What Is A Blast Golf Bunker Shot? (Video) - by Pete Styles
What Is A Blast Golf Bunker Shot? (Video) - by Pete Styles

When you’re watching bunker shots being played on the TV, you’ll often hear the commentators talking about how the fact that the player blasted that one out onto the green. Or the player splashed that one out onto the green. And although they seem fairly generic terms, they’re actually slightly different format of bunker shot and a slightly different way of playing the bunker shot. So this time I’m just going to look at playing a blast bunker shot. So a blast bunker shot generally takes a little bit more sand takes a little bit deeper divot of sand and blasts the ball out onto the green.

For a lot of players, it’s a slightly safer way of playing the bunker shot because it’s a more aggressive form of playing the bunker shot. Less finesse, less delicate, less touch, it just gouges the ball out onto the green. But for better players, they sometimes don’t like playing that format of the shot because they done necessarily feel it gives them enough control. But the way we play a blast bunker shot, we keep the club face relatively square to the target. It’s like pointing pretty much at your target. Likewise the body can stay quite square to the target as well. The ball gets placed around the centre of the stunts; the club swing is quite aggressive and quite deep. We’d hit about two to three inches of sand before the back of the golf ball, so we actually take sand first then the ball. As the club buries itself down onto the sand, the balance action at the bottom of the golf club, the balance angle would bring the club from underneath the ball, blasting the ball out. It’s quite an aggressive way of playing it, there’s quite a lot of sand involved in playing this shot. The ball will jump out with some relative height. When it lands on the green, it won’t spin very much it will roll out and release down towards the hole. So if there’s a bunker shot you don’t really like the look off, if it’s essential that you get the ball out first time, and the lie isn’t particularly very good, the blast bunker shot could be a more consistent way of playing the shot for yourself. If I set up to play this one now, I’ll play with quite a square face, ball about centering my stance, quite a strong grip because I’m going to dig down, take quite a lot of sand, and I’m going to blast this ball out, quite aggressively to the green. And I’ve landed that ball; it’s just landed at the back of the green, just rolled over the top, so possibly took a little bit too little sand. Maybe it should have taken a little bit more sand before the back of the golf ball. But you can see that’s quite an aggressive way of playing the ball, and it will get the ball out onto the green every time. This is a short demonstration for the blast bunker shot. As I go ahead and set up to play my blast bunker shot now, I’m going to play with a relatively square face, keep the ball around about the center of my stance. I’m going to be quite steep, quite aggressive with the bunker shot try and to take between two and three inches of sand, with quite a lot of grip pressure, trying to blast this ball out onto the surface of the green, with quite a lot of sand as well. So keep everything quite square, descent grip pressure and a good amount of sand. And as I’ve blasted the ball out there you can see my distance control is quite good, I’ve rolled it up there to the black and white flag and it come out with quite a lot of sand. My divot measures about a foot long and about an inch and a half deep. It’s quite an aggressive way of playing the shot; but it guarantees the ball is going to get hit out of the bunker quite aggressively removing the sand. If the sand is wet as it is for me today, it’s a really nice way of playing the shot out with plenty of aggression. 2014-01-16

When you’re watching bunker shots being played on the TV, you’ll often hear the commentators talking about how the fact that the player blasted that one out onto the green. Or the player splashed that one out onto the green. And although they seem fairly generic terms, they’re actually slightly different format of bunker shot and a slightly different way of playing the bunker shot. So this time I’m just going to look at playing a blast bunker shot. So a blast bunker shot generally takes a little bit more sand takes a little bit deeper divot of sand and blasts the ball out onto the green.

For a lot of players, it’s a slightly safer way of playing the bunker shot because it’s a more aggressive form of playing the bunker shot. Less finesse, less delicate, less touch, it just gouges the ball out onto the green. But for better players, they sometimes don’t like playing that format of the shot because they done necessarily feel it gives them enough control. But the way we play a blast bunker shot, we keep the club face relatively square to the target. It’s like pointing pretty much at your target. Likewise the body can stay quite square to the target as well. The ball gets placed around the centre of the stunts; the club swing is quite aggressive and quite deep. We’d hit about two to three inches of sand before the back of the golf ball, so we actually take sand first then the ball.

As the club buries itself down onto the sand, the balance action at the bottom of the golf club, the balance angle would bring the club from underneath the ball, blasting the ball out. It’s quite an aggressive way of playing it, there’s quite a lot of sand involved in playing this shot. The ball will jump out with some relative height. When it lands on the green, it won’t spin very much it will roll out and release down towards the hole. So if there’s a bunker shot you don’t really like the look off, if it’s essential that you get the ball out first time, and the lie isn’t particularly very good, the blast bunker shot could be a more consistent way of playing the shot for yourself.

If I set up to play this one now, I’ll play with quite a square face, ball about centering my stance, quite a strong grip because I’m going to dig down, take quite a lot of sand, and I’m going to blast this ball out, quite aggressively to the green. And I’ve landed that ball; it’s just landed at the back of the green, just rolled over the top, so possibly took a little bit too little sand. Maybe it should have taken a little bit more sand before the back of the golf ball. But you can see that’s quite an aggressive way of playing the ball, and it will get the ball out onto the green every time.

This is a short demonstration for the blast bunker shot. As I go ahead and set up to play my blast bunker shot now, I’m going to play with a relatively square face, keep the ball around about the center of my stance. I’m going to be quite steep, quite aggressive with the bunker shot try and to take between two and three inches of sand, with quite a lot of grip pressure, trying to blast this ball out onto the surface of the green, with quite a lot of sand as well. So keep everything quite square, descent grip pressure and a good amount of sand.

And as I’ve blasted the ball out there you can see my distance control is quite good, I’ve rolled it up there to the black and white flag and it come out with quite a lot of sand. My divot measures about a foot long and about an inch and a half deep. It’s quite an aggressive way of playing the shot; but it guarantees the ball is going to get hit out of the bunker quite aggressively removing the sand. If the sand is wet as it is for me today, it’s a really nice way of playing the shot out with plenty of aggression.