Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro
Hopefully when you're watching the golf on the T.V. you appreciate the level of skill the top pro has in the bunker and the splashing the ball at nice and close. Hopefully been able to walk up to that bunker shot on and hole the putt and make a good sand save but what you don't necessarily see on the T.V. is the thought process that goes into everything in the planning of this shot prior to actually seeing them play it. quite often the T.V. cameras or the highlights real will cut to the golfer just both the bunker lands on the green the tap the putt in but you don't notice the decision making that the caddies and they are having a conversation prior to hitting this shot. Probably more intently for a bunker shot than lots of other shots around the golf course and that's because the number of variables in variations that can happen from these bunker shots a lot of golfers think well it's in the sand. So I'll take a sand wedge the flag is their aim towards it I've been told to have a bunker shot hard so I'll hit them hard and they hope the ball come that close to the flag and some days it does some days it doesn't but there's lots more that should go into the shot. A couple of key things that you can look for when you're sort of analyzing the shot planning the shots first thing would be looking at the sand conditions the lie. So it's a wet day is it a dry day is the some firm is the sand thick is it soft is it firm and often we can tell up actually wiggling our feet into a bunker. Now we're going to carefully because we're not allowed to test the surface of the sound.
So we can't put it with a club we can't even take practice swings but we can we go our feet as we're taking a stance and what we can feel though is how deep the sand is how soft the sand is how firm it is and I'll tell you an awful lot about the type of shot you want to make that we can also look at the lip that we've got to go over the slope of the ground that we're standing on it's a big lip. We need to get the ball high if you're on a down slope that's going to struggle to get the ball high to have run a downslope over a lip We might even consider playing away from the flight playing over the small lip. We can also look at what the landing conditions are like and this is something that not a lot of golfers do not a lot of golfers assess what's going to land the ball on. Am I going to land on the back of this down slope which is going to shoot the ball on am I going to land on the putting surface which might be a firm bounce have I read the contours and the conditions of that green. If I was putting on that green I definitely would read those contours I would look at the break the slope the uphill and downhill but sometimes when people are chipping on they don't analyze the ground conditions enough. So we need to look at the contours there we need to look at the bank here we need to look at the sand we need to wiggle our feet to get a good feel for it then once we've got all that information logged into our head we can make our clothing decision are we going to hell lob wedge to clear the lip are we going to head of sand wedge because we need the bounce are we going to hit a gap wedge because we need the ball to land and to release. All these different decisions can get made once we got the club then we can think about the length of the swing short swing and blast it out for a short shot longer swing for a high flop shot that might have a bit more spin on it to lots and lots of different decisions. So when you next get in a bunker try and analyze the ground conditions in and out the bunker as best you can try and think about your club selection accurately try and assess the type of swing you're going to make all before you actually commit to hitting that culture.
2018-09-10 Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro
Hopefully when you're watching the golf on the T.V. you appreciate the level of skill the top pro has in the bunker and the splashing the ball at nice and close. Hopefully been able to walk up to that bunker shot on and hole the putt and make a good sand save but what you don't necessarily see on the T.V. is the thought process that goes into everything in the planning of this shot prior to actually seeing them play it. quite often the T.V. cameras or the highlights real will cut to the golfer just both the bunker lands on the green the tap the putt in but you don't notice the decision making that the caddies and they are having a conversation prior to hitting this shot. Probably more intently for a bunker shot than lots of other shots around the golf course and that's because the number of variables in variations that can happen from these bunker shots a lot of golfers think well it's in the sand. So I'll take a sand wedge the flag is their aim towards it I've been told to have a bunker shot hard so I'll hit them hard and they hope the ball come that close to the flag and some days it does some days it doesn't but there's lots more that should go into the shot. A couple of key things that you can look for when you're sort of analyzing the shot planning the shots first thing would be looking at the sand conditions the lie. So it's a wet day is it a dry day is the some firm is the sand thick is it soft is it firm and often we can tell up actually wiggling our feet into a bunker. Now we're going to carefully because we're not allowed to test the surface of the sound.
So we can't put it with a club we can't even take practice swings but we can we go our feet as we're taking a stance and what we can feel though is how deep the sand is how soft the sand is how firm it is and I'll tell you an awful lot about the type of shot you want to make that we can also look at the lip that we've got to go over the slope of the ground that we're standing on it's a big lip. We need to get the ball high if you're on a down slope that's going to struggle to get the ball high to have run a downslope over a lip We might even consider playing away from the flight playing over the small lip. We can also look at what the landing conditions are like and this is something that not a lot of golfers do not a lot of golfers assess what's going to land the ball on. Am I going to land on the back of this down slope which is going to shoot the ball on am I going to land on the putting surface which might be a firm bounce have I read the contours and the conditions of that green. If I was putting on that green I definitely would read those contours I would look at the break the slope the uphill and downhill but sometimes when people are chipping on they don't analyze the ground conditions enough. So we need to look at the contours there we need to look at the bank here we need to look at the sand we need to wiggle our feet to get a good feel for it then once we've got all that information logged into our head we can make our clothing decision are we going to hell lob wedge to clear the lip are we going to head of sand wedge because we need the bounce are we going to hit a gap wedge because we need the ball to land and to release. All these different decisions can get made once we got the club then we can think about the length of the swing short swing and blast it out for a short shot longer swing for a high flop shot that might have a bit more spin on it to lots and lots of different decisions. So when you next get in a bunker try and analyze the ground conditions in and out the bunker as best you can try and think about your club selection accurately try and assess the type of swing you're going to make all before you actually commit to hitting that culture.
