Bunker Shot, What Is The Best Drill To Stop Me Quitting On Golf Shots (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Bunker Shot, What Is The Best Drill To Stop Me Quitting On Golf Shots (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

Now quitting or decelerating on golf bunker shot is possibly the biggest cause for shots that don’t finish where we want them to, over and above anything else. So it’s a decelerating action where the club slows down. Now the problem gets worse in a bunker because as soon as you impact the sand, the sand is far heavier and thicker, and slows the club down a lot more than grass even in the rough would ever do. So in a bunker it’s very very important that we keep the club moving and accelerating through the impact face.

We want to hit about two inches of sand behind the ball, and that’s a good thing. But if we hit that sand with no power being out into the back of the club, the club will simply hit that sand and stop particularly if we’ve got like we have today, relatively wet sand. So the shot would start to look like this; no power in the back of the club, it hits in and just stops. I’ve gone too deep, there was nothing to bring the ball out and the ball stays in the bunker. So that would be a quit or a deceleration. So a really good exercise and a really good drill to keep your club moving through the ball is always to try this: try a little square in the sand almost the size of a lunch box and imagine that lunch box piece of sand flying out of the bunker and landing on the green. So I’m going to take that entire square, I’m going to try and put it out there on the surface. So I make a nice big swing and I throw the sand out. And you can see the sand scatter up into the air. And I’ve taken that big lunch box piece of sand and dumped it on the putting surface. Now if I do that with a golf ball, my golf ball would be in the middle of that piece of sand, and it would fly out, and it would really stop the club decelerating and slowing down. So when you watch a good player hit a bunker shot, you will often see that the big patch of sand around the golf ball finishes on the green. It’s maybe not the best way to play a finesse or a soft bunker shot, but it’s quite a good way of making sure you accelerate and dump the ball on the surface. So we take the big square of sand from around the side of the ball; we set up, we hit the back of the square, and we try and splash it out. And you can see the sand fly up and now all the sand upon the surface there and the ball rolls out in the middle of that square of sand and finishes quite close to the flag. It’s a great way of stopping you from decelerating or quitting on your bunker shots. 2014-11-11

Now quitting or decelerating on golf bunker shot is possibly the biggest cause for shots that don’t finish where we want them to, over and above anything else. So it’s a decelerating action where the club slows down. Now the problem gets worse in a bunker because as soon as you impact the sand, the sand is far heavier and thicker, and slows the club down a lot more than grass even in the rough would ever do. So in a bunker it’s very very important that we keep the club moving and accelerating through the impact face.

We want to hit about two inches of sand behind the ball, and that’s a good thing. But if we hit that sand with no power being out into the back of the club, the club will simply hit that sand and stop particularly if we’ve got like we have today, relatively wet sand. So the shot would start to look like this; no power in the back of the club, it hits in and just stops. I’ve gone too deep, there was nothing to bring the ball out and the ball stays in the bunker. So that would be a quit or a deceleration.

So a really good exercise and a really good drill to keep your club moving through the ball is always to try this: try a little square in the sand almost the size of a lunch box and imagine that lunch box piece of sand flying out of the bunker and landing on the green. So I’m going to take that entire square, I’m going to try and put it out there on the surface. So I make a nice big swing and I throw the sand out. And you can see the sand scatter up into the air. And I’ve taken that big lunch box piece of sand and dumped it on the putting surface.

Now if I do that with a golf ball, my golf ball would be in the middle of that piece of sand, and it would fly out, and it would really stop the club decelerating and slowing down. So when you watch a good player hit a bunker shot, you will often see that the big patch of sand around the golf ball finishes on the green.

It’s maybe not the best way to play a finesse or a soft bunker shot, but it’s quite a good way of making sure you accelerate and dump the ball on the surface. So we take the big square of sand from around the side of the ball; we set up, we hit the back of the square, and we try and splash it out. And you can see the sand fly up and now all the sand upon the surface there and the ball rolls out in the middle of that square of sand and finishes quite close to the flag. It’s a great way of stopping you from decelerating or quitting on your bunker shots.