Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro
One thing that you see with many people who do shank bunker shots, it's a very rushed, very quick, very tentative swing that they have. Now, that's because there's a certain amount of fear associated with hitting it out of the heel of the club, and that is perfectly understandable. If you are hitting that shot which is shooting quickly in that direction, sometimes it seems like you simply can't stop doing it. And the more and more people do it, the more you see that that routine, and that whole swing is becoming very, very rushed, and very, very panicked. Now to improve that, actually focusing on the rhythm of your technique can really, really help. And there's a great little drill that you can use as well, and this is probably something that you see with quite a lot of tall players who do this now subconsciously even on short shots around the green.
So all your needs – all you're going to need to do is just find yourself to begin with an okay lie in the bunker, don't need to make this too hard for yourself to begin with. But what you want to do is pick a target which is relatively short distance, you don't want to be going any more than about 15 yards, which this shot is. The whole point of this is to take a very, very full swing coming through the ball, and to just try and get this ball out and settling near the hole. The whole point of this is with a nice full-flowing swing, you have to keep the rhythm smooth, you have to keep it very, very soft to get it up and out. The whole feeling and the whole thought process of this is to have a long, lazy, and relaxed emotion. The only caveat to this is you can't slow it down. So you can't get it up to the top, and then go like this as you come through the ball. You do need to keep the swing speed up. So it's getting set up. As we've already spoken about, so the path wants to be going off to the left-hand side, but it's having a really nice full-flowing swing, and it's just trying to get that, oh, god, that would have been good over there. It's just trying to get that ball floating nice and softly out of the sand, and nestling near the pin. Now that there was pretty much a full length backswing, I managed to keep my pace up through the ball, and just pop it out. Using that drill and using that nice, smooth tempo should help you get a little bit more attuned into what you want to be doing out of the sand. 2016-10-05One thing that you see with many people who do shank bunker shots, it's a very rushed, very quick, very tentative swing that they have. Now, that's because there's a certain amount of fear associated with hitting it out of the heel of the club, and that is perfectly understandable. If you are hitting that shot which is shooting quickly in that direction, sometimes it seems like you simply can't stop doing it. And the more and more people do it, the more you see that that routine, and that whole swing is becoming very, very rushed, and very, very panicked. Now to improve that, actually focusing on the rhythm of your technique can really, really help. And there's a great little drill that you can use as well, and this is probably something that you see with quite a lot of tall players who do this now subconsciously even on short shots around the green.
So all your needs – all you're going to need to do is just find yourself to begin with an okay lie in the bunker, don't need to make this too hard for yourself to begin with. But what you want to do is pick a target which is relatively short distance, you don't want to be going any more than about 15 yards, which this shot is. The whole point of this is to take a very, very full swing coming through the ball, and to just try and get this ball out and settling near the hole.
The whole point of this is with a nice full-flowing swing, you have to keep the rhythm smooth, you have to keep it very, very soft to get it up and out. The whole feeling and the whole thought process of this is to have a long, lazy, and relaxed emotion. The only caveat to this is you can't slow it down. So you can't get it up to the top, and then go like this as you come through the ball. You do need to keep the swing speed up. So it's getting set up. As we've already spoken about, so the path wants to be going off to the left-hand side, but it's having a really nice full-flowing swing, and it's just trying to get that, oh, god, that would have been good over there. It's just trying to get that ball floating nice and softly out of the sand, and nestling near the pin.
Now that there was pretty much a full length backswing, I managed to keep my pace up through the ball, and just pop it out. Using that drill and using that nice, smooth tempo should help you get a little bit more attuned into what you want to be doing out of the sand.
