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.
