Ray Floyd on How Much Bounce Your Wedge Needs

This is an old clip from GC's 7 Nights at the Academy shows, featuring Raymond Floyd's advice on deciding how much bounce your 60° wedge needs.



This advice seemed almost counter-intuitive to me at first, but it made sense after I thought about it. Normally you would think that tight fairways would dictate using less bounce, simply because more bounce raises the front edge of the wedge off the ground. Wouldn't more bounce make you more likely to hit the ball thin?

However, Raymond says you really do need MORE bounce in this case. Otherwise you risk having that front edge dig too much into the ground and mess up your shot. That's when I realized that the wedge I have always hit best from the fairway is actually one with high bounce, just like Raymond suggests!

But make sure you test the wedge first, because your swing's angle of attack also plays a part. A steeper swing generally requires more bounce than a flatter swing. Raymond always had a fairly steep swing, so that would have influenced his advice as well.

So this is something you might want to consider if you're having trouble hitting good approach shots with your lob wedge. You may actually need more bounce than you're using.