Golf Smarter number three hundred and sixty nine, published on February eighth, twenty thirteen. Coming up in our score Zone Short Game Academy, the Wedge Guy addresses a question about selecting the right wedge for different types of bunkers.
Welcome to golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
So let's talk about that shot where you've got to keep the ball low, but you still need to get it seventy eighty yards. Should you mind walking me through the mechanics of how to do that?
Well.
For one, you're going to take probably a little bit extra club, meaning you're going to have to deloft your club. If you want to hit it low, you need to take a five iron. It's more of a chip shot type swing in length, and that club's going to stay very long. I think here's one of the most difficult things is when you're trying to follow through your head. Better be very still, and your hands better stay in front of that club face beyond impact, and your follow
through needs to stay low. You're not finishing in a high finish. You're keeping that club head low along the ground and not going that far pass waist high, so it's more of a pop. It's not a full swing. But I think you need to make sure your club head stays low. Critically, your head has to stay still. We tend to when we try to hit that with our hands forward and keeping our club head low. Our bodies and heads tend to go forward ahead of the ball. At the same time we can top the ball. You
don't hit it very good and it's a miss. So keeping the head very still and maintaining your hands ahead of club face with a very short follow through. There's a lot of feel.
Involved shots that every golfer needs but doesn't know it.
With Kendorty, this is Golf.
Smarter sharing tips and insights from golf first and golf professionals to help blower your score.
It's worked for your host, Fred Green.
Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Ken, Thank you, thanks for having me.
Oh it's a joy to have you here in the studio. So now the audience is aware that I moved a couple months ago, or they're not aware they don't really care. What I haven't ever mentioned ever is that I live next to the Marine Country Club. I've never mentioned this until this very moment because I'm not a member of the Marine Country Club yet. Someday I hope that works out, but we'll see what happens. Anyway, we got a chance
to meet. We started talking, and I knew that I had to get you on the show because not only are you quite articulate about what you're doing, you're very passionate about it. And I'm really excited to have you on the show this time and many more in the future.
I hope.
Thank you.
I was recently on a trip played around a golf with a head teaching professional at the course, and it
ended up being a playing lesson, which was awesome. I didn't expect it, and we did a lot of video, and I realized that one of the things that we don't get to talk about very often is all the shots you need in your bag that you never practice, and I thought this would be a lot of fun to talk about with you, because you have people who come and play the same course multiple times a week, and I would suspect they don't play very many other courses.
That's correct. And as far as practicing, how many people go to the range and practice uneven lies and different heights of grass They hit it off the tee or off that range it's flat. So I think that there's a couple levels to having a playing lesson. One is it's reality. There's a big difference between hitt and balls on the range and hitting it when it counts. So I think a playing lesson really brings out the real you very often. And there's shots in that range are
on the golf course. Excuse me that you can't replicate on the range. You just can't. There's so many variables on the golf course that you just cannot get on the range. So I think a playing lesson is by far the most valuable lesson you can have, and video is important too, But range versus playing lesson, I don't think there's a comparison.
Wow, and I'm sure you've watched people practice out on the range, and what is your sense? What do you get that most people are just doing the same thing over and over and over, or they'll take three or four swings with each club, or they just go right to the driver. What are your frustrations with watching people practice.
Well, I've seen all different levels. You get some people that are very analytical and they'll sit out there and they've got their notes and they're thinking about the you know, they're analyzing and thinking about different shots. And then you've got other people that are out there and just trying to bang the ball and hit it as solid as they can, hit it as far as they can. I don't know if there's really any method that they have.
I think if you're going to go there's two reasons to go to the driving range, simply to warm up to go play, or you need to have a purpose. Why am I here? Otherwise it's just exercise, and I think more people unfortunately probably do that then go out there with a specific purpose.
Do you, I mean other than when a club event, club championship type of thing is coming up. Do most people just come in for a warm up before the round or are they seriously out there practicing two tents.
So it depends on the time of day. The morning people are out there warming up. The afternoons where you see people camping over that bucket of balls or several buckets and working on their game.
How do you feel about someone just taking two hundred balls a day and just.
Well than nothing, it's better than nothing. I mean, you know, when I give a lesson, I say, listen, this is a fifty to fifty deal. You need to take lessons if you're going to improve, and you need to hit golf balls. You have to get that high end eye coordination. You have to work on those things. So them hitting golf balls, at least the club is in their hands and there's some familiarity with that. I think that's very,
very important. I think they'll only go so far if they're not if they don't have some direction and a purpose and a vision of where they want to be. And you know, if they take some good lessons and go to a valued instructor, they're going to have a path in which they want to get to their goal. And I'm not sure that everybody at that range. I think. I think too often you get people out there saying let me try this, let me try that. Okay, I'm going to try this, and before they know it, they've
tried so many things. They don't know what's right and what's wrong. They could have made the correct swing and just didn't hit it that well, which we all do, and then figured, okay, well that's probably the wrong move. And they didn't realize that they just made a great swing and then they changed to something else and who knows, they might hit it well and think, okay, let me do this, and they're off track, and like I said, they don't know. I think they get confused. Eventually, they don't.
They've got so many things in their bag that they're pulling out of the grab bag that they don't know what's right and what's not. And very often when they come to a lesson, I'm wiping this light clean and erasing a lot. I feel like I always tell me, I feel like I'm the grinch, you know. I take so many things away from them in a lesson because I think people are misdirected.
Well, when you say let me try this, let me try this, are you talking about that? They'll say, let me try hitting my hybrid from under a tree, or it's like, oh, let me see if I can flatten my swing plane a little.
More, flatten the swing plan. Very few people actually will come to me and work on a specialty shot. You know, they're just trying to hit it farther, hit it more consistently, straighter. If it's the short game, obviously they're trying to get better. But for somebody to come to me and say, you know, I need to work on this the shot under the tree.
One thing we have here at Marine. We have a hole on number seven that's very difficult and the second shot leaves you with very often the ball below your feet. So I like that specific somebody will come up to me specifically and say I want to work on whole
number seven. I have a very difficult time with that shot to that par five, the third shot to the par five green with the ball below their feet sometimes in rough And that's the time that sometimes I'll get specific request on different lies or different setups.
Do you do you find yourself trying holding back of rolling your eyes when you when someone comes to you say what do you want to work on? And they say, I just want to be more consistent? I mean, is that like the number one request?
Now?
Really?
Well, well, I'll tell you what I think. It's probably a toss up because I get distanced a lot too. It's consistent, yes, yes.
And do you ever, like, don't you want to be closer to the hole?
Don't you?
I mean it's like, really, do you know how far you hit each of your clubs? You? Really is distance the thing that's holding you back.
Oh. I always tell them that's the car before the horse. That's the last thing I want to talk about.
Really.
Well, yeah, tell them to play different teas, yeah, right, right.
Well, what I tell them is that I I did a little experiment on my own. I hit my pitching wedg about one hundred and thirty hundred and thirty five yards and just dawned on me one day that you know, part four might be one hundred or three hundred and ninety or four hundred or in that neighborhood for most people, I can hit that green in three with my pitching wedge, and since I'm hitting a pitching wedge into the green,
I should get within reason anyways. And I would use my pitching wedge to actually put the ball too, and just kind of hit the equator of the ball with the lead edge of the club. And so I decided to go out and play nine holes with my pitching watch just for the heck of it. And on the very first hole, I hit my third shot six feet away, missed the putt, but I mean there was an opportunity to part, and I ended up boguing in for forty
five for nine holes. So that's a ninety if I if I double that, play eighteen holes and I have hit a maximum shot one hundred and thirty five yards. So when somebody tells me, they come up to me and say, god, I can't break a hundred, I can't break ninety, and I, you know, well, how far do you hit it? About one eighty two hundred. I tell them they're barking up the wrong tree. And I also, you know, I think that that contact and direction consistencies
certainly are well above distance. So at least I've got a little little data and a little history to support what I say. And they buy into it pretty quickly. I think.
We talked about this previously. Now I'm just starting to comprehend what you were saying. You played the entire nine holes with just your nine iron.
Pitching watch, with your pitching wedge only oh only, Yeah.
That I've great challenge.
I've even I've even had playing lessons where I'll say, okay, we're on our last hole times running out, I'll play I'm just gonna use my pitching wedge and I'll play against you heads up and I've powered holes. I I it's it's almost embarrassing for them because I just show them how simple this is. If it's if you just hit it one hundred and thirty five yards and you're halfway consistent. You know how people are, they want to
bust the ball, especially the young male. A lot of the lot of the young male just they come out of their shoes and you know, they're all over the lot and it's so much it'd be so much better if you could get them to tone down and just keep it in play, they'd play so much better. But I think that's a fight with a testosterone.
Well you know that that are four letter word ego.
Yeah.
Absolutely, it gets in the way of everything, you know.
Yeah, And I tell people, you know, you're better off just getting up there and I'm gonna bunt this down the middle of the fairway attitude, and you will play better. And I've seen people with injuries play better because they have to. They have to tone down a little bit, swing easier, that's right, pull back and relax a little bit. More they swing ease year and I think more times than that people play better when they have to do that because of an injury.
Mm hmm.
You think they'd play worse because they were hurting.
No, it's just the hardest thing to comprehend that you can hit the ball farther if you don't swing as hard well, and it's swing fast, grow.
Up though throwing. You want to go farther, you throw it harder. You want to hit that ball out of the park, you swing harder. Uh. And it just makes sense from the sports we grew up with that. Well, if I swing as hard as I can, this sucker is gonna fly. And it's so much Mechanics are so much more important in golf, uh than than power. And I think you can get power through mechanics. You're not going to find mechanics going the power route.
Mm hmm.
Well, it's you know, hit down to make it go up, swinging easier to make it go farther, opposite.
It's to the core, isn't it. It's just it's as it makes sense, yes, yeah, and it's hard.
I mean I know that that I try to contain myself on my drives, and yet I find myself just coming out of my shoes.
Sure, it's like, cut it out, keep your feet on the ground.
Yeah, just swinging Select forty five and a half inches.
You're with the masses and they keep me busy. Actually, well that's good.
What's the difference between being a head professional at a country club versus or have you done anything if you worked at public courses.
Before or just I've been at a public course, I've been just an instructor at a private course. I've been assistant slash instructor and now head professional at Marine Country Club. And you know, if you're the instructor, well, that's your job all day long. Every day you're going out and lessons all day or playing lessons, where if you're the head golf professional, lessons are just a small piece of
the puzzle. You're running a business, tournaments, merchandise and the day to day operations, and your whole staff is teaching and you're not sitting on the tee all day. And I love teaching. It's it's extremely rewarding. But for years and years that's all I did, and it's kind of nice to take a break and just do it a little bit more. I think it's more rewarding that I do it part time. No, I get more out of it now. Nice, that's nice, and hopefully they get more
at me. Yeah, well, of course, I mean if you're there person after person after person, I mean you're a pretty strong person to have the same energy that at the end of the week for client number fifty, then you did the first one.
And what we haven't talked about is Marine Country Club is managed by Truon Golf.
Yes, and they have.
Why don't you give me a little shout out for true because I've always a big fan of Truon golf courses, in the public courses and the resort courses that I've played. I just love the way they manage a golf course. I love the condition of every Truon course I've ever played. I'm a big fan and the fact that you know I've got this Truon course in my backyard makes me crazy. What is it about Trouon?
Well, first of all, in two thousand and eight, Truon started to manage my club that I was in South Florida. It's a fifty four hole facility, private equity, gated, high end and they turned that club around. I believe the year they moved in, or just the year before they moved in, uh, they lost to three quarters of a million dollars, and two years after they came in they
actually made three quarters of a million dollars. The conditions of the courses complete one eighty they were in trouble, and they went from again being in some bit of trouble to the facility of the year within Truon and Truon manages two hundred golf courses or approximately two hundred
golf courses, and they've got a lot of resources. And then they came into Marin, and Marin brought them in for a reason, and so far the feedback has been extremely positive and they're very good at it taking care of your country club. The conditions of the courses. I go to the Truon managers or I mean, I never wonder. I know they're going to be in good condition. And the staff is the customer service is fantastic. I mean, it's it's a great friendly atmosphere with every Truon course.
So it's great to be a part of them, it really is. And that's how I came to Marin because I was working at the course in South Florida Ball and Owls and they needed a head professional and asked if I would be interested, and I left it the chance.
The general manager here at Marin Country Club, Ryan Wilson. He was actually featured on Golf Smarter back in two thousand and six when he was general manager of a truon course in Arizona.
So that's what happened to his career.
Yeah, he's not listening.
But one of the things that was said then, and it's always rung true to me, is that at the public truoned courses, they treat their guests like members.
Yeah, and I've always said that. Actually I was at a public course and somebody asked me what the difference is, and I said, I don't see a difference. I you know, you see some are returning customers, but a lot of new customers with a public golf course. But I still treat them as if they're my member. I just don't you know, with a with a member club, Yes, you spend a lot more time with them. They become almost family.
There's a more of a relationship there. But is there any different respect level or the way you handle them in the service department. No, I don't. I don't think so.
And we know that the golf industry has had some difficult times over the last few years, as every industry has UH and UH. Private courses have been deeply affected by this, many courses closing every single year.
How's business business for Morena is very good. We're fortunate. We're in a pretty nice area of Morenne County and we are fortunate to that we don't have to worry. I mean, we're always looking for more members, but we're not in a position that we're going to be closing our doors.
Fortunately, hopefully not.
Not a chance, not a chance.
All right, Let's let's talk about those shots in your bag that you don't practice. Let's let's think about a couple of different shots that that people should be thinking about when they're on the practice facility at the driving range. Let's say you play a course it has a lot of trees, low hanging trees. Let's talk about how you would approach and right out here.
There there's you know, you've got to right outside your door.
I've seen people standing, well, there's a bunker right outside my gate here. But there's a couple of trees here that you cannot get a good shot at the green, because your drive is going to end up under some trees that have branches that are no more than ten feet high.
Yep. If you're a right hander and you slice it off your tee, you're most likely navigating some trees and possibly going under them. Yeah.
Yeah, So first thing we have to learn, and one of my all time favorite lines is never follow a bad shot with a stupid shot and.
You're going right where you should. I mean the you know, I believe that the first mistake isn't what kills you. It's the second one. And if you try to make up for the first one, there goes double and triple.
You need to take you you're going to add you're going to add strokes to your score.
Oh absolutely, you're trying to make up for that first mistake, and you're going to have triple before you know it. It's hard to swallow, but in most cases, you need to get yourself to a position to hit on the green and then take your bow gee or whatever position you're in and get out of there and minimize the damage. And know that it happens to most people. Uh, And it is an attitude I believe when you go out
to play to have that. I think that if you go out there and try to if you train yourself to go out there and just try to minimize the damage, you'll do better. And I can guarantee you most people listening right now probably either now or at some point didn't do that. I think they try to look at that little hole between the branches and make up for it, or try to hit a very low shot, and uh,
you know, the very very good players practice that. You don't, nor do you have the mechanics in your golf swing to probably pull that shot off. You know, the hitting. You know, there's a what was that saying there? The said something about when you're hitting through that tree there. Somebody said it was ninety percent air and one triple bogie.
Ye have heard something similar. Trees are like screens. Yeah, yeah, great, but you're still.
A screen door, that's correct.
Yeah, you know.
It's like, uh, watching Bubba play, you just never know what he's going to try to do and if he's going to pull it off.
But what we don't.
Realize is that he probably practices all those shots.
Tiger. If anybody you know you see him do these shots that are outrageous.
But you got to know that he's probably practiced that shot a thousand times where we have seen it on TV.
Going, I can do this.
Yeah, And not only do they practice a lot, they have tremendous control and awareness of where their hands and club face are during the swing. And most amateurs, vast majority have no idea. Uh if I tell him to take it inside and close the face versus up and most people can't do that.
They they understand what you're talking about.
There's a percentage that didn't know what I'm talking about. But you're right. Some people I'll say that and they you know, it's a deer in the headlights. Yeah. So so those those people, the pros, the better players, not only practice it, they they can feel where that club and hands are. And if you can't feel where your clubhead is or your hands are and manipulate that during the backswing or nowhere to go, well you've got no business trying those those specialty shots.
So let's talk about that shot where you've got to keep the ball low, but you still need to get it seventy eighty yards and you know, if you pull out your if you pull out your four iron, which you know that's you know you're gonna have You're not gonna be able to take a full swing, but you got to keep the ball low. Let's let's can you do you mind walking me through the mechanics of how to do that? And if you need to stand up, you have plenty of room here and I can stand up with you.
But well, for one, you're going to take probably a little bit extra club, meaning you're going to have to deloft your club. If you want to hit it low, you need to take a five iron, you know, and this might be only a seventy yard one hundred yard shot, but you might have to take a five iron, and you've got to learn that it's more of a chip shot type swing in length, and that club's going to stay very low. The ball position is going to be back.
And I think here's one of the stands already. I think here's one of the most difficult things is when you're trying to follow through, your head better be very still and your hands better stay in front of that club face beyond impact, and your follow through needs to stay low. You're not finishing in a high finish, You're keeping that club head low along the ground. And not going that far past. You're certainly not getting your head
your club head passed waist high. So it's more of a I don't know if I want to use the word bunt, but it's it's basically a little pop. It's not a full swing, but I think you need to make sure your club head stays low. Critically, your head has to stay still. We tend to when we try to hit that with our hands forward and keeping our club head low. Our bodies and heads tend to go forward ahead of the ball. At the same time we can top the ball, you don't hit it very good
and it's a miss. So keeping the head very still and maintaining your hands ahead of club face with a very short follow through, and there's a lot of feel involved.
Are you coming down on the ball at that.
Point, Yeah, a little bit, but you've got a pretty shallow You.
Come down too hard, it's gonna.
Well exactly and you've got but the thing is you're coming You're gonna come down on that shot. Yeah, but it's not nearly the degree of a full swing. You have a very shallow swing you're making. It's going to be fairly low back and fairly low through because as you just said and described was that if you go too high or too vertical with your back swing and swing down, that ball goes upwards. So you want to
flatten your swing. If you flat it, meaning keeping your club head low to the ground, taking it away and going through, that'll produce a lower ball flight.
Two other things that I would think would be really important to again, you want your mind to be cleaned and clear, but you've got to keep a sense of what you're doing here. Is one your grip, because I know in a situation like that for me, white knuckles, you know, squeezing this thing with her. And Second, your rhythm. I would think that that's something people tend to get.
A little quick when they have to shorten their backswing. Uh, and do that shot. And you've got to make sure you take that back swing slow and try to pause. Don't be in a rush again.
Pausewhere wait, wait, keep going pause at.
The at the top of your back swing or it's not gonna be the top. It's gonna be Yeah, the top of your backswing happens to be maybe waist high. Yeah, but you need to be patient there and A and A and A being relaxed having your hands soft will help that. Again, you know, I can, I can describe those motions and those mechanics. That's only a small percentage.
You've got to get out there and now try to make that happen and have either your own video or have somebody watch you to make sure that you are indeed doing what the article or what I'm saying, because a lot of people take that article from the from the news or from the magazine and they really don't apply it correctly. So you need to have somebody make sure you know you have the knowledge. Now let's make sure you execute it properly.
Are these magazines doing damage?
Uh? To some? Sure to some. I mean the articles are fantastic and there's a lot of good, but not everybody knows what pertains to them. And a lot of people don't know how to take what they've read and then have that application work.
And some people learn watching video versus readings.
Absolutely, you know, absolutely, So you know, I certainly don't want to take a shot at that. But they keep me busy some of those articles, because you know, I've had people bring me articles and say, Ken, look at this, read this, you know, and whoa time out and I know it's not yeah, exactly.
Oh interesting, Now I want to get back to that concept of the pause and and on a normal swing, are we pausing at the top or is this very Specific's.
A good question. There always needs to be. There's sometimes that people are quick and I'll say you need to pause at the top. I want you to feel a pause. I don't want to see it. And there is a big difference. Well, people feel like they're going to pause. Sometimes I say, listen, because of your swing, you're going to feel like you're having a tea party up there and that you're never going to get back to that
golf ball. But when I watch them swing and then I show them on video right after, it looks like the normal transition pace. It's just again the feeling you have to you have to be able to see that on video or have somebody watch you to give you the confidence that you're not sitting up there forever. There is a certain pace to the swing, and the transition to me is one of the most important parts of the swing. The speed of which you change your transition.
It needs to be soft, it needs to be relaxed. It's one of the most important things in my swing. The things I think about are the pace of my backswing, which is nice and slow, and to feel a pause. Now, that pause that I feel could be very different than what you feel. But there's a certain pace to my swing that could be different than the pace to your swing. You need to find what it is. I think most people don't. They go a little too fast in the
backswing and they don't pause enough. And again I don't mean a literal pause. It's not like, no, we're.
Not going yeah exactly, taking literally what does that mean?
Well, we're not going up there, and I mean to suggest a pause. You're thinking you're going up there, and you're hitting literally hitting the pause button and everything is stopping. No. I think that that there needs to be a soft transition, and that's probably a better term. I like that, Okay, there needs to be a soft transition to up and down. There's not a hirky jerky motion. It needs to be
very smooth. And there's a big difference and probably a big difference in your result when you take a swing that is very calm at the top and the other one that is very rigid and very.
Abrupt, rigid face, hands, shoulders, pants, everything rigid tight.
I'll tell somebody, if you relax through your whole game and through your whole swing, you'll do more for yourself than anything else I can do for you. Really, absolutely, absolutely, I think it's very very very important. In fact, I've learned from experience that I'll get up to a drive that's that just looks daunting, it's narrow, there's all kinds of trouble up there, and it used to be that I would stand up there and.
Yeah, this all you're out there right now.
Is a perfect example. I would usually stand up there, or in the past, I would stand up there and say okay, and then I'd get tight and I'd feel like I'd try to steer it or aim it or you know whatever I was trying to do, and I'd never hit it straight. I hit it terrible. And this
is how I came to know this. On a par five, very very often, I'll have an opportunity to go forward and two, and if I don't, if the risk is too bad or it's just too far, maybe I'll take a six iron out and put myself in a good position to hit my next shot. Those invariably are the most solid, best shots of the day because I'm not real I'm just looking. I'm relaxed, and I'm just looking to hit it out there, in out there for my third shot. I'm not firing at a flagstick where there's
more tension. And I hit him so good, and I think, why don't I do that with the rest of my game, And so I try to do that as much as possible. I'll stand up on the tee and I'll just totally relax when I you've either struggling with my driver a little bit, or I've got a hole that I think, oh, my goodness, is this tight? And I'll tell you what. I hit the ball straighter a lot more often when I totally give in and relax and let it happen. And again, the game is the opposite to the core.
You think you want to steer it and be tight and rigid and push it out there. No, if you totally give in and relax, you think that there's, oh my goodness, this could go anywhere. And I found, at least personally, I hit him better, more solid, better air. Time my ball goes a little bit higher, I tend to hit a little bit lower ball. And it's also from the tension, So I think that relaxing again, it's it is if you can do it, it's your friend.
Interesting And when you said, you know, get some video, have someone look at you, You're not talking about having a friend look at you because they're only going to give you bad advice.
Well yeah, but if you want, I'm not saying them to give you instruction. But I think that if you got instruction and then you knew what you needed to do, you just needed somebody to confirm that you are aren't doing it. I think that's okay. Yeah, you got to be a little careful with that as well, but you can't see it yourself, so you better either take video and look at it afterwards, or have somebody watching you do it.
Yeah, because we we think we're doing stuff. It's amazing how watching video of your swing is can be so depressingsing.
I've had both. I've had people be upset about it and I've had other people be pleasantly surprised.
Yeah, oh it's shocking. Yeah, there's no question that it's shocking. Listen, we we've hit our time limit on on this episode of Golf Smarter, but we would I would love to have you stick around. Uh, we can do, because I have so many more questions. We only got to one shot, that special shot in your bag, which is really what I wanted to cover. And it's great to have you here. It's great to finally get to meet.
You on the show.
And yeah, no, and and again, if anybody has any questions for Ken, please go ahead and click on the Heyfred button at golf smarter dot com and send him in to me and I will put you in touch with Ken. Absolutely, he'd be happy. That would be great. So can you stick around for another episode?
Certainly.
And now it's time for our score Zone Short Game Academy. Think of question about your short game, really think about your short game. You're telling me you don't have any questions that you'd like to ask an expert. Well, we've got the expert here. It's the wedge guy, Terry Gaylor of score Golf. Hello, Terry Hip, I'm doing well, thank you, And we've got an interesting question that's come in from
Ray Dickinson. And again Ray submitted this question, and so he is going to receive a free scoring club of his choice from his selection of the group of five from a score forty one sixty one Wedge Scoring Club. He'll also receive a golf Smarter divot repair tool, the world's greatest switchblade divot repair tool. At least that's what everyone tells me. And so let's get right to Ray's question and again encourage everyone. If you've you've got a question,
send it in. Chances of Terry answering the questions are very good because he really loves to do this and he even uses these questions for his blog as well, The Wedge Guy. So this one comes from Ray Dickinson. He's in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and it's a two part question. Again, it doesn't he doesn't think he did, but he really did do two questions here. So I'm having a tough time getting out of the green side bunkers when they have hard compacted coarse sand. It's like
I wrote this question. I usually have little trouble in the light fluffy sand. I just take a lot of sand and hit it on the green, but when it comes to the hard compacted bunker, I usually hit a low burner after the wedge bounces into the ball and stick it to the side of the bunker, or catch it thin and air mail the green so his two part question one which club should I use?
And two the hell do I hit it?
Well?
Ray that you know the problem you're talking about is not uncommon. So the first answer is what club should I use? Is obviously you should use a score forty one sixty one wedge and then your problems will be over.
It's true.
Oh so that's what we've been on our soul far. But let's talk about your You're a pretty good bunker player. When you have a typical soft, fluffy bunker. You're laying the club open behind it and bring the sand on the ball out and and you're doing a good job there. When you get into a bunker that's hard compacted, you know,
it's wet, don't think of it as a bunker. This is a totally different kind of lie because that hard, wet, packed sand is going to provide a lot more what I call rejection force of the bottom of your club than that light, fluffy sand will. So even though you're in a bunker, when you walk in there and that sand is not giving under your feet, and that ball is sitting there, you know clean on this on this packed sand, it's not sitting down because the sand is
not back. You want to play that shot more like it was in a hard pan out at the bunk, or it was a tight lie outside the bunker. So if you have a sand wedge with a high bounce on it, that's not the club you want to take in there. Take your pitching wedge, or take your gap wedge, or if you carry a lob wedge with not a lot of bounds, take that club in because you don't you've already got this hard sand it's going to reject that golp club, and a lot of bounce just increases
or enhances that what I call the rejection quotient. So take your gap wedge or your lob wedge if it's a low bounce, or your score forty one sixty one, because our visul will handle this. But there's a different way to approach the shot. And the way you want to look at this shot is not as a lay the face open splash it behind the ball, but you want to focus right on the back edge of the ball rather than that spot behind the ball, and it's
not as hard of a swing. It's kind of like the difference between hitting range balls off a turfer off of a mat. You know that map. Just you can feel that club just skip off the mat and it causes a hotter shot. This wet packed sand, the club's going to skip off that sand and give you a little hotter shot. So it's more like hitting just a little pitch shot off a hard pan line which is always comes off hot than it is that bigger force
in the soft sand. So you're not going to remove my hand from the bunker at all because the club's going to skip. You want to make contact with the sand and the ball just about the same time. Stay with the shot, go ahead and hit down on it. Slow everything down, be very precise with it, and go into find a wet bunker and throw you eight or ten balls down. Just practice. It's like hitting a little pitch shot out of the bunker and you'll find very quickly this you can take the fear out of that.
Okay, So don't you feel better now, Ray, don't you feel I feel better. I'm going to go practice, you know, because that when it gets when it's hard like that, I do the same thing.
I hate it.
But that was a great answer. Thank you very much, and more welcome.
And we'll get into more detail later about the PGA show that you were at last week. But congratulations on once again making the Golf Digest hot list.
Huh, Well, we're really excited about that. I mean, it's a rare honor for a brand new company to be stacked in with all the major brands and feel one more year and we're going to have one of those gold medals because people are really understanding that we're building wedges for the modern power game, and we've got some very interesting things, and your listeners can go online and learn more about Score Golf and City that we're challenging the way wedges have been built for the last forty
or fifty sixty years, because they really have all the clubs in our bag. That club has changed the least. And yet we play golf a very different way than it was played back in the fifties and sixties, when golf was very much a precision game because the clubs were so unforgiving. With the hadvent of middlewoods and cavity back urns, the game has evolved to a much more forceful power game, even for mid to mid to high handicappers. We all go go at the harder than they did
back then. But these things called wedges really haven't evolved to keep up with this modern power game. And what we did was score forty one sixty one is totally reinvent the waiting scheme in wedges so that they're more forgiving, they're more accurate, they deliver better trajectories, more consistent distance control, and they eliminate those big, high ballooning webshots that are the nemesis for all of us.
You know, listen, if Golf Digess is putting on the hot list, and this is what the second year in a row.
Right, yeah, two years in a row, I mean ever since we introduced the product.
Yeah, it's definitely you know, when the press takes notice, everyone's going to follow. And that is really incredible. So Terry, congratulations again, and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks on the Golf Smarter episode.
That'd be great. I'll look forward to it. All fun