How Can I Get Out Of A Steep Golf Bunker? (Video) - by Natalie Adams
How Can I Get Out Of A Steep Golf Bunker? (Video) - by Natalie Adams

How can I get out of a steep faced golf bunker? Now what you’ve got to look for if you are facing a bunker shot with a very, very steep face we need a vertical trajectory basically off the club face, we need a very high launch angle with the ball. So what we’ve got to do when we’re setting up to play the shot is create a situation where we’re going to gain height. The best way to do this is take your most lofted club so that maybe a Sundyne but it could be a lob wedge as well. So to the most lofted club and then the best tip I can give you here is to open the club face because that will put more loft on to the golf club. The way to open the club face if you set the club – normally you’ll see that you have an alignment aid on your golf grip or you’ll have the name of the golf grip on the front of the handle. To -- open the club face you need to rotate this name to the right if you’re a right handed golfer just about – not quite a quarter turn so just turn it a few millimeters to the right that’s now opened the club face and you’ll notice as you do that that the club face leans back and more loft appears on that club face. So rather than having this amount of loft, this amount of club face angle as you open the club face you can see that the club leans back and we get much more loft. So that’s going to give us a really, really vertical and very high trajectory and now we’ve got a chance to escape that steep faced bunker.

So once we’ve opened the club face by rotating the name on the handle to the right a few millimeters we’re then going to place your hands on. Now it’s – a common misconception amongst club level golfers to open the club face you put your hands on first and then you just rotate your hands and the club face to the right. Yes that does open the club face but what’s going to happen is you swing away and swing back in to impact your hands are going to rotate back to their normal position, it will rotate the club face back into the normal position and you’ve lost all that added height that you had popped on to the club face before you played so you won’t get a higher shot. So the correct sequence to do this in is your hands are off the club, just rotate the handle to the right and then place your hands on. Now that will feel a little bit awkward in your hands because there is a front and a back to the golf grip and you should feel that the ridge is now sitting in your hand which is at the back of the golf grip, but that’s the correct way to open the club face. Now make sure when you set up that you align the club face so it’s pointing back at the target. So to do this you’re going to rotate your feet round to the left until the club face is aiming back at the target. Once you’ve done this if you have your feet pointing at the golf ball then step left and right so you take shoulder width apart stance with your feet and then just wriggle your feet into the sand, it’ll help lower you down because we want to play the shot where the club goes under the ball. So wriggle down, get into the sand. What were going to do now is swing the club back along the target lines so it really comes around you at quite a shallow angle and then we can play back in looking to strike the sands an inch or two inches before the ball you’ll take a really thin slither of sand and the ball – the club face will slide underneath the golf ball really keeping that club face up to the sky. Make sure you rotate your body as you do that and follow through into a position which is an equal distance lengthwise to the length of your back swing. So if you open that club face up you’ll really find that you get a lot more height and you can escape those steep faced bunkers. 2014-05-19

How can I get out of a steep faced golf bunker? Now what you’ve got to look for if you are facing a bunker shot with a very, very steep face we need a vertical trajectory basically off the club face, we need a very high launch angle with the ball. So what we’ve got to do when we’re setting up to play the shot is create a situation where we’re going to gain height. The best way to do this is take your most lofted club so that maybe a Sundyne but it could be a lob wedge as well. So to the most lofted club and then the best tip I can give you here is to open the club face because that will put more loft on to the golf club. The way to open the club face if you set the club – normally you’ll see that you have an alignment aid on your golf grip or you’ll have the name of the golf grip on the front of the handle. To — open the club face you need to rotate this name to the right if you’re a right handed golfer just about – not quite a quarter turn so just turn it a few millimeters to the right that’s now opened the club face and you’ll notice as you do that that the club face leans back and more loft appears on that club face. So rather than having this amount of loft, this amount of club face angle as you open the club face you can see that the club leans back and we get much more loft. So that’s going to give us a really, really vertical and very high trajectory and now we’ve got a chance to escape that steep faced bunker.

So once we’ve opened the club face by rotating the name on the handle to the right a few millimeters we’re then going to place your hands on. Now it’s – a common misconception amongst club level golfers to open the club face you put your hands on first and then you just rotate your hands and the club face to the right. Yes that does open the club face but what’s going to happen is you swing away and swing back in to impact your hands are going to rotate back to their normal position, it will rotate the club face back into the normal position and you’ve lost all that added height that you had popped on to the club face before you played so you won’t get a higher shot. So the correct sequence to do this in is your hands are off the club, just rotate the handle to the right and then place your hands on. Now that will feel a little bit awkward in your hands because there is a front and a back to the golf grip and you should feel that the ridge is now sitting in your hand which is at the back of the golf grip, but that’s the correct way to open the club face.

Now make sure when you set up that you align the club face so it’s pointing back at the target. So to do this you’re going to rotate your feet round to the left until the club face is aiming back at the target. Once you’ve done this if you have your feet pointing at the golf ball then step left and right so you take shoulder width apart stance with your feet and then just wriggle your feet into the sand, it’ll help lower you down because we want to play the shot where the club goes under the ball. So wriggle down, get into the sand. What were going to do now is swing the club back along the target lines so it really comes around you at quite a shallow angle and then we can play back in looking to strike the sands an inch or two inches before the ball you’ll take a really thin slither of sand and the ball – the club face will slide underneath the golf ball really keeping that club face up to the sky.

Make sure you rotate your body as you do that and follow through into a position which is an equal distance lengthwise to the length of your back swing. So if you open that club face up you’ll really find that you get a lot more height and you can escape those steep faced bunkers.