The first part of how to hit sand shots in golf is to choose the proper club. Be patient, this will not happen overnight! Viewers and amateurs alike are always looking for ways to get inside the minds of professional golfers. TRAVEL: Horseshoe Bay Announces Spring Break Events & Activities, TRAVEL: Keswick Hall (VA) Offers Top-Tier Private Club Experience. A weak grip doesn't mean you hold the club with less pressure, but it actually refers to the release of the hinge in your wrists. Cafe Locked. 2023 HomeTown Lenders Championship (Korn Ferry Tour) - Discussion and Links to photos, 2023 Zurich Classic - Discussion and Links to Photos, 2023 RBC Heritage - Discussion and links to Photos, 2023 Valero Texas Open - Discussion and links to photos, 2023 WGC Dell Technologies Match Play - Discussion and links to photos. Hit The Sand Hard. The toe will dig in first. First, lets talk about why you should care about the firmness of the sand. Practice makes perfect. Bunker shots are some of the most difficult in golf. Too often, players hit weak slices because they fail to transfer their weight optimally during the swing. If the sand is soft, your club is almost certainly going to sink down into that sand as you swing through the ball. There are a few factors that impact sand conditions on a golf course: Some courses fill their bunkers with soft, fluffy sand, and they refresh that sand regularly. To get out safely, open the clubface so the club can bounce off the sand instead of dig. Will take a lot of mulligans. If the sand is packed, you want a more shut clubface, whereas if its fine sand, you want to open it up more. But in reality, wet sand sometimes offers a better chance of success. Take our word for it; getting good out of a bunker is something that takes a bit of practice initially, but it will be a worthwhile skill long term. There's some amount of bounce on every modern wedge and iron. Golfers have access to a ton of useful information on the internet and elsewhere these days. Don't Look Up! When the sand is hard, however, it doesn't really work at all the explosion shot really isn't an option. Callaway Rogue Max D 10.5/Tensei Blue 55R. Often, Ill witness amateurs spending loads of time on the practice green trying to reinvent their putting stroke after one bad round. Once you feel confident, it will change how you view the entire golf course. Also, check your trail foot. On the downswing, aim for a spot about an inch or two behind the ball in the sand. Take a page out of Koepkas book in how he internalizes a bad day on the course. The greens may be faster, the rough may be longer, the pace of play might be slower, and your adrenaline may be through the roof. With the tournaments result still hanging in the balance, players are fully aware that they must avoid the pond that runs along the left-hand side of the greens surface in order to remain in contention. Beginners and those who struggle with the sand sometimes swing the club into the sand, then stop. The big fat sole resists entering the sand and skims the surface which means the ball flies unpredictably, to your dismay. On other courses often municipal courses or other facilities with modest budgets there may be very little sand, and the bottom of the trap may look like little more than dirt. Square the clubface to hit a better shot out of a bunker with hard sand. If a course has the staff and equipment needed to regularly care for the bunkers, the sand will usually be soft. For fairway bunker shots, try to clip the ball clean without taking hardly any sand. A bunker shot can be very much like a flop shot. Srixon ZX5 irons 5-AW, Nippon N.S. Prior to joining the team at GOLF, he attended the University of Texas followed by stops with the Texas Golf Association, Team USA, the Green Bay Packers and the PGA Tour. If you chunked a chip shot into a bunker from a great lie, why not take a stroke and distance penalty and replay the shot? But when you need it you can execute a different kind of shot with the shaft more upright which "reveals" the bounce to the ground and prevents the club from digging. Obviously, theres a lot to love about the guy who makes triple on the first hole, cracks a beer, and accepts failure after hole number 1. Hole everything out and approach every shot the same way. That shot is very lie dependent. Opening the face and exposing the bounce just skips the club into the ball. Tour players don't fear bunker shots the way most amateurs do, but only a handful of the pros get up and down from the sand more than 60 percent of the time. In the sand however, the digging edge takes the clubhead down too much and forces the face shut. Tigers drill above, on the other hand, looks to mitigate lateral (side-to-side) movement by replacing it with vertical (up and down) movement. If the bunker is more of a hardpan type, dont open the face much at all. My 588 has a low bounce and a sharp leading edge for cutting into compacted sand. However, those are the rounds that we learn the most from. As much as I wish this mode of thinking was something that we could achieve overnight, it requires practice. How To Clean A Golf Bag - Bringing It Back To It's Former Glory, The 5 Best Womens Golf Gloves: Great Fit & Value. Make sure you get out of the bunker and give yourself a chance at a one-putt, but for the most part be satisfied with getting down in three. Get your weight into your trail foot during the backswing, back into your lead foot on the downswing before striking the ball and ultimately finishing with the clubs shaft wrapped around your shoulders as part of a proper, balanced finish. I get it, the initial wave of depression that hits after we fail to reach one of our goals really sucks. I didnt look at bounce when i grabbed my wedges. SW: TourModel III True Temper S Just the degree lofts. Im more of a shallow swinger, and I constantly have to remind myself in a bunker that the club needs to come a bit more upright to get the ball out of the trap. Also, its a lot of information to mull over regarding the why as it relates to Tigers drill. After hitting my shot out of the bunker on the first try, I might add McLachlin reassured me that the main reason was due to my setup and my . The sand carries the ball with it. Most times, golfers slide on the downswing too much. New Adams Idea driver, fairway wood, hybrid + Adams C-Groove putters. circus, merchandising | 876 views, 32 likes, 6 loves, 153 comments, 4 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Cafe Locked Out: The No Goat Show. For the average bunker shot, you will need your clubface open slightly. HANK HANEY, a Golf Digest Teaching Professional, runs the Hank Haney International Junior Golf Academy in Hilton Head. Keep in mind that grip changes are awkward and take time to get used to. 5 easy steps to get up-and-down from the bunker like a pro, This rising star and long shot is primed for a breakout win: 2023 Wells Fargo Championship odds, Hannah Green survives 3-way playoff for emotional victory at JM Eagle LA Championship, Tour Confidential: Tony Finaus rise, Justin Thomas career, summer trips, 2023 Mexico Open at Vidanta: How to watch, TV schedule, streaming, tee times, Meet the new GOLF Top 100 Teachers of America, These sleek and stylish golf carry bags are just what your game needs. If a course has the staff and equipment needed to regularly care for the bunkers, the sand will usually be soft. Dropping the trail shoulder or raising your lead shoulder promotes a sweeping action at the bottom of your swing. Also, a very high percentage of mid-to-high handicappers hit weaker fades or even nasty slices. Besides lessening the bounce and almost squaring up the clubface I still swing as if hitting out of softer sand. Here are five tips for playing from the sand. Mickelson Sounds Off on Twitter at the OWGR, Tony Finau Spotted Caddying for Sons Hours After Winning PGA Tours Mexico Open, Talor Gooch Performs A LIV Golf First With Back-to-Back Victories, Brooks Koepka Gets 200-Club-Length Relief in Strange Ruling at LIV Golf Singapore, Jon Rahm & Scottie Scheffler Skipping The Wells Fargo Championship. Titleist 917F3 15* VA Composite Drago 75-X Im not saying you should use the ground as if its a trampoline. You want the leading edge to dig a bit. Would love your thoughts, please comment. The key to hitting out of hard sand, the easier of the two options, is to lean left and make sure you don't open the . The big key during the swing is to follow through, and turn your body to the target. If it's a longer shot, go with a pitching wedge or 9-iron. I treat it like a chip from a really tight lie. Remember, a neutral grip involves placing your lead hand on the grip so that you can see 2/2.5 knuckles on your lead hand when you address the ball. . I use a 58 with low loft and do exactly this. I treat hard sand mostly the same as soft sand, I simply get a little more weight forward and get steeper and a little faster while trying to hit slightly closer to the ball, otherwise the club face is still open and i'm still using tons of bounce. Lastly, youll play your best after youve been punched in the gut when you remain committed to your pre-shot routine. At some level, golfers are best served by practicing acceptance during the most unacceptable of moments. You simply must work on these shots for yourself to get a feel for how they are played. 2. Our guide featuring how to hit a bunker shot will give you a step-by-step method that is guaranteed to get you out of a bunker (the first time!). 2I: TourModel III True Temper S Think about it this way: Golfers who get ahead of the golf ball excessively either on the downswing or at the setup position also associate excessive lateral body movement away/towards the target during the backswing/downswing. With two small adjustments to the way you would play a normal sand shot: The first is that you will need to hit a bit closer to the ball and aim to take a smaller 'divot of sand' out then normal. You may need to adjust your body to avoid bottoming out before hitting the ball. Square face or even slightly closed is really the only adjustment you need. He can be reached at zephyr_melton@golf.com. Try to hit that spot and let the club glide underneath the ball through the sand. Lots of bunkers like this in Arizona. The more willing you are to put it all on the line, the more youll accomplish in the long run. Here's why, How a popular green-reading method helped launch this young pro into contention in Mexico, This chipping drill will help you get up-and-down from anywhere, 8 simple ways to banish negativity during your round, Use this hip rotation drill to develop more power through your downswing, Stop topping the ball with these 10 easy fixes, Seeking power and clubhead speed? Achieving a more-neutral ball flight involves learning how to produce the mirror image of your preferred miss. I always move a ball out of a footprint, rake it and try and drop it as I think it landed in the bunker. I would open the face a lot less, otherwise you will bounce into the ball. On the golf course, facing expectations is one of the scariest things we face in a competitive environment. Or is the ball nestled down in soft sand? By moving the ball back, we are giving ourselves less room to hit behind the ball, which is ideal in this situation. Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'4Ltqd4kiSBRSwuVO3lBKrQ',sig:'ezy-CPqhss1ofESgr8R43DQlCFnFYUecVW_hvfHnpFk=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1448233525',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })}); Countless mid-to-high handicappers struggle to contact the ball consistently solid (in the center of the face) while also demonstrating these inadequacies in a variety of unfavorable kinds of shots (fat, thin, heel/toe misses). Have you ever hit a ball in the bunker and got excited about the shot you would get to hit next? Again, this is a point that has more to do with budgets than anything else. Or, theyll make the above change/changes and still struggle. Today Britt plays more golf than ever with her husband and two children and still loves connecting with golfers worldwide. Try a wedge with much less bounce, maybe the 50*. This will dictate your approach. Depending on your course and previous shot, your lie could be on an incline or a decline. Works every time. I have a drone shot of me casting a beast fleye and it getting eaten, but not eaten enough. I treat it like a chip from a really tight lie. This pro is chipping one-handed in competition. With it, you can let the club enter the sand an inch or two behind the ball and exit an inch or two after it and the ball just jumps out with the sliver of sand you carved out with your wedge. Top 100 Courses in the U.S.: GOLFs all-new 2022-23 ranking is here! On the other hand, hard sand will cause your club to bounce off the top you probably wont be able to get down deep into the bunker with your swing. In order to execute a wise game plan that reflects sound course-management reasoning, players often utilize a right-to-left ball flight on the 16th tee. You can't hit a standard bunker shot here. A club without any bounce would act like a shovel when it hit the dirt. My practice motion is straight down, no doubt the leading edge (56 degree) is going to bite. By jumping! If might get stuck in the bunker lip if it is high enough or the rough next to the lip if it hits in there. This reduces the effective bounce on the sole so you can dig into the firmer surface. The bounce on a wedge is arced across the sole so you can open up the face and bring more of the bounce into play. One of the best things to do when overthinking your golf swing is to come up with a simple tip, swing thought, or trick to help you get out of the sand trap. Heres the easiest way to stay behind the ball more effectively with your upper body: FEEL as if your hands and arms are outracing your upper body on the downswing. With more loft on the clubface when it slides under the ball, you get more height and more spin to keep the ball on the green. Assuming you have a good bunker technique to begin with, there is not a lot of adjustment for hard packed / think sand. E.g. What's the lesson in this? But if you have the ball too far back in your stance, you're only going to make contact with the ball. Now with this type of a shot, you want to make sure that you have the face really open. Padraig Harrington's latest backyard lesson backfired in hilarious fashion. Now, as many of you are probably wondering, how should I apply these principles to my own golf swing? Most of the time in golf, we want to hit the ball first and then take a bit of grass with us. Top 100 Courses in the U.S.: GOLFs all-new 2022-23 ranking is here! On the golf course, especially under tournament conditions, you want to be hyper-aware of your surroundings. And naturally your follow though should be abbreviated. Is the sand packed and wet? Prior to Augusta, Brooks played really well at the LIV Golf event. Will provide exactly the movement you need through the sand to take out that 'divot' that the golf ball is moved out of the sand trap on. For most sand shots you face you want to play the ball off your front foot. Most of the time, golfers overthink bunker shots. When you open that up, now it's going to glide through the sand. I hope to never need to use that one, but you never know. if it rolled in, drop it front a low height. Some golfers prefer the lob and others the sand, but they are both capable of doing what you need them to do. compacted sand look for a . Harrington begins by explaining that there are two distinctly different ways to play shots from bunkers with a lot of sand and ones with very little sand. As managing producer for GOLF.com, Cunningham edits, writes and publishes stories on GOLF.com, and manages the brands e-newsletters, which reach more than 1.4 million subscribers each month. Check to make sure your grip isnt too weak. We don't want the club to dig, but we also don't want to blade our chips. "We'll also try the S-grind which is one of our popular grinds. The setup for bunker shots includes how your feet are aimed and how the clubface is aimed. If youre trying to navigate a tough external environment by adding the internal stress of certain swing-related thoughts, youre going to make that round much more difficult than it needs to be in certain situations. Holding your sand wedge in front of you, turn the face open about 20 degrees, then take your grip. Greenside bunker shots often intimidate the average golfer, but they are actually pretty simple. Some golfers tend to have better luck with the higher lofted lob wedge in play. According to Danny Maude's recent student Troy this bunker tip is probably the Best Bunker Tip Ever!Probably just like you Troy wanted to know:Simply how to . "You take your spine, [and] it's not comfortable, but you put it . Give it your all, no matter what. But Paddys latest lesson isnt about learning bunker basics (which hes covered before). Lets talk about hitting draws. One of the inherent challenges with bunker shots is that you never quite know what sand conditions you will face when stepping down into a trap. The weaker your grip, the more susceptible you are to hitting slices. Titleist Players 4 StaDry: First Impressions and a Way-Too-Early Review. You'll have a tremendous amount of angle between shaft and wrists. Titleist TSi3 10* TPO 1K 60-TX After becoming a Class A PGA Professional, teaching professional, and golf membership director, she decided a career in golf writing was the perfect fit. Playing out of a lot of sand is incredibly difficult, Harrington explains, Professional golfers are extremely frustrated if we go to a golf course with too much sand because we get no control.. Particularly when it's on the firm side. Roger's tip is "You won't have to hit is as hard and stay close to the ball so that you can get under it at impact. Playing not so well isnt so fun. A former two-time intern, he also helps keep GOLF.com humming outside the news-breaking stories and service content provided by our reporters and writers, and works with the tech team in the development of new products and innovative ways to deliver an engaging site to our audience. Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'H1kROUUnSatKk-wb4PT1Dw',sig:'F2CSJLogw0RG_ib4pQkOEt-h6_azEUDmWPSpRw3LRl4=',w:'338px',h:'507px',items:'852187-001',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })}); Accept that your two-digit numeric value, which represents your 18-hole score, is nothing more than a product of a process. In other words, Tigers upper body is too far ahead of his arms/hands and, ultimately, the golf ball at the point of attack. A more powerful punch is often made visible in ones more draw-biased ball flight. You can play a lot of short game shots using the same technique. 1,036 likes, 2 comments - Darin de Lelys Golf (@darins_wedge_work) on Instagram: "Better Out Of The Bunker!!! In other words, practice by playing and practice by playing the right way. Honestly, the only way to really know how your game measures up is by putting yourself in those situations. Sliding under the ball. When the trouble is across our body at the setup position (left for righties), were often served best by opting for a draw as opposed to a fade/straight ball. The normal sand wedges try to dig under the ball too much to throw the sand and ball out of the bunker, with heavy wet sand all you throw out is some heavy wet sand and no ball. I know in the past, I tried a chipping motion, and it worked pretty well on hard sand. Playing a golf bunker shot from wet, compacted sand can be a daunting task. My 55* sand wedge has a medium bounce that works well out of fluffy sand. By getting our arms/hands/club out in front of our body on the downswing. The steeper swing in a bunker may feel a little as though you are taking the club back with your hands and arms, more than your core and legs. Join InsideGOLF for only $20 - includes instant $20 Fairway Jockey credit! Public courses in Tucson are the same way. Secondly your wedge is equipped with an angle called the bounce. Preferably hit to a flat green. No one has taught me about the functions of bounce. One of the most critical factors of hitting out of the bunker is to ensure that you take some sand with your golf shot. 3. This shot is more forgiving using the low-bounce wedge because it doesn't tend to bounce up into the ball. Thats just golf. When this clubface opens, it is essential to turn your feet open so that your clubface lines up with the hole again. When we are playing out wet, compact sand it is important that the club doesn't bounce against the firmness and you end up with a bladed shot. The fluffier the sand is, the more you will open your stance. By sweeping the ball more, you will naturally hit the ball higher and have a better chance of turning the ball over with a draw. I had 3 of these shots when playing with him at our course. In the absence of that maintenance, however, the bunkers will get hard and playing shots will get tricky. 11 in the world. Step 4: Put 80 percent of your weight on your lead leg. USE OF AND/OR REGISTRATION ON ANY PORTION OF THIS SITE CONSTITUTES ACCEPTANCE OF OURVISITOR AGREEMENT(UPDATED 1/6/23),PRIVACY AND COOKIES NOTICE(UPDATED 1/4/23) ANDCALIFORNIA PRIVACY NOTICE. The right set up is the key to hitting an effective shot from the bunker. Golfers tend to have fewer issues with fairway bunkers than greenside bunkers. How do we engage these muscles on the downswing? When chipping near the green Im thinking mostly about how much I want the ball to roll out, but if the lie is really tight Ill go with the lower bounce wedge. Square the clubface to hit a better shot out of a bunker with hard sand (or if there's not much sand in the bunker). Failure sucks, and pressure is virtually unavoidable once were willing to accept the terms of our individual goals. I sure as hell could use the money, but youre best served engaging in positive self-talk. If you want high and spinny, you have to open the face and hit close to the ball. Golf Podcast 473: Golf Ball Rollback: What You Need to Know About Bifurcation, Bad Hole or Bad Round? A sand wedge is a smart investment in your golf game, one that is worth making. I hit it like a bunker shot. The trick to hitting good bunker shots is considering the fluffy, sticky resistance of the sand and hitting your shot twice as hard as you might from that distance but half as fast, so the club . Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'sxB0VfKgRyRlHBwDqDTwjA',sig:'igfJFD2-EyHNoBofQzjv5KgrDHkojiDPQ-Br8uLF4X8=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'941130414',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })}); Most obviously, Tigers body is situated in a very angular fashion and not straight up and down in relation to the ground. But, if your ball position is too far back, get it further forward. Continue to use it. Driver: Titleist 910 D2 9.75* Diamana Kai'li 65 Mid S