Rakes: In or Out? – Tee Times

It´s one of golf’s great unanswered questions: Where do you leave a bunker rake? There’s no hard and fast rule, so we surveyed prominent people in the game to get their thoughts.

Leave’em out.

Steve Williams, caddie of Tiger Woods: “Rakes should remain out of the bunkers in a place where they’re least likely to get hit. In most cases that would be on the lip of the bunker closest to the green you’re facing.”
Jack Nicklaus: “If I needed to choose, I’d opt to have the rakes on the outside, but not in the line of play or on the green side of greenside bunkers.”

Leave’em in.

Arnold Palmer: “When a ball gets close to a rake in a bunker, you get relief to play the shot. It doesn’t affect the game. But if it hits a rake outside a bunker, it does.”
Gary Player: “I remember a tournament in Europe where a rake stopped my ball from going into a deep bunker with steep walls. If my ball hadn’t hit the rake, I would have made a 5 or 6.” (Source: Golf World Magazine)