Bunker Saves From Varying Sand Conditions (Video) - by Pete Styles
Bunker Saves From Varying Sand Conditions (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think by now, most people have got a decent understanding of how they play a basic bunker shot, sort of way they would play their normal standard bunker shots. We might have a bit of a variation, because the sand will change conditions, so when it’s very wet and you are trying to hit two inches of the sand behind the golf ball that shot would undoubtedly feel and react differently. So if you are playing a two inches of sand bunker shot on a dry fluffy sand, and also different golf courses have different consistencies of sand as well.

So it’s important you create an understanding how your bunker shot technique changes, when the conditions change. Now if you’re playing a very dry soft fluffy sand shot, couple of things I’d consider doing. Set the clubface nice and open; creating an open clubface actually creates more bounce angle underneath the golf ball and bounce is good, in the soft fluffy sand. So, create an open clubface for loads of bounce, dig your feet in nice and deep, get your feet a good inch down below the golf ball, so it’s nice and soft sand, screw your feet in. That will give you two cures; it gives you a better grip on the floor, but it also drops you an inch below the ball, so that when you play your bunker shot, you can hit it down an inch below the ball really nicely. And because the sand is nice and fluffy, the club should slide through the ball, popping the ball out. It won’t necessarily come out with loads of back spin, there could be quite a lot of sand between the club and the ball and it might come out and it won’t naturally spin a great deal on the green.

Now, maybe more difficult shot will be playing from hardpan bunkers or very wet bunkers. The difficulty here is, too much bounce angle might hit the floor of the bunker, bounce off the floor of the bunker and hit the ball thin in midway of the ball, causing a thin shot into the lip or over you at the side of the green. So it might be time to consider a different wedge on very hard bunkers, possibly your lob wedge, now generally lob wedges have more loft but they have less bounce.

So if you’ve got a lob wedge four or six degrees of bounce, that’s going to be a great club to play from a hardpan bunker. You can set yourself up a little bit squarer, you don’t need to screw your feet into the sand, because your feet wouldn’t slip as much and actually we don’t want to be digging down underneath the sand so much as well. So we set up nice and square and level to the golf ball, we try and make an aggressive little clip of the ball and we try and hit just an inch of sand or less behind the back of the ball and that will produce a lot more height and a lot more spin on the golf ball, then if you would try and bounce the club in two or three inches behind, which on the hardpan just doesn’t work.

So there you got these two different techniques, dependent on the conditions that the bunker is in and the way you’re playing from dry soft fluffy sand or wet hard pack sand. Try and get practice conditions, the same as that when you are on the driving range or on the short game area, so you can practice both different types of bunker shots. Then when you are on the golf course, remember how your technique changes, when your sand changes.

2012-08-06

I think by now, most people have got a decent understanding of how they play a basic bunker shot, sort of way they would play their normal standard bunker shots. We might have a bit of a variation, because the sand will change conditions, so when it’s very wet and you are trying to hit two inches of the sand behind the golf ball that shot would undoubtedly feel and react differently. So if you are playing a two inches of sand bunker shot on a dry fluffy sand, and also different golf courses have different consistencies of sand as well.

So it’s important you create an understanding how your bunker shot technique changes, when the conditions change. Now if you’re playing a very dry soft fluffy sand shot, couple of things I’d consider doing. Set the clubface nice and open; creating an open clubface actually creates more bounce angle underneath the golf ball and bounce is good, in the soft fluffy sand. So, create an open clubface for loads of bounce, dig your feet in nice and deep, get your feet a good inch down below the golf ball, so it’s nice and soft sand, screw your feet in. That will give you two cures; it gives you a better grip on the floor, but it also drops you an inch below the ball, so that when you play your bunker shot, you can hit it down an inch below the ball really nicely. And because the sand is nice and fluffy, the club should slide through the ball, popping the ball out. It won’t necessarily come out with loads of back spin, there could be quite a lot of sand between the club and the ball and it might come out and it won’t naturally spin a great deal on the green.

Now, maybe more difficult shot will be playing from hardpan bunkers or very wet bunkers. The difficulty here is, too much bounce angle might hit the floor of the bunker, bounce off the floor of the bunker and hit the ball thin in midway of the ball, causing a thin shot into the lip or over you at the side of the green. So it might be time to consider a different wedge on very hard bunkers, possibly your lob wedge, now generally lob wedges have more loft but they have less bounce.

So if you’ve got a lob wedge four or six degrees of bounce, that’s going to be a great club to play from a hardpan bunker. You can set yourself up a little bit squarer, you don’t need to screw your feet into the sand, because your feet wouldn’t slip as much and actually we don’t want to be digging down underneath the sand so much as well. So we set up nice and square and level to the golf ball, we try and make an aggressive little clip of the ball and we try and hit just an inch of sand or less behind the back of the ball and that will produce a lot more height and a lot more spin on the golf ball, then if you would try and bounce the club in two or three inches behind, which on the hardpan just doesn’t work.

So there you got these two different techniques, dependent on the conditions that the bunker is in and the way you’re playing from dry soft fluffy sand or wet hard pack sand. Try and get practice conditions, the same as that when you are on the driving range or on the short game area, so you can practice both different types of bunker shots. Then when you are on the golf course, remember how your technique changes, when your sand changes.