What Technique Should I Use To Hit Out Of A Deep And Steep Golf Bunker (Video) - by Pete Styles
What Technique Should I Use To Hit Out Of A Deep And Steep Golf Bunker (Video) - by Pete Styles

As you join me now, I’ve positioned my golf ball quite close to the leading edge of this bunker and it’s quite a steep angle up here. It’s not the sort of bunker that I would be able to sort of climb out the front of it, it’s a little bit steeper than that. So to play this ball out of this bunker might require a slightly different technique. You’ll find yourself in these situations occasionally. A ball lands, rolls up, sits there like that, you think well, do I take that shot on, do I turn around and play outside or I should play out backwards. I’m going to teach you how to play it out.

First thing, make sure you’ve got the appropriate club. Take your most lofted wedge, be that your sand wedge, be that your lob wedge. And then if you don’t feel like you’ve got enough loft even with that club, start at the same loft. And the way we do that, is we open the face. So we point the face up towards the camera, and then we twist it round like this to about two o’clock. If I twist up face to two o’clock and then grip it, it’s got a very very open look to the clubface. It’s important here, we’re not advocating gripping and then twisting, because your hands will just turn that clubface straight back over. So twist the two, then grab hold of it and then bring it down. And it will look now like if you got a glass of wine balanced on that clubface, it’s so aggressively up to the sky you think I could balance something on there, how is that going to move the ball forwards? But when you get some sand on the clubface and the ball impacts the sand, there is some forward moment that will be able to lift the ball aggressively upwards and a little bit forwards as well. Now the next consideration from here, is you’ve got to get a good strike on the ball. We see so many people in this sort of position and they don’t get the ball out purely because they forget they’ve got to get a good strike. And the classic thing here is leaning backwards trying to help the ball in the air. So were in a decent position but then suddenly we lean back give it a flick and a scoop all the body weight on the back lag, the ball is never going to come out because you didn’t strike it well enough. And then it’s actually counter interactive here, we’ve actually got to lean into this hill, take our body weight down and forwards into the hill and trust that there’s enough loft on that clubface that will clear that leading edge. So it’s a good solid set up, body weight coming forward, hitting down, trust the bal will come out. On the rarely steep sided bunkers, you might just move the ball forwards in your stance by having the ball forwards in your stance it will keep the loft open and implies you’re going to be able to hit under and get the ball up a little bit. Having the ball back in your stance, you’ll hit down on it, your hands will be too far ahead. You’ve de-lofted the golf club, it will come out too low. So summarizing that; face open, ball forwards, body weight going forwards. Hit it hard, that’s the last thing, hit it hard. We don’t want this thing to rise up and then stay in the bunker. So we’ve got the ball forwards, the face is wide open, leaning on that left side, nicely committed now. And we can commit to that ball and it comes out very very high. Lands quite softly, trickles down nice and close to the flag. So, I’ve got myself out of a very awkward, very difficult situation and I’ve actually got myself maybe a five or six foot putt, possibly to save power on this hole, because I had the right technique to play a bunker shot from a very steep and difficult situation. 2014-11-11

As you join me now, I’ve positioned my golf ball quite close to the leading edge of this bunker and it’s quite a steep angle up here. It’s not the sort of bunker that I would be able to sort of climb out the front of it, it’s a little bit steeper than that. So to play this ball out of this bunker might require a slightly different technique. You’ll find yourself in these situations occasionally. A ball lands, rolls up, sits there like that, you think well, do I take that shot on, do I turn around and play outside or I should play out backwards. I’m going to teach you how to play it out.

First thing, make sure you’ve got the appropriate club. Take your most lofted wedge, be that your sand wedge, be that your lob wedge. And then if you don’t feel like you’ve got enough loft even with that club, start at the same loft. And the way we do that, is we open the face. So we point the face up towards the camera, and then we twist it round like this to about two o’clock. If I twist up face to two o’clock and then grip it, it’s got a very very open look to the clubface. It’s important here, we’re not advocating gripping and then twisting, because your hands will just turn that clubface straight back over. So twist the two, then grab hold of it and then bring it down.

And it will look now like if you got a glass of wine balanced on that clubface, it’s so aggressively up to the sky you think I could balance something on there, how is that going to move the ball forwards? But when you get some sand on the clubface and the ball impacts the sand, there is some forward moment that will be able to lift the ball aggressively upwards and a little bit forwards as well. Now the next consideration from here, is you’ve got to get a good strike on the ball. We see so many people in this sort of position and they don’t get the ball out purely because they forget they’ve got to get a good strike. And the classic thing here is leaning backwards trying to help the ball in the air. So were in a decent position but then suddenly we lean back give it a flick and a scoop all the body weight on the back lag, the ball is never going to come out because you didn’t strike it well enough. And then it’s actually counter interactive here, we’ve actually got to lean into this hill, take our body weight down and forwards into the hill and trust that there’s enough loft on that clubface that will clear that leading edge. So it’s a good solid set up, body weight coming forward, hitting down, trust the bal will come out. On the rarely steep sided bunkers, you might just move the ball forwards in your stance by having the ball forwards in your stance it will keep the loft open and implies you’re going to be able to hit under and get the ball up a little bit. Having the ball back in your stance, you’ll hit down on it, your hands will be too far ahead. You’ve de-lofted the golf club, it will come out too low.

So summarizing that; face open, ball forwards, body weight going forwards. Hit it hard, that’s the last thing, hit it hard. We don’t want this thing to rise up and then stay in the bunker. So we’ve got the ball forwards, the face is wide open, leaning on that left side, nicely committed now. And we can commit to that ball and it comes out very very high. Lands quite softly, trickles down nice and close to the flag. So, I’ve got myself out of a very awkward, very difficult situation and I’ve actually got myself maybe a five or six foot putt, possibly to save power on this hole, because I had the right technique to play a bunker shot from a very steep and difficult situation.