There are a few things you need to do when you find your ball in a bunker to make sure you’re leaving the bunker in as good, if not better, condition than when you found it.
First and foremost, you need to find a rake before entering to play your shot. Too often you see players go into a bunker, hit their shot, then make a bigger mess and waste time finding a rake and then needing to rake a larger area of sand than necessary.
You want to enter a bunker in as low of a spot as possible (as to not mess up a high lip) and as close to your ball as possible. Throw the rake a few feet from your ball so you’re not interfering with your shot, but not causing an undue delay as well.
Then comes the actual raking. Using backward and forward motions, make the sand as even as possible using a lifting technique at the back and front of your raking motions.
