Greenside Bunker Shots, How Much Should I Open The Club Face (Video) - Lesson 1 by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Greenside Bunker Shots, How Much Should I Open The Club Face (Video) - Lesson 1 by PGA Pro Pete Styles

Pretty happy with that result from the bunker shot that actually leapt out, well it rolled a little bit too far. But if you notice the way I played that bunker shot at setup, not very much of me or my club was actually aiming towards the target. My body was aiming one way, the clubface was aiming the other way, yet the ball still came out straight enough to catch the lip of the hole. So what we’re doing here is we’re opening the clubface before we play our shots. So we want to understand now how much should we open the clubface for a perfect bunker shot. So we understand opening the face first. If this clubface is looking at the camera and it’s looking vertical, let’s call that 12 o’clock. And as I twist the handle to the right, the clubface opens up. So as a right handed golfer, this clubface now aims at one o’clock or two o’clock, or three o’clock. For the left hand I just use the other side of the clock face. So if I end up at one o’clock and bring that down in front of me, and hold on to it, that one o’clock clubface is now pointing right of my intended target. If I can move my body round to the left hand side, the clubface starts to come nearer to the target line; I can then play my nice standard bunker shot.

So for standard greenside bunker shots, I would be playing that clubface at one o’clock in terms of how open it is. If I’ve got a bunker where there’s a bigger lip in front of me like I have here, I want to get this ball out high, I want to get it to stop a little bit quicker. I’d actually advocate opening the clubface that little bit more to two o’clock. So we take the setup at 12, twist it to two, grab hold of it, and bring it down. Now at that point it will look incredibly open. If you’ve never opened the clubface before, you’ll be looking down at that thinking; is this guy serious? That looks like I could get a glass of wine balanced on my clubface. And that’s the point, that’s good. Open it up, feel like you could lay a glass of wine on the clubface and then chop the legs off the golf ball. Swing the club nice and easy, nice and free, just like my last shot. Chop underneath the golf ball; get this thing coming out nice and high. So standard bunker shots one o’clock, open the face a little bit more to two o’clock for the highlight, fly it high bunker shots. And I think that’s the perfect amount for you to open the clubface, for those high soft landing bunker shots. 2014-11-11

Pretty happy with that result from the bunker shot that actually leapt out, well it rolled a little bit too far. But if you notice the way I played that bunker shot at setup, not very much of me or my club was actually aiming towards the target. My body was aiming one way, the clubface was aiming the other way, yet the ball still came out straight enough to catch the lip of the hole. So what we’re doing here is we’re opening the clubface before we play our shots. So we want to understand now how much should we open the clubface for a perfect bunker shot. So we understand opening the face first. If this clubface is looking at the camera and it’s looking vertical, let’s call that 12 o’clock. And as I twist the handle to the right, the clubface opens up. So as a right handed golfer, this clubface now aims at one o’clock or two o’clock, or three o’clock. For the left hand I just use the other side of the clock face. So if I end up at one o’clock and bring that down in front of me, and hold on to it, that one o’clock clubface is now pointing right of my intended target. If I can move my body round to the left hand side, the clubface starts to come nearer to the target line; I can then play my nice standard bunker shot.

So for standard greenside bunker shots, I would be playing that clubface at one o’clock in terms of how open it is. If I’ve got a bunker where there’s a bigger lip in front of me like I have here, I want to get this ball out high, I want to get it to stop a little bit quicker. I’d actually advocate opening the clubface that little bit more to two o’clock. So we take the setup at 12, twist it to two, grab hold of it, and bring it down. Now at that point it will look incredibly open. If you’ve never opened the clubface before, you’ll be looking down at that thinking; is this guy serious? That looks like I could get a glass of wine balanced on my clubface. And that’s the point, that’s good. Open it up, feel like you could lay a glass of wine on the clubface and then chop the legs off the golf ball. Swing the club nice and easy, nice and free, just like my last shot. Chop underneath the golf ball; get this thing coming out nice and high. So standard bunker shots one o’clock, open the face a little bit more to two o’clock for the highlight, fly it high bunker shots. And I think that’s the perfect amount for you to open the clubface, for those high soft landing bunker shots.