Golf SW, Do I Always Have To Use My Sand Wedge From The Golf Bunker (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf SW, Do I Always Have To Use My Sand Wedge From The Golf Bunker (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think a lot of beginners when they start playing the game, they’ve always been told that in a bunker you take your sand wedge. It even says it on the bottom of the club, doesn’t it, it’s got the big S so you think in the bunker, sand. Yeah, there we go. The reality is, there’s quite a lot of opportunities when being in a bunker doesn’t require a sand wedge, particularly when you’re looking at sort of a fairway bunker. So a fairway bunker is bunker, big round, flat bunker generally further back from the green. So we’ve got distance to generate. We want to hit this ball as far as we can towards the green. And a sand wedge has a lot of loft, not much length in the shaft and instinctively is going to hit the ball quite high and not very far.

So actually using a sand wedge from a fairway bunker, yes, you’ll get out, but you won’t get very far down the fairway. So it might be an opportunity there to consider using a slightly lower loft with club, play the ball a little bit more cleanly, a little bit more like a fairway shot and try and get the ball down the fairway as far as possible. Just be -- be in mind the -- the lip of the bunker might catch the lower flying ball and keep it in the bunker. So there are times and places where you need to keep the idea of the height. So get the ball high out of the bunker. So it might not be a sand wedge, but it might be a pitching wedge or a niner, something of that nature. There’s occasionally times when you wouldn’t use a sand wedge from a greenside bunker as well. Can you imagine a very steep sided greenside bunker, lip of the bunk maybe three or four feet in front of you and you think, well, the sand wedge is barely going to come out over that lie -- over that length. We’re probably looking at a more; lofted golf club. So one more loft and then your sand wedge is going to be a lob wedge. So a lob wedge; open the face on your lob wedge a little bit and try and slide that underneath the ball just to create as much height as possible. Also maybe time and a place when putting the ball out of a bunker might be appropriate. That sounds strange to most people, but if you’re playing a type of golf course where the bunker is big and flat and maybe the sand is well trodden and well compacted and there’s no lip around the edge, you could just simply putt that ball forward, putt it out of the bunker. That could work for you as well. So generally speaking, 90% of the time maybe, we would probably use the sand wedge in the sand bunker. But you don’t have to use it. There’s no rules that say that, and there are times and places when changing that sand wedge could improve your bunker shots. 2014-11-07

I think a lot of beginners when they start playing the game, they’ve always been told that in a bunker you take your sand wedge. It even says it on the bottom of the club, doesn’t it, it’s got the big S so you think in the bunker, sand. Yeah, there we go. The reality is, there’s quite a lot of opportunities when being in a bunker doesn’t require a sand wedge, particularly when you’re looking at sort of a fairway bunker. So a fairway bunker is bunker, big round, flat bunker generally further back from the green. So we’ve got distance to generate. We want to hit this ball as far as we can towards the green. And a sand wedge has a lot of loft, not much length in the shaft and instinctively is going to hit the ball quite high and not very far.

So actually using a sand wedge from a fairway bunker, yes, you’ll get out, but you won’t get very far down the fairway. So it might be an opportunity there to consider using a slightly lower loft with club, play the ball a little bit more cleanly, a little bit more like a fairway shot and try and get the ball down the fairway as far as possible. Just be — be in mind the — the lip of the bunker might catch the lower flying ball and keep it in the bunker. So there are times and places where you need to keep the idea of the height. So get the ball high out of the bunker. So it might not be a sand wedge, but it might be a pitching wedge or a niner, something of that nature.

There’s occasionally times when you wouldn’t use a sand wedge from a greenside bunker as well. Can you imagine a very steep sided greenside bunker, lip of the bunk maybe three or four feet in front of you and you think, well, the sand wedge is barely going to come out over that lie — over that length. We’re probably looking at a more; lofted golf club. So one more loft and then your sand wedge is going to be a lob wedge. So a lob wedge; open the face on your lob wedge a little bit and try and slide that underneath the ball just to create as much height as possible. Also maybe time and a place when putting the ball out of a bunker might be appropriate. That sounds strange to most people, but if you’re playing a type of golf course where the bunker is big and flat and maybe the sand is well trodden and well compacted and there’s no lip around the edge, you could just simply putt that ball forward, putt it out of the bunker. That could work for you as well.

So generally speaking, 90% of the time maybe, we would probably use the sand wedge in the sand bunker. But you don’t have to use it. There’s no rules that say that, and there are times and places when changing that sand wedge could improve your bunker shots.