| Bunker play is a necessary and often frightening | | | | So, what do you do? |
| aspect of a round of golf. | | | | Firstly, you have to know what type of base |
| On your usual golf course what are the bunkers | | | | most of the bunkers have on your home course. |
| like? | | | | If the sand is all fluffy and deep, lucky you. |
| There are those with good fluffy sand that is | | | | On my course, there are a lot of hard pan type |
| quite deep and there are those with not so fluffy | | | | bunkers. |
| sand but still sand and those with almost hard pan | | | | Then, you go to your professional and ask him to |
| just deep to a find sprinkling of sand. | | | | order a sand iron with a medium depth and width |
| On this last bunker type, the sand iron has a | | | | of flange. |
| tendency to bounce off the hard surface and | | | | This will be useful in all types of bunkers. |
| cause you to duff your shot. | | | | Don't forget that the lob wedge is pretty useful |
| As already stated in a recent article, the object is | | | | out of a bunker. |
| to get out of the bunker and onto the green | | | | Practice is needed though to see how it will |
| taking only one shot. | | | | perform with various swings and ball positions. |
| One can not carry several sand irons to play each | | | | Particularly useful for the buried or poached egg |
| type of bunker, so the answer is to compromise. | | | | lie. |
| The thing that makes a sand iron bounce to a | | | | The drill is to hit down onto the edge of the |
| greater or lesser degree when it makes contact | | | | poached egg (the sand ridge around the ball) and |
| with the sand is the width and the depth of the | | | | do not follow through. |
| flange. | | | | The ball should fly up in the air and out of the |
| A sand iron with a wide and deep flange will | | | | bunker. It will not be a very long shot however. |
| bounce on contact with the sand. The ideal type | | | | You may like the lob wedge for this, or your |
| for that deep fluffy sand because it will stay | | | | pitching wedge. The sand wedge may do too, but |
| shallow and not knife under the ball as much. | | | | the flange could get in the way. |
| Conversely, a narrow and shallow flange will not | | | | As usual, practice and trial and error is the only |
| bounce as much and will dig into the sand and | | | | way to tell. |
| tend to stop. Certainly not what you want in | | | | However, the shot is played in the way described |
| fluffy sand but ideal for the hard pan type of | | | | above. |
| bunker. | | | | |