Tip #24: Become a Sand Expert

In the course of my yearly tournament schedule I see a half dozen different varieties of sand, each with a different degree of coarseness, compaction, and depth. Each of them calls for a slightly different attack.

The wedge tends to dig and bury in powdery bunkers, so it's wise to play with an open clubface and the ball forward in your stance.

Call it chauvinism if you want, but I've always felt that the finest bunker sand in the world is in Australia. Maybe I'm just used to it. After all, for a decade or so before I became a golfer, I spent a lot of time on the Australian beaches.

The Aussie sand is rather granular and firmly packed, and the bunkers at most courses are shallow-based and constructed so that the ball rarely plugs, even in the front lip. Instead, it just rolls back down the face.

The same type of sand is prevalent at many of the British courses, certainly at the seaside links where beach sand is smoothed and compacted by constant wind. (Consequently, buried lies are relatively rare in the British Open.)

In general, this type of sand is easy to play from because you can judge more easily the chain reaction from club to sand to ball. You can also impart plenty of spin from these firm bunkers because you tend to get a lot of bounce. For that reason, you should generally attack such shots with a less open clubface than you would use in most bunkers. It's also wise to play the ball back in your stance a bit more than usual. This will encourage more of a digging action and guard against a belly-bounce.

In deep, powdery bunkers such as those at the Augusta National and Oakmont, the wedge will tend to dig and bury. So it's wise to play from these bunkers with a well-open sand wedge and to position the ball a bit more forward in your stance than usual. The loose consistency also requires a relatively firm swing. If you play most of your golf on a course with this type of sand, you should be sure to get yourself a wedge with plenty of flange.

The trickiest kind of bunkers may be those with loose sand over a firm crust. When Bob Tway holed his explosion to beat me at Inverness, he played from this type of bunker. In hard-bottomed bunkers such as this, the ball rarely buries, but you have to be careful nonetheless. Generally, your club will glide smoothly through the sand and ball, unless you dig a bit too deeply and cut into the crust. When that happens the club can slow down, causing you to leave the ball in the sand. It's safest to attack these bunkers with a heavy-flanged wedge, to allow the club to bounce off the subsurface.

One of the reasons I like to play out of the British bunkers is that the sand is often wet. This really makes it pack together densely, providing a uniform cushion under the ball so that the wedge slides smoothly underneath and bounces up and through rather than digging deep.

In wet sand, you usually have a clean, unburied lie, and this tempts many players to try to play out with a chip shot. As far as I'm concerned, that's absolutely the worst idea in the world. As aggressive and confident a player as I am, I never try to play chip shots from the sand. The possibilities for error are simply too great. In fact, I'll take out a putter and roll the ball out of a bunker before I'll chip it.

Another reason never to chip from wet sand is the fact that a blast is so simple. You actually have a couple of options on how to handle it. If you need distance, you can address this ball with a square face, since from wet sand you don't have to worry about digging too deeply. And since the wet, compacted cushion will transfer your energy quickly, you don't need to swing very forcefully to get plenty of fly and roll. Just take the usual open stance and make a smooth pass at the ball, hitting an inch and a half behind it.

If on the other hand you need to play a short shot to a tight pin, this is your chance to show off, maybe even make the ball suck back into the hole. Open the face of the wedge wide and lay it back, position the ball just back of center in your open stance, and make a very quick, nipping swing-short back, short through, but with plenty of acceleration-taking only an inch of sand behind the ball. Most important, go at this shot with the confidence it deserves. When you hit it properly, you can really make the ball dance.

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