Should Bunkers Be More Hazardous?
Hack It Out Golf
Golf Swing Productions by Mark Crossfield Greg Chalmers and Lou Stagner
0.0 • 0 Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today's episode is inspired by another listener question: should bunkers present more of a hazard—especially for professional golfers? Mark, Lou, and Greg engage in a really insightful conversation that reaches to the foundations of what golf is "supposed" to be. Most amateurs struggle mightily from bunkers, but especially on the biggest tours, the sand often seems more predictable than the surrounding rough. Can—or should—anything be done about that?
Where to find us:
Mark Crossfield's weekly newsletter: https://www.crossfieldgolf.com/subscribe
Mark Crossfield on Twitter: https://twitter.com/4golfonline
Mark Crossfield on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/4golfonline
Lou Stagner's weekly newsletter: https://newsletter.loustagnergolf.com/subscribe
Lou Stagner on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LouStagner
Greg Chalmers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GregChalmersPGA
The Hack It Out Golf Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HackItOutGolf
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Question from the listeners. Thanks for listening everybody. Just so everybody knows, if you do have a question, you've got a better chance if we get read now. If you start with, I listen to the podcast every day and I love it. Things like that get you a better chance of being. So just Lee has asked a question in. He's just said podcast topic. So he's lucky that we're answering. Because we all like a bit of praise, don't we? We're basic. I'm basic. I'll take praise. I would actually like it if I, if you started, if they started the question with that and then added in who their favorite person is on the pod, that'd be. I was just about to say, I can't stand Lou. I can't stand Lou, but Mark, |
| 0:38.8 | you're great. Yeah. Yeah, that wasn't what I was going to say, but yes, you'll carry on. |
| 0:45.2 | So Lee has asked a question. How am I Scarbeck? Is that, is that, am I Scarback? Is that how you'd say |
| 0:52.7 | surname? Yeah, I guess so. |
| 0:55.6 | Has asked a question, podcast topic. |
| 0:58.1 | Should Greenside bunkers be adjusted to make them more penal for professional? |
| 1:03.4 | Seems like it's not much of a penalty for them compared to the architect's design intent. |
| 1:10.0 | How could they be changed? Question mark. |
| 1:12.8 | So he is saying, which I've had opinions on this before, actually, I've talked about people with this before. |
| 1:19.1 | You know, should they do something to the bunkers to make them more penal? |
| 1:21.7 | Because I think it's quite fair to say, green side bunkers, when you watch golf on telly don't feel like much of a penal situation. |
| 1:33.5 | We definitely see recoveries. |
| 1:35.6 | I'm pretty sure Lou has data on amateurs out of bunkers around Greenside and they're better in the rough than they are bunker as a generalisation. |
| 1:44.1 | Lou, is that fair? Am I remembering that one, semi-correctly? Us amateurs stink out of the bunker. Yeah. So for the amateurs, they're penal enough. When it comes to the pros, without putting you on the spot, because I've not asked you to look up this data, do you know off the top of the head if they are penal or not? |
| 2:01.8 | Are they better off in a bunker or in the rough if they misogreen or you don't really know |
| 2:06.9 | about the river? |
| 2:07.4 | It depends. |
| 2:08.1 | Yeah, definitely. |
| 2:08.7 | I think there's lots of factors in play. |
| 2:11.9 | Generally, they're going to be better out of the rough generally. |
| 2:15.8 | Okay. |
| 2:16.0 | But there's some places where they're better out of the sand. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Golf Swing Productions by Mark Crossfield Greg Chalmers and Lou Stagner, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Golf Swing Productions by Mark Crossfield Greg Chalmers and Lou Stagner and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.