Golf Bunker Shot, Why Does My Ball Roll Out A Long Way (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Bunker Shot, Why Does My Ball Roll Out A Long Way (Video) - by Pete Styles

Sometimes when you play a bunker shot out like this you see the ball land on the surface and it just runs out a little bit too far on you. Now I actually played that one so it landed quite short and released a long way. The lie I had wasn’t that good, so I kind of felt that when I was going to hit this ball, I was going to have a lot of sand stuck to the club face as the club approached the ball. I therefore know the ball will not have a great deal of spin, so when the ball comes down and lands it’s going to release down the green. And if you can allow for that in your bunker shots then you can hit them quite close, but if you don’t allow for them and you land them next to the flag where you think a normal bunker shot would spin and it doesn’t spin it releases it’s going to put you in a bit of trouble, and sometimes people even struggle to stop the ball on the green particularly if you were playing sort of to a tight flagon a downhill green, the lack of spin really encourages the ball to race up.

So if we have a look again at why that causes us a problem or why that happens, as the club hits in here, if I get too much sand stuck to the club face all that ball really sees is a big mountain of sand moving towards it, it doesn’t see the club face at the back, so the ball doesn’t ever get the spin all the ball gets is that and it just gets shoved out on a big cushion of sand. Effectively it’s like playing a ball from a plugged lie, ball in a plugged lie you know lots of sand all around the ball, ball buried, it’s never going to have a great deal of spin, it just fudges out onto the green and releases off, and like we’re saying unless you’re allowing for that you get yourself in a bit of trouble. If you want to hit a golf ball from a bunker that has more spin, you need to take less sand, less sand caught between the club face and the ball will allow the ball to see a bit more of the face, create a little bit more of the backspin rotation when it lands it will land from a higher height with a softer flight. So consider that too much sand and not enough loft is going to equate to not enough spin. That’s fine as long as you know it’s going to happen and you can allow for it. 2014-11-12

Sometimes when you play a bunker shot out like this you see the ball land on the surface and it just runs out a little bit too far on you. Now I actually played that one so it landed quite short and released a long way. The lie I had wasn’t that good, so I kind of felt that when I was going to hit this ball, I was going to have a lot of sand stuck to the club face as the club approached the ball. I therefore know the ball will not have a great deal of spin, so when the ball comes down and lands it’s going to release down the green. And if you can allow for that in your bunker shots then you can hit them quite close, but if you don’t allow for them and you land them next to the flag where you think a normal bunker shot would spin and it doesn’t spin it releases it’s going to put you in a bit of trouble, and sometimes people even struggle to stop the ball on the green particularly if you were playing sort of to a tight flagon a downhill green, the lack of spin really encourages the ball to race up.

So if we have a look again at why that causes us a problem or why that happens, as the club hits in here, if I get too much sand stuck to the club face all that ball really sees is a big mountain of sand moving towards it, it doesn’t see the club face at the back, so the ball doesn’t ever get the spin all the ball gets is that and it just gets shoved out on a big cushion of sand. Effectively it’s like playing a ball from a plugged lie, ball in a plugged lie you know lots of sand all around the ball, ball buried, it’s never going to have a great deal of spin, it just fudges out onto the green and releases off, and like we’re saying unless you’re allowing for that you get yourself in a bit of trouble. If you want to hit a golf ball from a bunker that has more spin, you need to take less sand, less sand caught between the club face and the ball will allow the ball to see a bit more of the face, create a little bit more of the backspin rotation when it lands it will land from a higher height with a softer flight. So consider that too much sand and not enough loft is going to equate to not enough spin. That’s fine as long as you know it’s going to happen and you can allow for it.