Justin Thomas’ caddie has an intriguing wedge suggestion for St. Andrews

Open Championship week at St. Andrews is upon us. And as an overzealous golf geek with a love for links courses, this feels like the days leading up to my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. 

With links golf presenting a unique challenge compared to traditional PGA Tour setups, there is a lot of chatter about players changing the way they organize their golf bags, from adding driving irons to removing fairway woods and high bounce wedges.

During a practice round with friend Tiger Woods, we caught a brief conversation between Justin Thomas and caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay where Bones suggests they carry two lob wedges with the same loft and drop the 3-wood. His reasoning was to have one wedge with low bounce to hit off tight, firm turf, and the other with more bounce to help get out of a pot bunker if the situation comes up. 

With a dry Old Course playing fast and firm, a 3-wood might be just as useful as a pair of alignment sticks holding a towel and a second specialized lob wedge could mean the difference between saving par or getting stuck in a bunker.

You can listen to the full discussion in the video below from the practice round thanks to The Open’s YouTube channel. The clip is found at the 00:42 mark.

Golf.com Editor

Ryan Barath is GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com’s senior editor for equipment. He has an extensive club-fitting and -building background with more than 20 years of experience working with golfers of all skill levels, including PGA Tour players. Before joining the staff, he was the lead content strategist for Tour Experience Golf, in Toronto, Canada.

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