McDowell: Take out waterlogged bunkers

Graeme McDowell last night warned that some of The Open’s waterlogged bunkers were not fair and should be taken out of play.

The heavy rain of recent weeks saw the water table at Royal Lytham & St Annes on the Lancashire coast rise to such an extent that there was casual water in several of the links course’s bunkers during the first two rounds and McDowell said that unless they were dried out, the R&A should consider ruling them Ground Under Repair (GUR), meaning a player can drop out of such areas without penalty.

“A few of those bunkers there are kind of a little bit of a question mark,” said McDowell. “But we’re lucky that we’re playing. The golf course is on the edge of unplayable.

“I’m not sure in other parts of the world if this was a normal tournament, some of those bunkers need to be GUR’d. I saw one in particular left of the 16th green, if you hit it in there, there’s nowhere to drop and there’s a foot of water.

“That’s not golf. It’s not fair. A few of these bunkers that are question marks need to be taken out of play. Hopefully they can get them dried out overnight.

“The golf course has remained unbelievably dry, considering how much rain we’ve had. The bunkers are a little dodgy in some places, unfortunately.”