched shot after shot of mine and my playing partners being unable to penetrate the packed down sand. There simply was not a deep enough level of loose sand in the middle of the bunker to play a proper sand shot. The leading edge of the sand wedge bounces off of the packed sublevel of sand resulting in a skulled shot time after time. This is the dumbest set up of a greenside bunker I've ever seen.