What Is 'the Lip'? (Golf Definitions)
Do you know what golfers are referring to when they talk about "the lip"? "Lip" is very commonly used by golfers the world over, although it can refer to one of two different parts of a golf course: the holes on the green, or some or all of the bunkers on the course. In both cases, "lip" is a reference to the rim or edge of the hole or bunker.
The Lip of the Hole
Every putting green has a hole cut into its surface. The entire point of the game of golf is to get your ball into that hole in as few strokes as possible.And the rim of the hole, its edge, is called the "lip." In the photo above, the golf ball is sitting on the lip of the hole.
A golf ball that stops just a fraction short of falling into the cup is said to be "hanging on the lip" or "sitting on the lip." A ball that catches the edge of the hole but doesn't fall in is said to have "lipped out," and such a putt is referred to as a "lip out."
If you are a golfer who seems to leave an inordinate amounts of putts sitting on the lip of the hole, or lips-out a lot of putts, your fellow-competitors might tell you that you have a case of "liprosy."
Both uses of "lip" defined in this article are common, universally used parts of the golf lexicon. But because golfers encounter the hole on the green more often than we have to play out of bunkers (well, hopefully!), the use of "lip" in relation to the hole's edge is heard more often than the use of "lip" as it refers to the raised rim around some bunkers.
The Lip of a Bunker
A bunker lip is a well-defined edge of sod or turf around the bunker that acts as a rim. The lip of a bunker is typically at least a few inches above the surface of the sand, so that using your putter to roll the ball out of the bunker is not an option.A bunker lip requires the golfer to get a ball airborne out of the sand in order to clear the bunker's edge. The height of a bunker lip — how high above the bottom of the bunker it is — tends to increase the closer to the green a bunker is.
Lips of bunkers near the green are typically more prominent and higher than lips of fairway bunkers. Some bunker lips are so large that they can overhang the sand below. Fairway bunkers, especially those farther away from the green, tend to have very modest lips or no lips at all, to allow for the longer, lower-lofted clubs need to play the necessary shots.
Photo credit: tyler hendy, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
More definitions:
