Better Golf Bunker Shots, Tour Alignment Sticks Drill (Video) - by Pete Styles
Better Golf Bunker Shots, Tour Alignment Sticks Drill (Video) - by Pete Styles

Here's a really fantastic exercise to help you understand how you can play your bunker shots better but also using out of the bunker to play your flop shots and your lob shots a little bit better. One of things we'd like to do in a bunker or when we're playing a flop shot is create a little bit loft on the club face, so we actually open the club face to help you hit the ball higher. But if you are going to open the club face you also need to change you stance, so here I've got my swing sticks to help me with my alignment of my club face end of my stance.

So we set up to the golf ball normally as if I’m hitting this into the camera lens. I would have my feet parallel to this stick and my club face perpendicular to this stick, everything's lined up to hit in the straight direction. But as we suggested for the bunker shot, or the lob shot we’d like to open the club face as a process of twisting the golf club to the right for the right handed golfer to add more loft to the club face. So if I go ahead and twist that to the right and then grip it, the feeling now is that the ball would go off to the right.

So I’m pointing my club face along this tall stick here, it’s about 10º, 15º to the right of my intended target. But if I had the club phase twisted that far open, and made my normal swing the ball would probably jump to that side of the target. So I now need to consider how my body needs to react and really I can go the same way with my body, aiming my body the opposite direction 10º, 15º open against my body is open to the left, my club face is open to the right, for the right handed golfer. And now as I take my set up, club points along this stick and feet points along this stick.

But quite importantly you also need to get your shoulders along that line, a lot of the time when we are chipping and pitching we would square the shoulders up, but in this sense if I square my shoulders my swing will go straight and the ball will go right again. So I do want my feet, my shoulders, my knees and my hips to point on the left hand stick. I also then want my swing path to go down the line of left hand stick, and if the club face is pointing right that would produce a straight shot. So everything points left on this line here with my body and the club face points right on this line here.

I then go ahead and make my normal committed bunker shot or flop shot swing, and the fact I’m swinging left with the club face pointing right, or slice nicely underneath the back of the golf ball produce really high but quite shot and nice high spinning golf shots. So using your swing sticks to get comfortable with the open stance, open club face position will definitely help your high bunker shots and your high flop shots.

 2013-06-27

Here's a really fantastic exercise to help you understand how you can play your bunker shots better but also using out of the bunker to play your flop shots and your lob shots a little bit better. One of things we'd like to do in a bunker or when we're playing a flop shot is create a little bit loft on the club face, so we actually open the club face to help you hit the ball higher. But if you are going to open the club face you also need to change you stance, so here I've got my swing sticks to help me with my alignment of my club face end of my stance.

So we set up to the golf ball normally as if I’m hitting this into the camera lens. I would have my feet parallel to this stick and my club face perpendicular to this stick, everything's lined up to hit in the straight direction. But as we suggested for the bunker shot, or the lob shot we’d like to open the club face as a process of twisting the golf club to the right for the right handed golfer to add more loft to the club face. So if I go ahead and twist that to the right and then grip it, the feeling now is that the ball would go off to the right.

So I’m pointing my club face along this tall stick here, it’s about 10º, 15º to the right of my intended target. But if I had the club phase twisted that far open, and made my normal swing the ball would probably jump to that side of the target. So I now need to consider how my body needs to react and really I can go the same way with my body, aiming my body the opposite direction 10º, 15º open against my body is open to the left, my club face is open to the right, for the right handed golfer. And now as I take my set up, club points along this stick and feet points along this stick.

But quite importantly you also need to get your shoulders along that line, a lot of the time when we are chipping and pitching we would square the shoulders up, but in this sense if I square my shoulders my swing will go straight and the ball will go right again. So I do want my feet, my shoulders, my knees and my hips to point on the left hand stick. I also then want my swing path to go down the line of left hand stick, and if the club face is pointing right that would produce a straight shot. So everything points left on this line here with my body and the club face points right on this line here.

I then go ahead and make my normal committed bunker shot or flop shot swing, and the fact I’m swinging left with the club face pointing right, or slice nicely underneath the back of the golf ball produce really high but quite shot and nice high spinning golf shots. So using your swing sticks to get comfortable with the open stance, open club face position will definitely help your high bunker shots and your high flop shots.