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Where the club strikes the sand is paramount in order to hit good strikes and produce high quality bunker shots. When playing a standard bunker shot, you want to make contact with the sand a couple of inches prior to the ball.

So how do you know where you are making contact with the sand relative to the golf ball

Here is a great drill to check where you are making contact with the sand:

In a practise bunker, rake part of the bunker and make a line with an alignment stick or rake. Place golf balls in a row two inches in front of the line. Make your way down the lined up balls and take note of where the club head is entering the sand. If there are marks before the line then you are hitting the sand too much before the ball and are likely leaving the ball in the sand. If the splash mark is in front of the line then you are making contact too close to the golf ball and bringing a thinned shot into play. If the club is entering the sand on the line made in the sand then your contact should be spot on.

Give this drill a go next time you are in the practise bunker to highlight where the club head is entering the sand and give you some feedback when you practice in order to help improve your bunker play.

If the club makes contact in the sand before the golf ball you are likely to either duff the shot and leave the ball in the bunker, or the club will bounce up and then thin the ball over the green. Focus on making contact two inches before the ball in order to hit those perfect bunker shots.

If the club head is striking the sand too close to the golf ball you will end up catching the ball with too clean a strike and either hit the ball too far or thin the ball over the green. Aim to make contact with the sand a couple of inches behind the ball to hit those high soft bunker shots.

When playing greenside bunker shots, you almost always want to take an amount of sand before striking the golf ball. If you tried to pick the ball cleanly off the top of the sand, you are leaving no room for error and making bunker shots very difficult for yourself. Take the sand a couple of inches before the ball and watch the ball pop up high and land soft.