Callaway Golf offers help for those who struggle in the sand with its Sure Out 2 wedge

Although most everyday golfers marvel at the ability of the pros to get the ball out of the sand and have it spin like it’s on a yo-yo string, the majority of them have a more restrained goal when it comes to their own game: get it out of the sand and somewhere on the green. The same holds true for most pitch and chips shots, too.

For those who fear the blade, the chunk or the ball hitting the lip and returning near your feet, help is here in the form of Callaway Golf's Sure Out 2 wedge, a game-improvement wedge designed to make that shot easier to hit and with design traits not geared toward excessive spin or the like, but with a wide sole and enough bounce to simply make it easier to get the ball out almost regardless of skill level.

The club takes its name from the old Ben Hogan Sure Out wedge from some 50 years ago (Callaway owns some of Hogan’s naming conventions from when it owned the company). Although not a new idea idea (remember the Alien and Console wedges from years gone by and, more recently, Cleveland’s Smart Sole?), it’s a solid followup to the company’s first Sure Out effort.

Using feedback from the first iteration, Callaway has employed full-face grooves that stretch across the entire face (something seen in its PM Grind line of wedges) and added some additional heel relief to make it easier to hit shots from a variety of lies around the green, thereby widening the array of shots that can be hit with the club. The sole radius and bounce angle also have been tweaked to assist in that effort.

A new Lamkin “step down” grip has a trip of “step down” markings on the grip to help players determine how much to choke down on certain shots, eliminating some of that guess work. For lofts, the club is available in 56, 58, 60 and 64 degrees and a number of premium shafts are available in steel and graphite. Price is $120.

Instructor Hank Haney was involved in Callaway’s first Sure Out effort, and some of what he said then still holds true. “The big problem people have with the normal sand wedge,” Haney says, “is you have to open the face, and that terrifies a lot of average golfers. And the other thing is when you swing into the sand, the sand offers resistance. So part of our goal with the Sure Out was to design a club where there’s very little resistance with the sand so even somebody with very little clubhead speed can still get the ball out of the bunker.”