You're Correct!

In a golf fairway bunker you are looking to take the ball cleanly off the sand and to get the necessary height to get the ball out of the fairway bunker, but whilst still maintaining distance.

It is really important that you are hitting a clean shot and hitting it a long way out of this fairway bunker if you have managed to find one, in order for you to get back into the hole.

In order to do this it is absolutely paramount that you maintain your height and your balance throughout your swing. As you set up to play the shot, you want to work on coming into the bunker and not wriggling your feet in as much as you would for a splash shot out of a green side bunker. If you wriggle your feet in too much, then it will lower the height that you have in that bunker and that would promote you to strike the sand and hit the sand first and we do not want that here, we want to hit the ball cleanly. In order to help you hit the ball cleanly, work on setting up, without wriggling the feet into the sand and slightly grip down on the handle, just to shorten the distance between yourself and the club head, as this will promote you to strike the ball when you do make the swing, rather than hitting the ground first.

It is also really important that as you swing back your legs maintain the amount of flex that they have in them and that you maintain your posture. If you really squat your knees down as you swing back you are going to tend to hit down into the sand as you swing back down towards the ball and if you straighten your legs out again, trying to counter this, you are going to lift the club too high off the sand and you will end up hitting the top of the ball, which will fire the ball very low and just straight into the bunker face in front of you. Maintain the flex that you have in your knees, neither decreasing it, nor increasing it.

Also, as you swing back it is very important that you maintain your balance. If you find that you are swinging back and all your weight is going on to your right leg, your centre of gravity is now moving to the right too much and wherever your centre of gravity is, you will tend to find the lowest point for your swing arc. If you stay with all your weight on your right foot you are going to hit the ground before you hit the ball and you will not get the ball out of the bunker with any distance, because all the club head speed will be transferred into the sand rather than into the ball. Work on maintaining your balance, maintaining the weight distribution between the left and your right foot as you swing back and also work on maintaining the amount of flex that you have in your legs.

Maintain your leg position, hold slightly down the handle, to ensure that you take the ball cleanly off the surface and really work on just nipping the ball off the top of the sand. Make sure that you finish with your right foot up on its toes, if you are a right handed golfer, with your shoe laces rotated towards the target. This will help you to turn your body through the shot and you will take the ball cleanly off the sand and you will be back into the hole.

It may feel more comfortable for you to allow your right leg to straighten during your back swing (for right handed golfers). However, when your right leg straightens, your posture height increases and this now means you will strike the top of the golf ball and produce a low shot that will not escape the bunker.

Your knees swaying to the right on your back swing (right handed golfers) will cause you to transfer too much weight on to your right side during your back swing.

As a result of this, you will find it difficult to transfer your weight back and as you swing through impact you will have too much weight on your right foot, which will result in you striking the sand before the ball. This will mean that you hit a shorter golf shot.