Today we are going to actually two questions in one, because they are both relatively about the same issue, sand traps, and hitting shots out of sand traps. One is the problem of the traps themselves creating the problem of hitting good shots. And the other is relating to the sand wedge that he is using. The first question comes from Neil. He says, 'I think I get the idea of getting the ball out of the sand trap with sand. What do you recommend for us muni golf course players that deal with traps that appear to have one inch layer of sand on top and either wet sand or mud below?'
Neil is having problems because it sounds like he is probably thinking he has sand, hits down and then the club bounces off the no sand and skulls the ball. Then the other side of the coin is '¦.we have a question from Marvin Cobb that states, 'I recently discovered that I can hit my lob wedge out of sand traps with better results than I would hit my sand wedge. I hit it about the same way that I hit a flop shot. Should I continue to use the lob wedge or should I try to improve with the sand wedge?' So Marvin is having problems with the golf club, which is his feeling.
Starting off with answering Marvin's question, 'Yes, you keep trying to hit a flop shot type of a bunker shot.' I think you both have the same issue and it starts with the fact that, 'How can you hit better bunker shots under different sand conditions?' Starting off with answering Neil's question, first and foremost, if you know the sand is hard packed the only way you could possibly do that, is that you need to use a club with less bounce. I am standing here and I am holding a sand wedge.
This is my 56 degree with 14 degrees of bounce. That is a lot of bounce. The definition of bounce is that you can see from this angle how much higher is this back edge of the club versus the leading edge. That is where the face is right there. The higher that is above it, if I take a ruler and I hold this sand wedge up where we can really see it well, you can see that the front edge, the leading edge of the club over here the back edge, converses the leading edge over here, the leading edge is way down.
If you have hard packed sand you might want to go to a pitching wedge. You see how much smaller the phalanges are on these two clubs. This is my pitching wedge. Look again, look at how on this side the leading edge versus the back edge are almost dead level. The concept of bounce is the higher the back edge is over here on the golf club, that is to go into the sand and stops the club from digging so the club will slide through the sand. It is much like what happens with a boat in the water. It skims it through. When you have deeper sand, for example, if you are playing in Florida and you get that white sugar sand which is very much like the sweet and low you put into your coffee and soft drinks, you want more bounce so it doesn't dig.
When you get into much more coarse sand, some clubs might use river type sand which is much more coarse, you want less bounce because you want it to slide through. When you get the hard pan you want to use a pitching wedge or a gap wedge, because it has a smaller flange and it won't bounce as bad but it will skim off of it just enough that you can get under the ball. When the back edge is too high it actually puts the leading edge into the ball and skulls it. You can use different sand wedges for different conditions. I actually have three sand wedges.
My 56/14 is when I really have fluffy sand. I have a 56/9 for average sand and I also have a 58 which is what I use for a lob wedge with 8 degrees for fairly normal, fairly coarse sand. I have three sand wedges that I interchange. But if I get on that hard packed stuff, even with my 8 degree lob wedge, which would work pretty good, if I get a really hard packed down no sand, almost dirt or mud, I am going to go to my pitching wedge, hit that shot and I hit it the same way as I would hit the bunker shot. Check out your sand wedges. If you don't know what you have or maybe I am a little confused with what I am talking about in bounce. Go see your local golf pro, your PGA Professional, he can explain it and/or a good certified club fitter and they can check it out and let you know what happens. In all reality, if you have a sand wedge and lob wedge, on average if want overall good conditions, you want your sand wedge to probably be in about the 8-10 bounce range and you would probably like your lob wedge to be more in about the 4-6 range. That way you can use the lob wedge off the hard pan because it would have less bounce and it would be able to stay underneath the ball. So, check out your bounce and use less bounce on hard sand and more bounce with you have soft fluffy sand or deep sand. I think you will see that your technique will be basically the same but you have the club for the job.
O.K., that is it for the Surge today. Hopefully this little bit of an education on bounce and if you need to get it a little bit sharper, see your PGA Professional or certified club fitter and they can explain it even better to you and you should see your sand game improve if you have the right tools. It is all about correct tools.
The Surge!
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