You're Correct!

When playing a bunker shot, you want the club to swing through the ball and up into a finish position of a similar length to the back swing. If the club head stops just after impact, you can see that the player has quit on the shot. So what causes this quitting motion?

The quitting motion is a slowing down of the club head. If you decelerate into impact and make contact with the sand with no speed, then the club head will struggle to get through the sand.

A good drill to help get some acceleration into your bunker play is to imagine you are hitting the sand out on to the green. Draw a lunch box sized shape in the sand with your club head and place the golf ball in the centre of the drawn box. Make a big swing on both sides of the ball with the goal of splashing the lunch box of sand out of the bunker and on to the green. If you can achieve this removal of sand then you will see the ball pop up and out of the bunker and safely on to the putting surface. This is a great way of getting the club to accelerate through the shot, splash the ball and sand out of the bunker and eliminate any quitting and deceleration of the club head at impact.

Give the lunch box drill a go next time youre in the practise bunker and see how your bunker play will improve.

Slowing down the club head through the ball on a bunker shot is possibly one of the worst faults when it comes to bunker play. This deceleration results in a stab of the sand, the club head slows down and ball doesnt travel far enough to escape the bunker. You want to speed up the club through the ball in order to hit out the sand from underneath the ball to splash the ball on to the putting surface.

If you try to hit at the ball, you are likely to dig the club head into the sand at impact. In order to hit consistent quality bunker shots, you need to swing through the ball, taking a dollar bill sized amount of sand from beneath the ball in order to splash the ball on to the green. Try swinging through the ball rather than at it.

The old cliché of keep your head down will be advised by your golfing buddies when a ball is topped or thinned. Lifting your head can be damaging to your golf game, but you mustnt keep the head fixed looking down at the ground. Keeping the head down and fixed will inhibit your ability to swing through the shot. Keep your inclination to the ground but dont keep looking down.