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If you are faced with a very steep sided golf bunker, you have got to get the ball up very vertically and very quickly, if you are going to be able to escape the hazard in just one shot.

The best way to get the ball up on a high trajectory is to play the shot with your most lofted club. If you carry a pitching wedge and sand iron that would be a sand iron. But you may also carry a lob wedge or a 60 degree wedge and then this would now be your most lofted club so use that. Whichever club is the most lofted club from your bag, pitching wedge, sand iron or a lob wedge, play the most lofted club you have as it has the most angle to get the highest trajectory golf shots.

So now you have got the most lofted golf club in your hands, you need to look at how to achieve even more loft by opening the club face. To do this, if you are a right handed golfer, hold the club in your hands as you usually would and you will notice that on the bottom of the grip there is a manufacturers name, or there will be a grip indicator or a grip marker on the grip. With this centred, you now need to turn it to the right slightly so that the name or grip indicator is over to the right side of centre and that will open up the club face, giving you even more loft on the golf club. Doing this is going to allow you to hit a much higher trajectory golf shot.

Once you have rotated the handle to the right, re-hold the club with your usual hold. It is really important that you turn the handle to the right and then re-hold the club and that you do not hold the club normally and just turn your hands over to the right. If you do that, as you play the golf shot the golf club will come back into its original starting position which means it will come back in square to how you would set the club normally and the additional loft from opening the face by turning your hands to the right will be lost, because your hands will rotate through the golf shot so you will not actually have increased any of the loft on the golf club.

Turn the handle to the right, now place your hands on.

You will now notice that the face of the golf club is actually aiming to the right of the target, so you now need to reposition yourself so that the golf club face aims at the flag or the target where you want the ball to come out and over the steep faced bunker. To do this you need to rotate your feet over to the left a little to allow you to bring the club face back round until it squares up to the target. Once you have done this, set your stance up with the ball in the middle of the stance and just keep your weight very even. You are also going to put your hands directly over the ball so that the shaft of the club is pointing up at your belly button and then you need to quickly hinge your wrist. Create an L shape between the shaft of the club and the left arm immediately as you move the club away from the ball. This will start to give you more height in the club head and it will allow you to attack steeply down, getting the club face under the ball and into the sand to produce a very high trajectory.

Quickly use the wrist as you swing the club back, making that L shape and then strike the sand one to two inches to the right of the ball, so that the club head digs into the sand and slides through the sand, under the ball.

Make sure you rotate your body towards the target as you are playing through the sand and into your following through. You need a really nice high finish in the follow through to make sure that you accelerate through the sand and that will give you a really high trajectory golf shot and help you get over those steep sided bunkers.
The club head, instead of striking the sand two inches before the ball, will strike the sand too far back on the right of the ball and as a result, the speed in the club head will transfer into the sand and you will not transfer enough speed to the ball, to get it over the steep bunker side.

Playing the ball back in your stance may create a good strike but the club will be de-lofted and the ball will exit with a low trajectory.

Hitting down sharply may create a good strike but the club will be de-lofted and the ball will exit with a low trajectory.

It can feel instinctively correct to lean back, as you are playing a golf shot, to help you achieve height. However, if you do lean back as you are playing the shot, you will end up hitting the sand far too early.