Sand Wedge - How To Deal With Glass Sand & Other Uses For The Sand Wedge
By Mark Slater

If you play golf on various courses throughout your home town or when traveling, you have probably come across bunkers that have unusually soft, white sand. This type of sand is known as "glass sand" and is used at many high-quality courses.

Unfortunately this sand is so soft and fine that, instead of resisting the force of the club head and thus bounding it up toward the ball, it tends to pull the club head down, which prevents the explosion effect that you get with a normal bunker shot. As a result, you need a different shot for glass sand.

1. First, open the face of the wedge to allow the club's rounded flange to create more of a bounce effect than it usually would. This will counteract the tendency of the sand to force the club head down too steep.

2. Take the club back on a fairly low trajectory, resisting the natural impulse to pick it up too sharply, and come into the ball from only a slight outside-in angle. The club head will not take a lot of sand, and so you won't get much backspin on the shot, but the ball will get up and out of the bunker.

You Do Not Need Sand To Use Your Sand Wedge

You can find more uses for your sand wedge outside of a bunker than in it. In fact, I use mine for pitching more often than I do my pitching wedge.

I almost always use my sand wedge for pitch shots that are within 60 yards of the green. It has approximately 3 degrees more loft than the standard pitching wedge and a considerably heavier, more rounded flange. This makes it especially valuable for those delicate short shots that must fly over a trap or mound, and then stop on the green, because the sand wedge gets the ball up quickly and with backspin.

The sand wedge also has many other uses. Try it from the rough, where the heavy blade and flange get under the ball more effectively than a pitching wedge, or from loose or sandy turf, where you need to play an explosion or cut shot. The pitching wedge would probably dig into the turf but the rounded flange of the sand wedge will bounce up.

Final Word

When there are no such special advantages to be gained by using the sand wedge and you are in doubt whether to use it or the pitching wedge, then it is recommended that you try the pitching wedge. The fact that the pitching wedge has less weight and loft, while a disadvantage in the situations mentioned above, makes it a little easier to control.

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