Hitting Out of Compacted or Wet Sand - Help Needed

Hitting Out of Compacted or Wet Sand - Help Needed

Mine actually don't but I think it's because I use more of a thump for the wet ones and a little more wrist and speed with the dry ones. That sort of sounds dirty...................:D

Sooo dirty...I likey!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
100% true, and if you know how the ball will react you can play some pretty cool shots

I agree 100%! Love being able to fly ball pay hole and back it up out of a greenside trap! I can only do it out of compacted wetting sand with an almost full swing


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Oh great, so now I need a new wedge. :D

Your existing 54*, 56*, 58* will work fine, and the bounce is irrelevant. What matters (to get the ball out of the sand and have it land relatively softly on the green) is playing the shot with a square club face at address, and entering the sand nearer to the ball than were it dry sand.
 
Thanks for all the responses gents. Need to hit the dry sand bunkers again for some practice.
 
Funny I love wet sand. I just hit way closer to the ball without getting too steep and swing hard. I might be doing something else but that is the feel. Wet sand is fun as you can actually spin a 20 yard bunker shot back if you want.
 
With wet or compacted sand, I treat it like a tight lie. I play it in the middle of my stance and try to hit the ball before the sand. With compacted sand, you arent going to be able to open the face and slash it out because its going to hit the sand and then bounce and skull the ball. You have to play it like a tight lie, IMO.
 
For me, the worst club to use out of wet sand is the sand wedge, because of its bounce. I use my Lob Wedge and find it works fine.
 
I am reasonably comfortable getting out of bunkers, but there is one shot that still mystifies me: hitting out of a bunker with compacted or wet sand. If I take my normal approach, open the face, use the bounce, and try to "thump" the sand, I end up bouncing the club into the ball and skulling it across the green. The sand is too hard and the club just bounces off it. If I close the club face and try to blast it out, the leading edge digs in and takes a dive and the ball ends up going about 3 feet.

What am I doing wrong? How do you get out of a bunker with wet or compacted sand?

I've had this problem. With wet or compacted sand, don't open the club face or close it. Just use your lob wedge and chip the ball out. I use a 64 wedge for this.
 
I play it like a normal bunker shot but be more agressive with it. Club face a little open, ball forward, weight front foot and welly that sucker. You won't get any spin, but you'll get out
 
i find one the issues with this is that we cannot of course ground the club behind the ball and so we sort of (in a way) guess unlike a regular bunker shot where we also cant ground but are hitting ground well before ball anyway. But with the tight wet, hard lie we dont have that same room for error. We risk blading the darn thing as we try to hit the ball cleaner yet cannot ground our club prior to know exactly where we are.

The only thing i do know for sure is that situations like these and among several others reasons is in part why I made sure I have two different bounce wedges. My ping400 setted SW is 13 (or is it 12?) but then my cbx 58* is a 10*bounce. At least this gives me some option of more vs less bounce based on conditions. But im actually beginning to find Im using the cbx with the 10 bounce a tad more often lately given the sand in many the bunkers I play. Though to be fair, we've had so much rain this spring so the bunkers have generally been tight most the times. Ive also had my share of times i simply played the shot much the same I would as a chip or short pitch shot and has seemed to work depending of course on the hight i need to get out.
 
this thread came to mind in my round on saturday. not only was the sand on most of the course very compacted, it was also very minimal. so the club just bounced off the surface and into the ball. just when i thought it i had it figured out, it was a pretty rough day out of the sand. yay golf.
 
I though for wet/compacted the tip is to play more like a regular chip? Up in the stance, keep face square/neutral , etc?

I should have remembered that before I too sent one rocketing across the green yesterday haha

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 
Tip: we don't get to practice in bunkers that often because many driving ranges don't have practice bunkers. So if you're playing a practice round where you're just... practicing... and not recording your score (yes, I do this and play multiple balls), ground your club in the bunker to build confidence. You can always hover the club during real play. Saw Paige Spiranac doing this when she was walking through a practice round. Of she's a pro and doesn't carry a HC so doesn't record scores for those on GHIN. Why shouldn't we have the same opportunity to practice? I don't have a problem with it.
 
If its wet, I just play it like a chip.

I do this a lot too. Especially if its really compacted and feels like concrete. Usually works out pretty well for me.
 
Back
Top