What Is Meant When People Talk About A Golf Clubs Bounce? (Video) - by Pete Styles
What Is Meant When People Talk About A Golf Clubs Bounce? (Video) - by Pete Styles

Quite often we talk to golfers about how they should set up their wedges in terms of loft and bounce and we often get a blank look when we mention bounce. And this question really infers well what is bounce and how much bounce should I have and why do I need it? Bounce is different to loft, loft is how much angle is on the club face and how high does that ball go because of the loft. Bounce is something different. Bounce is how the leading edge of the golf club would be lifted off the floor and the trailing edge would hit the floor when the shaft is vertical. So here you can see bounce is that angle there.

Now when you get your wedges – it applies more to wedges. Bounce is on most of your irons but it applies more to wedges. When you look at your edges the trailing edge will be lower than the leading wedge and the amount of the degrees is called the bounce angle. For a lot of these specialist wedges that you get it might actually be written on the back, it might say the loft figure then there might be a lower figure sometimes between four and 14; that figure will be the bounce on the golf club. Now the bounce really works like a little spoiler that when the club come down into the ground, the fact that the club has some bounce sticking at the bottom stops the club digging in. If a golf club didn’t have any bounce and it was purely face angle, that club would just go in like a knife and never come out in the ground again, we would all finish our chip shots when the club is wedged in the floor, here we would just stop because the club would just knife in and take up six inches of turf. The fact we have bounce allows the club to hit the turf and to come back out again. So it works like a spoiler, it hits the tuff, then it drives the club forwards and back outwards again so you can follow through better. Now bounce becomes particularly relevant when you’re playing bunker shots because in a bunker we know we want to hit the sand before the ball so the bounce really works well to change the height of the club as it comes into the golf ball, less bounce the club will go down more; more bounce the club will come across and up more. So you could almost think of bounce like an insurance policy. Bounce is there for when something goes wrong. If you’re playing a bunker shot and you hit six inches before the ball, that’s a bad swing. But if you’ve got enough bounce on your wedge and by enough I mean maybe 12 maybe 14 degrees of bounce on your sand wedge that club has still got a good chance of going forwards into the ball. If you hit six inches of turf – sorry – six inches of sand before the ball with very little bounce four or five, six degrees of bounce the ball will barely move, the club will just submarine down and just dig underneath the ball. So bounce angle is the angle that the trailing edge sits below the leading edge, it should be between four and 14. If you dig the ball a lot you need a bit more bounce, if you slide under the ball you can get away with a less bounce. Think about more bounce being like an insurance policy. If you do something wrong and you make a bad swing the bounce is there to help you out. If you understand bounce you can make more informed decisions about the wedges that you buy for your game and how they can help you improve your short shots. 2014-08-12

Quite often we talk to golfers about how they should set up their wedges in terms of loft and bounce and we often get a blank look when we mention bounce. And this question really infers well what is bounce and how much bounce should I have and why do I need it? Bounce is different to loft, loft is how much angle is on the club face and how high does that ball go because of the loft. Bounce is something different. Bounce is how the leading edge of the golf club would be lifted off the floor and the trailing edge would hit the floor when the shaft is vertical. So here you can see bounce is that angle there.

Now when you get your wedges – it applies more to wedges. Bounce is on most of your irons but it applies more to wedges. When you look at your edges the trailing edge will be lower than the leading wedge and the amount of the degrees is called the bounce angle. For a lot of these specialist wedges that you get it might actually be written on the back, it might say the loft figure then there might be a lower figure sometimes between four and 14; that figure will be the bounce on the golf club.

Now the bounce really works like a little spoiler that when the club come down into the ground, the fact that the club has some bounce sticking at the bottom stops the club digging in. If a golf club didn’t have any bounce and it was purely face angle, that club would just go in like a knife and never come out in the ground again, we would all finish our chip shots when the club is wedged in the floor, here we would just stop because the club would just knife in and take up six inches of turf.

The fact we have bounce allows the club to hit the turf and to come back out again. So it works like a spoiler, it hits the tuff, then it drives the club forwards and back outwards again so you can follow through better. Now bounce becomes particularly relevant when you’re playing bunker shots because in a bunker we know we want to hit the sand before the ball so the bounce really works well to change the height of the club as it comes into the golf ball, less bounce the club will go down more; more bounce the club will come across and up more.

So you could almost think of bounce like an insurance policy. Bounce is there for when something goes wrong. If you’re playing a bunker shot and you hit six inches before the ball, that’s a bad swing. But if you’ve got enough bounce on your wedge and by enough I mean maybe 12 maybe 14 degrees of bounce on your sand wedge that club has still got a good chance of going forwards into the ball. If you hit six inches of turf – sorry – six inches of sand before the ball with very little bounce four or five, six degrees of bounce the ball will barely move, the club will just submarine down and just dig underneath the ball. So bounce angle is the angle that the trailing edge sits below the leading edge, it should be between four and 14. If you dig the ball a lot you need a bit more bounce, if you slide under the ball you can get away with a less bounce.

Think about more bounce being like an insurance policy. If you do something wrong and you make a bad swing the bounce is there to help you out. If you understand bounce you can make more informed decisions about the wedges that you buy for your game and how they can help you improve your short shots.