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Bob Burns 4 in 1 Wedge Are you one of those golfers (say a mid- to high-handicapper) who carries but two wedges in your bag, a standard pitching wedge and a conventional sand wedge-and who can see no good reason for carrying more than two-and yet who finds one or another of those new lob wedges increasingly catching your attention, and briefly unsettling your otherwise sensible two-wedge mind? Do you find yourself thinking now and then that one of those very highly-lofted, deep-soled wedges, would sure make it easier to get out of sand traps and steep-sided bunkers-or to loft a shot over water, or from thick, greenside grass-or to play over a high mound-when you haven't got much green to work with? If you're one of those basically sensible, but occasionally wavering, two-wedge golfers-The Bob Wedge may well be the second wedge you need-a wedge designed specifically to perform the functions both of a good 56deg sand wedge and of one or another of those lob wedges you sometimes wish you had. Dramatically different from all but a very few other highly lofted wedges on the market, "The Bob," as we have come to call it, is a kind of 4-in-1 problem-solver for the average golfer. The most notable features of The Bob's distinctive design and its problem-solving versatility are found on the unusually contoured flange of its sole. Like any other finely-tuned sand wedge, The Bob features the fairly sharp leading edge that is desirable for buried lies in sand and for touchy chips and pitches around the green; but to the rear of that leading edge, where on a conventional sand wedge you find a fairly hefty, rounded or convex surface, you'll find instead a concave surface, a kind of trough or valley that widens from heel to toe, and whose rearward side slopes toward the trailing edge of the sole, (creating what appears to be almost a secondary leading edge). The result of this distinctive sole is a wedge-a single wedge-that will enable you to nip or pinch those delicate shots around the green-or to drive your ball out of upslope, fried eggs in sand-even as it allows you (perhaps even encourages you) to make the kinds of shots a golfer most often seeks with a lob wedge. In technical terms, we speak of The Bob Wedge as having a biased, offset, variable degree of bounce-and a coordinately variable degree of loft-each dependent on the extent to which the clubface is opened or laid flat at address. When the leading edge of clubface is conventionally square to the target-line, The Bob has a loft of 56deg and 1deg of bounce. When the clubface is opened by 5deg, the loft increases to 58deg and the bounce to 4deg. Rotating the face open to 10deg increases the loft to 60deg and the effective bounce to 9deg. Finally and radically, when the clubface is opened to an extreme 15deg, the loft increases to 71deg and the bounce to 11deg. What you have then is truly versatile club-one club that will perform the functions of a precision sand wedge and, at your command, the functions of a set of lob wedges as well. Cast from stainless steel with a deep classically-shaped face, The Bob also sports a distinctive thin, double-winged hosel that slightly increases the available hitting area and (most importantly?) reduces the possibility of shanking a shot.
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