April Golf Tip of the Month

Equipment - Your Sand Wedge
After giving numerous lessons in the short game area I have
come to the conclusion that most people need more help in
understanding how their equipment can help them with the
roles that they be might wanting from their club and
especially with their choice of their sand wedge club. All of us
mostly use a 56 degrees for our bunkers and those soft shots
around the green.

All major club manufactures do have a speciality range of
wedges available and this is because of the different roles the
club can play. Every week in the tour equipment vans at the
Tournaments you will see different grinding going on,
reshaping the soles of sand wedges as players get organized
for the week event.

So a couple of examples will be if (1.)The course this week has
very soft powdery sand (2.) The fairways and around the
greens has been cut very short and they are firm.

So with example (1.) the players would be looking to get a
broader sole sand wedge with more bounce, say 12 degrees.
This along with slight adjustment to their technique they can
now get the powdery sand to compress and now behave
similar to the ideal composition sand.  With example (2.) the
players would be looking to get rid of of sole width and having
say only 8 degrees of bounce. This allows the leading edge of
the clubhead to be closer to the turf and therefore able to get
neater contact without the club bouncing up into the ball on
firm ground contact.

The trouble is when most people buy a set of clubs the sand
wedge in the set will just be a generic one that is mass
produced to sort of cover all roles. Most companies will
produce one that favors getting you out of the bunker, so
generally lots of bounce. This will be fine when our courses
are soft for chipping those soft shots on, but when the course
dries out everybody's chipping has a tendency to go off.

So when purchasing a new set make sure you get advise re
your sand wedge in that set and get what you want to suit
your game.

By the way, on Tour the players average a change of wedges
within a six week block since the groove rules change, they
might not change the specs of their clubs, but to keep the
quality spin control and box grooving no longer allowed they
change frequently.

Ahh, the detailing in high performance. Get that equipment
to match, then you have no one to blame except " it must be
these purple tees".

Go enjoy your Golf, have some fun out there.