Simple Tips On Playing Bunker Shots

Golf Monthly

Are you struggling with your bunker play? This was certainly the case for Golf Monthly editor Michael Harris. He was suffering with bad strikes and inconsistent distance control so we recruited top coach Fredrik Lindblom to help. In this video, Fred offers some really simple but effective techniques for escaping sand every time.

Transcript

00:00So one of the best things about my job is if my golf game gets into trouble I've got a little

00:06black book of contacts that iPhone get in touch with to help me out and I posted on social media

00:13recently I had a roundup at Formby Golf Club and I posted a couple of videos and Arcos screenshots

00:19and I posted the best and the worst bits of my game so it was a great drive found this really

00:25tough fairway and then there was a bunker shot where I hit it about there and ended up 45 degrees

00:33to the right so posted on social media I love to share my wins and a lot of fails there

00:39Frederick popped into my replies and said man we need to sort out your setup we're going to sort

00:45out your bunker game let's meet up at the PGA show week here we are PGA show week Frederick help me

00:52out yeah I think yeah maybe once you hit one or two but I've already seen kind of what you're

00:57doing which is a very common kind of pattern I see in many amateurs when they're in the bunker

01:01okay go ahead and hit one here see what happens let's start out with a hole very good but what

01:11you can see there in my opinion is that the club is moving a little bit too much underneath the ball

01:18luckily here this sand is not very fluffy it's kind of compact so you get away with it hitting

01:23it kind of far and deep behind the golf ball but if the sand is too fluffy that club is just going to

01:29work too much underneath it and you're going to tend to hit a lot of shots yeah that happens yeah or

01:34you feel like you have to hit it so freaking hard you get it out of bunker right so what I see if you go

01:39to the side I'll show you kind of what I see which is very common that is a swing path that's way too

01:46far to the left and steep so a very common miss is obviously pretty much with all clubs of amateurs

01:53they swing out in kind of over the top yeah like a mad accident yeah exactly yeah pretty much T degree

01:58shopping woods yeah but so when you do that the club is going to tend to get a little bit too steep

02:04the leading edge and especially the hustle kind of leads into the ball so that's when you're thinking

02:11yeah pipe on yeah so if you see really good golfers a lot of them I I was kind of filming with Luke

02:17Donald a couple of months ago he's pretty good he's pretty good at a bunker right yeah he he feels like

02:23it's much more kind of neutral into it it still feels like it's swinging slightly left but a lot less

02:29to the left okay so if you can feel like you're more kind of having more neutral plane swinging up a

02:34little bit too more to the right you're not gonna get as deep underneath the golf ball you're gonna be a

02:40little bit more shallow and you don't have to hit the ball so hard for it to go the whole way you

02:45see how much spin that has that's nice yeah it's because the ball is not and the club is not working

02:50too much underneath the golf ball so it's just a shallow divot you're gonna feel that little clip yeah and the

02:56ball is gonna stop right next to the pin so give it a go here okay and what i'm gonna do

03:01tell me so your face look really open yeah where do you set it do you set it out of dress

03:07you do it or do you set it no grip so i cannot i spin the club until the club is open i don't do this

03:14and then yes okay yeah yeah yeah so that's just gonna bring that hosel even more absolutely yeah so

03:19we're gonna do this we don't want that we don't want that we want we're gonna put an alignment

03:23stick here to mess with you a little bit okay we're gonna put the ball on the outside here so

03:28if you were to swing too much to the left there you're gonna hit the line i'm worried about hitting

03:32the alignments yeah and then we're also gonna put the right foot back a little bit okay which is

03:38further gonna help you to swing a little bit more into out okay the right foot is too open we're gonna

03:43tend to swing left right okay so i'd always been probably open the club you know get it into a dress

03:49open the club then open my style yeah i'm just bringing in a whole world of pain yeah yeah most

03:54often okay most likely because the swing path though so if you can neutralize the swing path

03:59still feel like you really release the club like you actually did pretty good on that first one

04:03but would use a little bit more shallow so along the line of the stick along the line

04:07i'm worried about hitting the stick yeah of course yeah try not to there you go lovely open there

04:13lovely so move back the right foot a little bit it's gonna feel awkward yeah that way

04:17okay there you go close stance lovely just like that okay and now swing a little bit less hard

04:23okay a little bit softer along that line okay now it's all right so what happened there is that you

04:30bought them out a little bit too far behind okay so it's a little different feeling i mean a lot of

04:34things to think about yeah it shouldn't be too much back foot and then uh swing a little bit

04:39straighter try one more right so you we don't need to hit it so hard now the stance is it's a little

04:44bit too far up in the stance isn't it move a little bit more left yeah lovely right so we're just

04:49i would say like a ball inside the left heel is good for you yeah and again straight through on the

04:55line yeah and softer beautiful stop way faster there nice still slightly too far behind so we're

05:05going to do one more drill this is going to be kind of your baseline but here we're going to see

05:10exactly how skilled you are in the bunker here all right i want you to hit a shot here where you

05:15bottom out just on top of that line okay so we don't want to be behind it so give me three swings here

05:21where the divot is bottoming out just to the left of that line okay okay

05:29okay still too far back yeah so set up to that line again i'm going to tell you exactly what you're

05:34doing so if you were to see yourself in a reflector right in front of you you have a little bit too

05:40much tilt in the shoulders and the head is way back behind the golf ball okay so what what happens is

05:46that you're pretty much setting up like you're about to hit a driver yeah and the driver will hit up on

05:51the ball which means that the low point is behind the golf ball too right so instead so instead of setting

05:57up in this type of fashion we need to get the shoulders more level and the head a little bit more

06:03right on top of the golf ball and the beauty in the bunker is that we don't really need to create

06:08that much power with the body so we can try to maintain the head over the golf ball throughout the

06:14whole motion so we can control you see what that started right on top of the line that way so set up

06:19to the line again imagine like the ball is right there yeah so we want the shoulders to be more level

06:25so you can make the feel the left shoulder down you see what happened to the head yeah it brings it

06:30forward okay and now i want you to rotate around that uh around the head this is a lot of stuff to

06:35remember yeah okay okay rotate around there not much better now you started on top of the golf okay

06:42yeah okay so we're gonna give that a go here you don't need to hit it that hard we'll try it again

06:48now we're gonna hit a ball beautiful there so we're thinking about the shoulder still tilting a little

06:53bit too much there open up the face good and i feel like you're swinging a little bit more straighter

06:59and a little bit softer motion and bottoming out on that line beautiful shot look at the height and

07:05spin great shot now look at that not behind at all so just to summarize okay so you were setting up

07:13you were swinging a little bit too much to the left yeah with the path and you were setting up like a

07:18driver yeah which means that you're gonna bottom up too far behind all the time because i think

07:22subconsciously i was thinking i need to get a bit of help to get it up in the air whereas i know really that

07:28i need to keep my weight on the on my left foot and you're gonna do that easier by just changing

07:34the tilt and the shoulder yeah so the lower the left shoulder is the easier it is to maintain the

07:39pressure left okay and then if you look at really good bunker players they have levered shoulders

07:44definitely more pressure left and then they just rotate around the head okay you don't see any

07:49pressure shift or slide sway sway no no they just go very rotational from that point so a little bit

07:56straighter path a little bit adjustment in the setup and you're gonna be golden that was a good shot

08:02did you see the height difference yeah that went straight up in there great that's it everybody needs

08:07to see a bit of frederick

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