Mackenzie Hughes teaches how to get the ball out of links bunkers

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PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — There are bunkers and then there are links golf bunkers.

North American golfers making their first trip to links land to play golf’s oldest courses will find a great number of differences between the game they know at home and the one they find on this side of the pond.

One of the biggest differences are sand traps that can sink your round in one hole if you aren’t careful. Or sometimes even if you are careful.

Canada’s Mackenzie Hughes has one of the best short games in golf, so we asked him on Monday at The Open what the secret is to getting the ball out of these terrifying traps.

“The bunkers are incredibly soft and fluffy, so you’re kind of adjusting your technique to that as well,” he said of the sand that feels more like a beach than a bunker.

Hughes says much of the battle is allowing your equipment to help you rather than hurt you.

“A lot more using the bounce and opening the face up even more,” he said.

The bounce of a wedge is the angle between the leading edge of the clubface and the low point of the sole. If you aren’t an expert, the bounce will either be a number (likely between 4-14) or a letter (such as low, mid or high).

“Use a club with more bounce in sand like that,” Hughes said. “The club wants to dig in and it wants to go deep and you’re trying to get that club to not dig in, so you need to use the bounce a little more. You might even be opening the face more than you think to open it up, that’s the adjustment I make for it over here, it’s quite a bit different.”

Rather than rushing out to buy new wedges, take a look at your current wedges and figure out which one has the most bounce and start trying to hit sand shots with that if you come across some soft and fluffy sand.