Golf Tips » October 2002: Playing From A “Hard” Bunker

This month’s golf tip comes from Mike Dunn of Dubbo Golf Club in New South Wales, Australia. He write:

"The bunkers at my course and several nearby courses don’t have much sand in the bunkers and are often hard, so I "blade" them often. How should I play out of such hazards?"

Mike, first of all do not use a sand wedge but rather a lob wedge with very little bounce. The very nature of a sand wedge is to have quite a bit of bounce to provide enough bounce to help the club "slide" through a good amount of sand. However, when the sand is sparce, that same flange will strike the ground first and cause the sculled shot.  

As you can see from the picture above, there is significantly more "bounce" or "flange" on the sand wedge on the right than the lob wedge on the left.

Secondly there is a slight difference in the technique for playing this shot. Address the ball as you would a normal bunker shot.

Instead of cocking the wrists early in the swing as you would normally do,

have less wrist cock and a more shallow arc on the backswing, taking just a thin sliver of sand. Still hit about 2" behind the ball and keep the right hand "under" so that the club will not dig.

As you can see from my follow-through postion, the clubface is still facing the sky, indicating the correct poitions have been achieved.

Mike, I look forward to hearing of your progress. Good golfing "Down Under"!