'I'm Not The First Person To Moan About The Bunkers On The PGA Tour And I Suspect I Won't Be The Last. All Too Often They Present Such Little Challenge, They May As Well Not Be There.'

As we move towards the conclusion of the FedEx Cup, it's clear that tour golf is approaching yet another crossroads. The future of LIV is uncertain and the other tours are continuing to evolve their offerings in a bid to engage modern sports fans at scale.

We are likely to hear more grand ideas about event formats, venues and schedules that all have a role to play in moving the sport forwards. As someone who has always watched tour golf but has become increasingly weary, I welcome any innovation that will add excitement and interest.

To my mind, however, it is the difficulty of the challenges presented to the players each week that needs to be addressed first. The truth is, those at the top of the game have become so good that many of today's top courses are starting to feel tame.

We've seen how the ruling bodies have tried to, at least in part, combat this by introducing a golf ball roll back to reduce the distance players are hitting the ball. The future of this is currently in doubt but regardless, the problem extends beyond just distance.

From better understanding of the golf swing and improved club technology to nutrition and smarter mental game techniques - the top players have improved beyond all recognition. It might sound strange to say it but I think this has harmed the product.

Today's army of predictably (some might say robotically) brilliant professionals are breezing past the sort of trouble that would have sent previous generations of players into meltdown. And frankly, that's no fun to watch.

To rediscover a sense of jeopardy and drama within the tour game, serious thought needs to be given to making the venues more challenging. The easiest place to start would be the bunkers.

I'm not the first person to moan about the bunkers on the PGA Tour and I suspect I won't be the last. All too often they present such little challenge, they may as well not be there.

The value of good bunkering was brought into sharp focus recently by what happened both at Shinnecock Hills and then at Royal Birkdale. In different ways, they underlined how bunkers can, and indeed should, take the best players outside of their usual comfort zones.

At Shinnecock, there was a different type of sand. It was stonier and perfect strikes were not guaranteed. We regularly saw players struggling with seemingly simple greenside shots. Then at Royal Birkdale, the small bunkers had magnetic properties and frequently threw up difficult stances (remember Ryan Fox on the 15th in the final round).

Without wanting to sound like a sadist, the jeopardy created by proper bunkering was entertaining to watch. By contrast, at too many tour courses, the bunkers serve a purely aesthetic purpose, like landing lights guiding the eye of a pilot towards the runway. They are to be taken on, not avoided.

Reinstating the challenge that bunkers are supposed to pose is both obvious and easy to do. Without having to rip up the playbook, tours could use rakes with much wider teeth or Shinnecock-style sand to make their bunkers real no-go zones. Some people have even gone as far as to suggest that bunkers on tour shouldn't be raked. While I don't necessarily agree, I do think the onus is on the powers-that-be to acknowledge that proper bunkering is a central component to the excitement of a tour event.

At the moment, it feels like the game bends over backwards not to upset players and in so doing, sometimes forgets that fans are tuning in for sporting drama. The truth is, distance isn't the only problem facing tour golf. The players are now so good that too often the final round lacks any real sense of jeopardy. One small change to the way bunkers are kept could make tour golf more exciting to watch and who doesn't want that?