British Open bunkergate: R&A does away with tradition of having a crew rank bunkers

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland (AP) – It only took two holes for Jon Rahm to hit into his first bunker in the British Open. And that’s how long it took caddie Adam Hayes to realize the R&A had decided to end a tradition unlike any other at the major championships.

Hayes was going to have to rake the sand himself.

This is nothing that merits hazardous pay. Hayes has been caddying for more than 20 years and it’s part of the job.

But at the British Open, it was always different. Dating to 1984 at St. Andrews, what now is the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) has sent a crew to the Open where one person walked with each group and raked the bunkers in a trained, uniform fashion.

Not at Royal Portrush.

“I looked around and was like, ‘Uh, I’ve got to rake this,'” Hayes said. “I do think it’s one of the cool things about the The Open, a tradition that for whatever reason they cut out. And I think they should bring it back.

“I don’t know why they did it,” he said. “But I don’t know a lot of things.”

That reason? Good question.

“It’s a change for us, but we think a good one,” said Mark Darbon, the new CEO of the R&A. When asked why it was good, he only said, “A number of factors. We just think it’s a good model for us here at Portrush.”

What next? Mr. Whippy ice cream without the chocolate flake?

According to Jim Croxton, the CEO of BIGGA, the R&A informed the group after last year’s British Open their services would no longer be needed.

“With the growth of on-site greenkeeping teams, as well as the R&A providing top class agronomy support, the requirement for the additional Support Team has lessened; in recent years this team was only responsible for match raking,” Croxton said in an email to Golf.com.

News travels slowly. In fact, it seems even the R&A overlooked the decision because on the entry way to portable restrooms for players, a sign reads, “For use by Rules Officials, Players, Caddies, Walking Scorers, Scoreboard Carriers & Bunker Rakers.”

All it took was one round for potential problems, both involving Tommy Fleetwood. His caddie, Ian Finnis, spent an extraordinary amount of time raking a bunker from which Fleetwood had a plugged lie near the lip.

Then on the next hole, they discovered the bunker they were in apparently had not been raked, or at least not raked properly. The best he could do was advance it a few yards into the rough, leading to a bogey on Thursday.

“It wasn’t a great rake job,” Fleetwood said. “First thing is I was not very happy to be in there. That was the first thing, so that’s my fault. … It was in somebody’s hitting mark that hadn’t really been raked great. I probably could have managed it better.”

Fleetwood also was perplexed why BIGGA was not brought back.

“They’ve always had bunker rakers until this week? I thought so. I thought that was odd,” he said. “I mean, still, you just rake the bunkers, right? It’s part of the game. I’m not going to hold it against anyone too much. You don’t know what was going on, you don’t know what was happening in that moment. I’m not going to get angry about anyone where you don’t know what’s happening, but it wasn’t great.

“Yeah, bunker rakers would have been nice.”

Among the reasons cited by Croxton and an R&A spokesman was the desire to eliminate the amount of people – besides players and caddies – inside the ropes. How one person performing a service causes the fairways to look like the M25 loop in London is hard to fathom, especially with so many broadcast partners.

Mike Kerr, who first caddied at the Open in 2002, was another who didn’t realize there had been a change. He works for Carlos Ortiz and noticed the caddie for Chris Kirk running the plastic rake through the sand on Thursday and looked around for the BIGGA crew.

Kerr said it wasn’t just a huge perk for caddies for a skilled crew to rake the bunkers. He felt it helped speed play – and keep from being rushed.

“It’s so hard when you’re trying to figure out the wind and the lie and you’ve got to the rake the bunker and hurry up to get back to your player,” he said.

Brian Harman’s caddie, Scott Tway, also was surprised when he saw the caddie for Joaquin Niemann raking a bunker early in the second round. His first thought: “Where are the rakers?”

“It was nice. It was awesome. I don’t know what happened,” Tway said. “For caddies, that was one of the nicest things about this tournament was not having to rake bunkers.”