12/5/2011 3:12 PM
Zekez, there are a couple courses in my area (Palm Springs) that do it to actually clean them up. It is funny to say, but Tide with Bleach does a wonderful job on the light colored sands and helps get rid of the some of the surface scum if you don't rake your fairways everyday. In general it does clean them up a bit. As far as compaction, in additional to physical methods like plate tamping or rolling (bigger bunkers) I have used some wetting agents that aid in dispersing water throughout the sand profile to get them almost to field capacity (eyeballed) and then run the tamper or roller through. Other than that....time, which never seems to be the right answer for members.