What Is A Bunker In Golf?

What is a bunker in golf?

A bunker in golf is defined under the rules as a “specially prepared area intended to test the player’s ability to play a ball from the sand.”

The name comes from the origins of the game. The earliest courses were laid over linksland, on which naturally occurred small deep sand pits which were called bunkers. These bunkers were incorporated into the design and challenge of the early golf courses, and so bunkers have become part of the design of most golf courses ever since.

Bunkers sometimes get colloquially called sand traps, but bunker is the official term used in the rules of golf. Rule 12 explains what can and cannot be done in a bunker, as the rules for playing out of a bunker are different from when playing from the fairway. (The main one is that the club cannot be grounded in a bunker before playing the shot – to do so is to incur a shot penalty.)

A waste bunker is distinct from a bunker. A bunker is a “specially prepared area”. A waste bunker is an area of sandy waste ground on a golf course. Thus the rules as to what you cannot do in a bunker do not apply to waste bunkers which are treated as just another area of rough.

Similarly grass bunkers are not treated as bunkers under the rules of golf. So you can play from them just as you would from the rough or fairway. Grass bunkers are deep indentations in fairway or rough such that they look like a normal bunker except that they have no sand in them it as it is a grassed area. (Sometimes grass bunkers were simply old sand bunkers that have been grassed over.)