What Is A Revetted Bunker? Here's All You Need To Know Via One Of The UK's Top Links Course Managers

At The Open Championship this week, you will hear the term 'revetted bunker' or 'pot bunker' quite a lot.

They are a common feature on links golf courses across the British Isles - including at Royal Birkdale, which is ranked sixth in our top-100 courses throughout the UK and Ireland - and are often seen most prominently when The Open is on TV.

Even the best professionals find them with frustrating regularity, as far as they're concerned, and they're not easy to escape.

Much different to those witnessed on most parkland courses throughout the rest of the world, a revetted bunker is visually striking and often much deeper than its traditional counterpart.

As far as other differences go, Aaron Launchbury - the course manager at Prince's Golf Club in Kent, which hosted The Open in 1932 when Gene Sarazen won - explains: "Here, we have revetted and rough-style bunkers.

"So you find the rough style that kind of has the the wispy rough around the outside. It's just off the fairways into the semi-rough and they kind of blend in to the rough.

"And then the revetted you'll find round the greens, and we have a couple of holes that you have revetted bunkers in the middle of the fairway.

"The rough-style bunker is kind of cut in to the land around it or built up and then long rough is left to grow up. Whereas a revetted bunker, you're using turf to basically build a wall with a step to the ground around it."

The 'wall' itself is still turf, but it's made up of loads of layers of sods (grass and the part of the soil beneath it held together by roots or a piece of thin material) in order to create that effect you see.

The layered design isn't only there to help play mind games with the golfer, though. It's also to fortify the bunker and reduce wind-based erosion, which can be a real issue with non-revetted bunkers.

In terms of a revetted bunkers original build, construction starts at the base with either concrete or natural earth.

Prince's - which is set to host the Walker Cup in 2030 - chooses concrete to offer a more stable base, facilitate better drainage and to ensure there is far less sagging of earth in the face - but the Kent club is certainly in the minority there.

There will be often be between 25 and 50 layers in the face, depending on the size and depth of the trap. A typical revetted bunker costs around £1,000 to build, although the costs can vary depending on several factors including size of bunker and base-material option.

Once a revetted bunker is in place, the grass around the top is shaved in order to attract more golf balls. They are often responsible for costing a player a shot in The Open, with no choice but to play backwards or sideways in order to escape them.

As far as the actual sand goes, it's still regular bunker material which can be raked in different styles. At Royal Liverpool in 2023, The R&A opted to have The Open course crew rake all the bunkers perfectly flat.

This wasn't widely popular with the players, however, and it was quickly changed to a marginal slope.

In 2026, revetted bunkers are set to star again with Royal Birkdale known as one of the tightest and most penal layouts on The Open rota.

Although at least 14 bunkers have been removed since recent changes to Royal Birkdale, there are still more than 100 on the property.

Whoever does the best job of avoiding them may well put themselves in a great position to lift the Claret Jug on Sunday.