Hitting Golf Wedges From A Tight Lie (Video) - by Pete Styles
Hitting Golf Wedges From A Tight Lie (Video) - by Pete Styles

So, hitting a wedge shot from a tight lie can be a quite difficult proposition. If you've hit a ball up towards the green, you want to get up there and see the ball in nice little fluffy tuft of grass so you can slide that wedge underneath it and pop it on to the green. But that's not always the perfect scenario that we faced with. If you hit a wedge shot into an air, or from an area where there's lots of people have been walking and the grass is a bit more dormant and it's flat. Or you're at the end of a car path where all the cars drive off and there's no grass underneath it. We've got to be careful that we use the right tool for the job to get this wedge nicely up and onto the green.

And one of the biggest problems specifically with the wedge is that we have an issue of the bounce. So bounce is a terminology that we use to signify how the leading edge of the golf club is lifted into the sky, you don't really can see that on that white cane there but you can see the leading edge is quite a lot in the air at least from Ted here and that was bounce angle. Now bounce angle is perfect and it's something we really want to play a shot out to the bunker or out to a grassy lie. Because as the club comes down, the bounce would hit the grass or the sand and it will propel the club back upwards and that's why a bouncy sand wedge won't dig into a bunker too much. However, if we're playing and there's no grass, no sound, and it's just on hard pan, that bounce effectively lifts the club at the leading edge particularly into air and it can stop the club from getting underneath the ball. I have then explained this principle to the fact that you've got massive clown shoes and like big boots on, are you going to try and kick a football, it's going to be quite difficult to get your foot underneath the ball. If you've got a big, bouncy soil, so the soil is really deep and you're trying to get that underneath the leading edge of that ball, it' going to be quite difficult to do. So actually when we're playing a shot from tight to hard kind of lies, we need less bounce on our wedge. So you can either change your wedge to a lower bounce wedge like a lob wedge or a gap wedge instead of the traditional sand wedge. Alternatively, you can play it in such a way where you reduce the bounce. So if we go back to this experiment here where we can see the bounce on the leading edge and I do that to the handle, you see how the bounce gets reduced so the leading edge now sits closer to the ground. So as I was to do this in my setup, I'd take my stance to my setup and have my handle more forged that reduces the bounce. If I put the ball back in my stance, that now looks like a really comfortable position in order to hit down on the golf ball. So, as I set up now, I have the ball back in my stance. I have my hands nicely forged, that's reduce the amount of bounce I've now got. Now I can stay on my left side and hit down on the ball. And as long as I'm nice and confident with my down strike, I'll hit the ball first then I'll hit down into the ground. So therefore, it doesn't matter really what was after or under the golf ball, because I hit the ball first. The problem with playing of hardpan comes from a golfer who's trying to scoop and trying to get under the ball. The bounce hits the floor, that affects the quality of the strike and that's why some golfer struggle to hit wedges from hardpan lies. 2016-05-11

So, hitting a wedge shot from a tight lie can be a quite difficult proposition. If you've hit a ball up towards the green, you want to get up there and see the ball in nice little fluffy tuft of grass so you can slide that wedge underneath it and pop it on to the green. But that's not always the perfect scenario that we faced with. If you hit a wedge shot into an air, or from an area where there's lots of people have been walking and the grass is a bit more dormant and it's flat. Or you're at the end of a car path where all the cars drive off and there's no grass underneath it. We've got to be careful that we use the right tool for the job to get this wedge nicely up and onto the green.

And one of the biggest problems specifically with the wedge is that we have an issue of the bounce. So bounce is a terminology that we use to signify how the leading edge of the golf club is lifted into the sky, you don't really can see that on that white cane there but you can see the leading edge is quite a lot in the air at least from Ted here and that was bounce angle.

Now bounce angle is perfect and it's something we really want to play a shot out to the bunker or out to a grassy lie. Because as the club comes down, the bounce would hit the grass or the sand and it will propel the club back upwards and that's why a bouncy sand wedge won't dig into a bunker too much. However, if we're playing and there's no grass, no sound, and it's just on hard pan, that bounce effectively lifts the club at the leading edge particularly into air and it can stop the club from getting underneath the ball.

I have then explained this principle to the fact that you've got massive clown shoes and like big boots on, are you going to try and kick a football, it's going to be quite difficult to get your foot underneath the ball. If you've got a big, bouncy soil, so the soil is really deep and you're trying to get that underneath the leading edge of that ball, it' going to be quite difficult to do. So actually when we're playing a shot from tight to hard kind of lies, we need less bounce on our wedge. So you can either change your wedge to a lower bounce wedge like a lob wedge or a gap wedge instead of the traditional sand wedge. Alternatively, you can play it in such a way where you reduce the bounce.

So if we go back to this experiment here where we can see the bounce on the leading edge and I do that to the handle, you see how the bounce gets reduced so the leading edge now sits closer to the ground. So as I was to do this in my setup, I'd take my stance to my setup and have my handle more forged that reduces the bounce. If I put the ball back in my stance, that now looks like a really comfortable position in order to hit down on the golf ball.

So, as I set up now, I have the ball back in my stance. I have my hands nicely forged, that's reduce the amount of bounce I've now got. Now I can stay on my left side and hit down on the ball. And as long as I'm nice and confident with my down strike, I'll hit the ball first then I'll hit down into the ground. So therefore, it doesn't matter really what was after or under the golf ball, because I hit the ball first. The problem with playing of hardpan comes from a golfer who's trying to scoop and trying to get under the ball. The bounce hits the floor, that affects the quality of the strike and that's why some golfer struggle to hit wedges from hardpan lies.