How Senior Golfers can get the Best results when Playing a Fairway Bunker Shot (Video) - by Dean Butler
How Senior Golfers can get the Best results when Playing a Fairway Bunker Shot (Video) - by Dean Butler

Okay so we're going to play a fairway bunker golf shot now. One of the biggest sort of enemies of this golf shot is catching the sand first. So just imagine a typical sort of fairway bunker, say a 170 yards away from the green. The most important thing first of all, before you even think about the shot is this club selection. Look at the lie and look at the face of the bunker. The first thing is we got to make sure that we take a club out of the bag that is going to be able to clear that face.

Time and time again, people take the wrong club and hit the face, and they are still in the bunker. We're still, they are under the lip now. So select your club, think about what you need to do. The second thing is that when you come into the bunker, and we're going to go, trying to go for the distance, what we don't really want to do is, we don't want to hit sand ball, which is what we would play a conventional bunker shot with. We want to catch ball sand, so what we need to do is to set ourselves up in a position where the ball is a bit more central. We're going to down the grip. We're going to pull that grip, the club basically up into my hands a little bit more. And by shortening that, it's going to encourage me to actually get a cleaner golf shot because we don't get – we're trying to hit the golf ball here and not the sand. So we have selected the club. We have selected the ball position and we basically pulled the hands backup. Now this is the important bit. From here we got to basically focus on, not what we would normally do, breaking the wrists because that would encourage a steep plane. And we don't want a steep plane. We want to encourage ourselves now to go with more arms, it's more of a arms shot. And try and maintain your height. This is crucial. Remember just a slightest drop in your body height will have you dropping in behind the ball and leaving that ball potentially in the bunker. So here is a setup. Ball in the middle, hands down the grip, pulling the club over or just pulling this away from the sand, that's the only body here to get away from the sand. Put yourself in this position of your weight, your feet slightly wider than normal, weight 50-50 and I want you to hold the head central try and keep it here, that swing of your arms. So from here now, maintain your height, arms and I will be very pleased with that on the golf course. A good shot there for a long distance out here, no effort just sticking to the basic ingredients. And that's what golf is about, you have got the fundamentals, you have now got the knowledge how to play the shot. And it's most probably different to how you would have played it, but again you have got the tools. Well don't be scared of going on the golf course and trying this, you know get yourself in the bunker, put a couple of balls down, set yourself up. And have a go and it's incredible the difference, you think wow, what a, such a small difference it has made. But by god, you will see the results. Remember, this is for fairway bunker shots, you've got the knowledge. Now just go and practice and see those results. 2013-10-25

Okay so we're going to play a fairway bunker golf shot now. One of the biggest sort of enemies of this golf shot is catching the sand first. So just imagine a typical sort of fairway bunker, say a 170 yards away from the green. The most important thing first of all, before you even think about the shot is this club selection. Look at the lie and look at the face of the bunker. The first thing is we got to make sure that we take a club out of the bag that is going to be able to clear that face.

Time and time again, people take the wrong club and hit the face, and they are still in the bunker. We're still, they are under the lip now. So select your club, think about what you need to do. The second thing is that when you come into the bunker, and we're going to go, trying to go for the distance, what we don't really want to do is, we don't want to hit sand ball, which is what we would play a conventional bunker shot with. We want to catch ball sand, so what we need to do is to set ourselves up in a position where the ball is a bit more central. We're going to down the grip. We're going to pull that grip, the club basically up into my hands a little bit more.

And by shortening that, it's going to encourage me to actually get a cleaner golf shot because we don't get – we're trying to hit the golf ball here and not the sand. So we have selected the club. We have selected the ball position and we basically pulled the hands backup. Now this is the important bit. From here we got to basically focus on, not what we would normally do, breaking the wrists because that would encourage a steep plane. And we don't want a steep plane. We want to encourage ourselves now to go with more arms, it's more of a arms shot. And try and maintain your height. This is crucial. Remember just a slightest drop in your body height will have you dropping in behind the ball and leaving that ball potentially in the bunker.

So here is a setup. Ball in the middle, hands down the grip, pulling the club over or just pulling this away from the sand, that's the only body here to get away from the sand. Put yourself in this position of your weight, your feet slightly wider than normal, weight 50-50 and I want you to hold the head central try and keep it here, that swing of your arms. So from here now, maintain your height, arms and I will be very pleased with that on the golf course. A good shot there for a long distance out here, no effort just sticking to the basic ingredients. And that's what golf is about, you have got the fundamentals, you have now got the knowledge how to play the shot. And it's most probably different to how you would have played it, but again you have got the tools.

Well don't be scared of going on the golf course and trying this, you know get yourself in the bunker, put a couple of balls down, set yourself up. And have a go and it's incredible the difference, you think wow, what a, such a small difference it has made. But by god, you will see the results. Remember, this is for fairway bunker shots, you've got the knowledge. Now just go and practice and see those results.