I never considered myself as a good bunker player although I've improved a lot of late with some coaching. The course I play has lovely sand in the bunkers, grainy with a fluffy top, just perfect for opening the blade and popping the shot out onto the green.

I played a different course for the first time at the weekend. The course was fairly long with small greens protected by bunkers and I ended up in three greenside bunkers during the round. The sand was quite compacted and crusty on top but I went ahead and executed my normal swing only to find that I thinned each one and sent the ball flying over the green and into the bushes the other side.

By the third time I was pretty hacked-off as it ruined my score. As the course was pretty quiet I asked my playing partner, who has a lovely touch from the sand, to take a couple of shots as well. He did exactly the same thing!

After a big of trial and effort we worked out that we had to open the blade less and take a bit more sand than normal to get a good result. It seems that the bounce of sand wedge caused the club to skim off the crusted sand and catch the ball thin. The next day I read an obscure tip from a pro explaining the exact same thing.

Another little golf lesson learned.