Rick Shiels – PGA Teaching Pro
You’ve got a bunker to go over. The green is just on the other side. You’re playing against your friend. You’re playing with partner it’s all square, it’s a tense match and you’ve got probably one of the most knee knocking shots in golf. And it’s just one of those ones where you’re just – all you’re thinking about is don’t go in the bunker, don’t go in the bunker, don’t go in the bunker, forget that. Don’t think about that.
I’m going to give you some really easy drills and techniques to get you over the bunker, to get you on the green, and beating in your playing partners. Right so, you’re on the course and you’ve got the bunker in front of you, it’s about five six yards in front of you and straight away it’s almost in your eye line. So what we’ve got to do is look beyond that. Look where we want the ball to land. Forget just trying to get it over the bunker. We want to get this ball inevitably as close to the hole as we can. So when you look up here, don’t look down here where the bunker is, I want you look nice and high and almost picking on the green where you want your ball to land. So you’re thinking about that’s long, this maybe six feet just short of the pin, let it bounce, let it roll and get skipping nice and close to the hole. So it just becomes a normal golf shot then it’s a case of not using the rests and not leaning back on the shot to try and get it up over the bunker, it’s not so common you see a bunker; I’ve got to get over that bunker. Honestly you don’t. Use the loft – use your most lofty club.
Now this is my lob wedge you can use your sand wedge if do not have a lob wedge as I do. As you setup, all we’re going to do is just slightly in part, just a fraction of weight in my left side about 55% on my left hand side. As I swing back, I’m not going to get really flicky as I swing back and through. I’m going to look limiting the wrist hinge that I’ll tell you about. You still see I’ve got a wrist hinge there but I’m not really getting flicky and hinging. I’m just going to take back less hinge, swing through and almost kind of hit slightly down on it and certainly no flick after the shot.
So you’ve picked your point up here, you’re not looking at this bunker up here, you’re looking at where you want this ball to land. You’ve got your set up; you’re going to go very limited wrist hinge on the way back. No wrist hinge on the way through. That’s perfect, it’s jumped over the bunker really nicely and all I’ve done is I’ve not flicked my wrist to achieve that. Next time you’ve got that shot remember those factors and you will get it close to the hole.
2013-06-25 Rick Shiels – PGA Teaching Pro
You’ve got a bunker to go over. The green is just on the other side. You’re playing against your friend. You’re playing with partner it’s all square, it’s a tense match and you’ve got probably one of the most knee knocking shots in golf. And it’s just one of those ones where you’re just – all you’re thinking about is don’t go in the bunker, don’t go in the bunker, don’t go in the bunker, forget that. Don’t think about that.
I’m going to give you some really easy drills and techniques to get you over the bunker, to get you on the green, and beating in your playing partners. Right so, you’re on the course and you’ve got the bunker in front of you, it’s about five six yards in front of you and straight away it’s almost in your eye line. So what we’ve got to do is look beyond that. Look where we want the ball to land. Forget just trying to get it over the bunker. We want to get this ball inevitably as close to the hole as we can. So when you look up here, don’t look down here where the bunker is, I want you look nice and high and almost picking on the green where you want your ball to land. So you’re thinking about that’s long, this maybe six feet just short of the pin, let it bounce, let it roll and get skipping nice and close to the hole. So it just becomes a normal golf shot then it’s a case of not using the rests and not leaning back on the shot to try and get it up over the bunker, it’s not so common you see a bunker; I’ve got to get over that bunker. Honestly you don’t. Use the loft – use your most lofty club.
Now this is my lob wedge you can use your sand wedge if do not have a lob wedge as I do. As you setup, all we’re going to do is just slightly in part, just a fraction of weight in my left side about 55% on my left hand side. As I swing back, I’m not going to get really flicky as I swing back and through. I’m going to look limiting the wrist hinge that I’ll tell you about. You still see I’ve got a wrist hinge there but I’m not really getting flicky and hinging. I’m just going to take back less hinge, swing through and almost kind of hit slightly down on it and certainly no flick after the shot.
So you’ve picked your point up here, you’re not looking at this bunker up here, you’re looking at where you want this ball to land. You’ve got your set up; you’re going to go very limited wrist hinge on the way back. No wrist hinge on the way through. That’s perfect, it’s jumped over the bunker really nicely and all I’ve done is I’ve not flicked my wrist to achieve that. Next time you’ve got that shot remember those factors and you will get it close to the hole.
