How To Play Bunker Shots

Golf Monthly

In this video, Dan Grieve, head professional at Woburn Golf Club, explains how to play bunker shots with some simple tips and drills.

Transcript

00:00Hi, Dan Grief here, head professional at Women's Golf Club, and here we're talking about the

00:08green side bunker shot and the technique in which you need to be able to splash that ball

00:12out every time.

00:13So it really all begins with setup.

00:16So I like to see golfers standing nice and wide, really very important to create a nice

00:20wide base when you play these shots because the biggest fault I see is a golfer moves

00:24side to side and that creates thin shots and fat shots.

00:27So let's get really wide like a driver and get this left foot turned out around about

00:3145 degrees and what that allows you to do then is push your left knee over your foot

00:36and get this right leg kicking in.

00:38So you'll find that the majority of your weight, perhaps up to 80%, is forward on this left

00:42side.

00:43Now for this soft sand, you can afford to allow your right shoulder to drop back a little

00:46bit.

00:47You don't want to get your upper body stacking over your left leg too much this way.

00:50So allow the right shoulder to drop a little bit lower and we'll have the ball position

00:55just inside the left heel.

00:57Very important as well to make sure that the shaft line mirrors that so we have the shaft

01:02line neutral.

01:03Hands don't go ahead and they don't come back.

01:07Really nice and neutral.

01:08The face can be slightly open.

01:10Because I'm standing further away from the ball, lots of knee flex, that allows me to

01:15get more into the sand and really feel like I'm rooting strong down into the sand.

01:21From there, it's about making sure that we keep the loft and bounce on the club going

01:24back and then through the same thing, making sure the chest turns.

01:29So I'll just hit one here.

01:33We see it splashes nicely there.

01:34Now one of the things that allowed me to play that shot really nicely was the fact I kept

01:38the loft and bounce on.

01:39And here's a really simple drill you can do.

01:41It's put some sand on the club face and see if you can keep that sand on, see if you can

01:45throw it over that shoulder there, over your back shoulder.

01:47Now if you do that, that means the left wrist is getting cupped and the loft and bounce

01:51is on.

01:52And equally, you can put some sand on the club face and see if you can throw it over

01:56your front shoulder.

01:57And if you can do that, you've got the same thing going on there where the club face isn't

02:01turning over, you're holding the loft and bounce on and creating that nice splash shot.

02:05So one of the real skills when you get into a bunker is being able to read the lie and

02:08make relevant adaptions for the lie.

02:10Now we don't always get that lovely, soft, fluffy sand that we had for the first shot.

02:15Sometimes the bunkers might have less sand in, they might be more compact, and we need

02:19to slightly change how we approach the shot.

02:22Because if you go in there with this one-dimensional approach of just using your standard splash

02:26shot, you'll have a lie like this, okay, and then you will play the shot, and there we

02:33go.

02:34Off it goes.

02:35It's thinned.

02:36You'll do well to find your ball.

02:37So there was nothing wrong with my technique there for the standard splash shot.

02:40What was wrong was my intelligence.

02:42I wasn't able to read the lie very well and I wasn't able to adapt how I put the bounce

02:46into the sand.

02:47So when you get a tight lie like this, you have to set up slightly differently.

02:51So we'll keep the stance the same.

02:53You can very much get the weight forward on the left side, but the shoulder line will

02:56now be more left as well.

02:57So you get your left shoulder more over your left foot, and this is simply going to steepen

03:01your angle of attack.

03:02It's going to get you coming in more downward into the sand and more with the leading edge

03:06rather than the trailing edge of the bounce.

03:09So it's going to dig down a bit more and just, it's a bit of insurance about that bounce

03:13happening and that ball going too far.

03:16The ball position also, I just move that back a little bit and add a little bit more forward

03:19lean of the shaft, whereas before it was very neutral.

03:22We're now going to shift this way a little bit, put a bit of that lean in, and you'll

03:27see the difference in the follow through.

03:28My follow through for the soft sand, you can see it's a full and complete release because

03:34I'm using the trailing edge.

03:35From this lie here, you'll see the difference in the follow through.

03:39So the ball goes back, the hands go forward, and the follow through is much shorter and

03:44more curtailed, and that means my leading edge is going more down into the sand with

03:48the handle leading, and that means I'm not going to get that semi-thin shot, which is

03:52such a dangerous shot out of the sand.

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