Greenside Bunker Shots, The Correct Setup and Swing Golf (Video) - by Dean Butler
Greenside Bunker Shots, The Correct Setup and Swing Golf (Video) - by Dean Butler

Okay, I'm going to show you the correct setup and swing now for a typical greenside bunker shots. So you can use a 54 degree, a 56 degree, use a lob wedge if you want to, use a club that you feel comfortable with. There is no golden rule there, because the club says it's a sand wedge you have to use it. Let’s have a look at the bunker. Is it a shallow face, is it a high face, well surely that’s going to have a big bearing on what you select. Now I prefer to use my 60 degree lob wedge on most bunker shots. So I'm going to go with the 60 degree and encourage most of you to kind of use your 58, 60, 62, 64, any of those clubs.

But the technique is exactly the same, so we have selected the club, really a typical greenside bunker. We are going to go in and the first thing we are going to do is we are going to put the club behind the ball without touching the sand of course. Then from there, we are going to put our hands on and keep the hands forward of the club and we are going to set up with the feet and we are going to wriggle our feet into the sand, because we are going to do the wriggling the feet into the sand, it's twofold. First of all by getting those feet in, it gives us an indication of how much sand there is there and secondly it gives us a firm holding. So a typical greenside bunker would have a fair amount of sand, certainly not some things that’s ridiculous, but a good amount of sand, so let's wriggle those feet in. We have got the ball position left or center towards our left foot, we have got the clubface behind the ball about 2 inches I would always encourage and keep your weight 60:40 in your left hand side. From here, all I want you to do is keep that weight on the left-hand side, pick the club up with your wrists, keeping the left arm straight and execute down to the sand. Now this is the area that most golfers fail and I want to really focus on this. When you come into that sand, commit and secondly, I want some clubhead speed, because we are going to go through a density, a quantity of sand and it's going to decelerate that club. So we have got to put the foot on the gas pedal slightly, so if I set myself up into this position, weight on the left hand side, I'm going to break my wrists up and I've really accelerated down very, very hard into the sand there. The ball has gone flying up and thus you might think, oh that looks a bit aggressive, you have got to have some clubhead speed, it's no good having the great setup. And technically it's all right, but we just decelerate because that’s what was going to happen if you're going to leave that ball into the sand. So there you go, select the most lofty club that you feel comfortable with and look at the face of the bunker, that should tell you what you're going to select. But go for the setup, go into the bunker, get some bunker shots and enjoy. And I don't see a problem with you coming out of the bunkers, as long as you remember to hit that sand and commit to greenside bunker shots. 2013-10-25

Okay, I'm going to show you the correct setup and swing now for a typical greenside bunker shots. So you can use a 54 degree, a 56 degree, use a lob wedge if you want to, use a club that you feel comfortable with. There is no golden rule there, because the club says it's a sand wedge you have to use it. Let’s have a look at the bunker. Is it a shallow face, is it a high face, well surely that’s going to have a big bearing on what you select. Now I prefer to use my 60 degree lob wedge on most bunker shots. So I'm going to go with the 60 degree and encourage most of you to kind of use your 58, 60, 62, 64, any of those clubs.

But the technique is exactly the same, so we have selected the club, really a typical greenside bunker. We are going to go in and the first thing we are going to do is we are going to put the club behind the ball without touching the sand of course. Then from there, we are going to put our hands on and keep the hands forward of the club and we are going to set up with the feet and we are going to wriggle our feet into the sand, because we are going to do the wriggling the feet into the sand, it's twofold. First of all by getting those feet in, it gives us an indication of how much sand there is there and secondly it gives us a firm holding.

So a typical greenside bunker would have a fair amount of sand, certainly not some things that’s ridiculous, but a good amount of sand, so let's wriggle those feet in. We have got the ball position left or center towards our left foot, we have got the clubface behind the ball about 2 inches I would always encourage and keep your weight 60:40 in your left hand side. From here, all I want you to do is keep that weight on the left-hand side, pick the club up with your wrists, keeping the left arm straight and execute down to the sand. Now this is the area that most golfers fail and I want to really focus on this.

When you come into that sand, commit and secondly, I want some clubhead speed, because we are going to go through a density, a quantity of sand and it's going to decelerate that club. So we have got to put the foot on the gas pedal slightly, so if I set myself up into this position, weight on the left hand side, I'm going to break my wrists up and I've really accelerated down very, very hard into the sand there. The ball has gone flying up and thus you might think, oh that looks a bit aggressive, you have got to have some clubhead speed, it's no good having the great setup.

And technically it's all right, but we just decelerate because that’s what was going to happen if you're going to leave that ball into the sand. So there you go, select the most lofty club that you feel comfortable with and look at the face of the bunker, that should tell you what you're going to select. But go for the setup, go into the bunker, get some bunker shots and enjoy. And I don't see a problem with you coming out of the bunkers, as long as you remember to hit that sand and commit to greenside bunker shots.