Is This Legal 'Cheat' Club A Guaranteed Way Of Getting Out Of Bunkers... Or A Marketing Con?

Since writing about a friend from my golf club who has been on the verge of giving up golf due to her bunker woes, I’ve been inundated with messages from other women recounting similar stories of sand play sorrow.

It seems there are many of you who struggle to get out of bunkers. It’s an embarrassing problem, a scorecard wrecker, so it’s understandable why you’d be at your wits end in angst.

The fact is, the typical woman simply lacks clubhead speed and that’s a critical factor needed to successfully splash the ball out of sand. It’s the one big genetic disadvantage we hold over our male counterparts. I recall a club I bought for my mum, a fellow sand play sufferer, years ago that claimed to offer a “foolproof” way of getting out of bunkers.

It was called The Alien. She used it for a season and it definitely worked, if nothing more than to give her the confidence and belief that she had a solution in her hands, but the Rules of Golf made it illegal. So I started searching to see if there was a legal equivalent of this club.

Something that removes the need for hours spent trying to master the tricky technique in the practice bunker. A club that’s designed to do the hard work for you. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Well, Eleven Golf claim that their Elite Bunker Blaster is a wedge that offers a genuine, legal solution. A bonafide cheat club. The marketing hype is certainly convincing. The wedge comes loaded with clever design technology to do the hard work for you.

The first thing you’ll notice is the size of the sole that’s shaped like a spoon - it’s enormous! According to Eleven Golf this gives it maximum surface interaction and versatility from the sand. There are two very pronounced raised ridges on the underside that enable the club to literally do as its namesake and blast the ball out of the bunker, no matter what the depth of sand you face, deep or shallow.

Eleven Golf claims that their Bunker Blaster works for any style of player. It’s designed with a negative offset, a face-forward feature, which will help golfers who have a tendency to pick the club up too steeply or conversely sweep the ball.

It is also fitted with a fancy KBS Masters Green wedge shaft that has an active tip section to increase the effective loft of the clubhead, delivering a higher ball launch with more spin for added stopping power and accuracy.

What’s more, it’s versatile and can be used to play a multitude of shots outside of the bunker. In fact, an even bigger, bolder claim is that the Bunker Blaster is virtually shank-proof. Never worry about chunking or thinning a chip shot again. What a statement! This could be a genuine game-changer for golfers on the verge of quitting.

But enough of the hype, it was time to put these selling statements to the test. So I asked my mum and another bunker-fearing friend to try it out.

The scepticism in their voices was clear the moment I suggested that I may have a sand play solution for them, nevertheless they were both willing to give the wedge a try. First we ventured to the practice bunker and then onto the course in the hope of finding sand play salvation, so that the sight of a golf ball rolling into a bunker no longer fills them with dread.

The Verdict

Bea Cummins, 21 handicap:

What an odd-looking club! When I first picked it up I found the Elite Bunker Blaster a bit cumbersome and heavy. But then I used it. My very first shot flew straight out of the sand, no issues. I was excited!

But then every shot after that failed. It left me disappointed as I thought I was holding a miracle club, a genuine cheat but sadly despite several more attempts I kept failing. What’s more, the size of the clubface was so big I didn’t want to use it for any normal shots like pitches and chips, apart from sand shots. So that basically makes it a bit of a one-shot wonder and less valuable to carry than one of the other wedges in my bag.

GM Tester Carly Cummins, 3 handicap:

My first impression of the Eleven Golf wedge was just its sheer size - it looks enormous compared to my PXG milled wedges. It would definitely fill me with more confidence if I struggled from sand.

When I stepped into the bunker I wasn’t sure whether I needed to open the clubface or not. Was it designed to work just as it was? If in doubt, stick to what you know, so I opened the face as normal, aimed for a point in the sand a couple of inches behind the ball and made my swing.

The ball fired out of the bunker fast like a rocket, with incredible ease and height. So much so, in fact, that I airmailed the shot straight over the green! I had a few more goes out of the practice bunker and the same thing happened every time.

Although there’s no doubt that this club makes it very easy to get out of sand, I felt that I had a complete lack of distance control. I then tried it for chipping and found it bounced too much off the firm summer turf. It was a bit too “springy” off the face for me. I prefer a softer responsive feel for my finesse shots. But this club definitely does something above and beyond the normal sand wedge, it’s just not necessarily going to please a skilled single figure handicapper like me.

Denise Pratt, 16 handicap:

When it comes to bunker shots I’ve pretty much tried everything in the book, all sorts of different techniques, dozens of lessons and I’ve changed wedges countless times. I just struggle to get the speed to get out. So I was sceptical about the Eleven Golf Bunker Blaster right up until I hit the very first shot.

Guess what, it was instantly out! Ok, so technically it was too far out, so effortless in fact that I sent it soaring right over the back of the green! But I instantly stepped out and thought, wow, if I can maybe just shorten my swing slightly I can actually control this. So I had a few more attempts.

To say the results were inconsistent would be an understatement. There’s no doubt that this wedge does “something” above and beyond the normal. But I certainly didn’t have the skill to control my entry point into the sand to get the distance control right. For that reason it wouldn’t be a miracle replacement for my sand wedge, but maybe with a lot more practice it could?