How to Use Your Bounce on Your Sand Wedge

Because the sand wedge has the bounce, the clubhead won't dig too much into the sand. But unfortunately, lots of golfers fail to use the bounce correctly. They either dig too much with the leading edge of the sand wedge or use bounce too much and actually hit the ball. To your bounce correctly, you need to pay attention to your grip, first. When you grip the club (for bunker shot), you need to open the face first and then grip the club.

 

But if you grip the club and open the face, the face will close at impact. You will have hard time getting the ball out of the sand with closed face. With bunker shots, the clubhead will go underneath the ball. So it is like hitting the ball below your feet. (You don't hit the ball with bunker shot, though). When hitting the ball below your feet, you need to swing more vertical than usual.

 

So with bunker shot, same thing applies. You need to swing more vertical (upright) than regular shots to get the clubhead underneath the ball. Tiger Woods once said that in order to swing more vertival on bunker shots, he tries to hinge his wrists early on the backswing.

 

Another point he mentioned is to keep the face open  through impact. If the face is open through impact, the bounce will be correctly used for the shot so that the clubhead won't did too much into the sand. Also, don't forget to accelerate clubhead through impact. If you decelerate, the ball won't come out of the sand.

 

Reference: http://www.golfsamurai.net/short-game/how-to-use-bounce-sand-wedge.htm