Golf Skills: How to Escape from a Greenside Bunker
59Golf would be relatively easy if we never went in a hazard. However, the hazards (basically water and sand bunkers) are put there to challenge us, and like it or not, sooner or later we all end up in a greenside bunker...but how often do you practice the right technique to get out of the sand?
Most Important Action
First and most important is to get out of the bunker!
This may sound obvious, but leaving the ball in the bunker is a wasted shot!
Biggest Mistake
One of the biggest mistakes most amateurs make when playing bunker shots is to decelerate into the ball when taking a shot. The club sinks into the sand and they are lucky if the ball gets out at all. Not the ideal situation.
But it should not be this hard!
Get the Sand out
What you have to understand with a bunker shot is that you are not really trying to hit the ball. You should be sliding your sand wedge under the ball and hitting a "plate" of sand to the hole with the ball sitting on top of it. When you take this into account you realise that you have to strike through the sand much harder than you would if you were only hitting the ball a comparable distance off the grass. The "plate" of sand you are hitting is much heavier than the ball!
So to be sure you are going to get the ball out of the sand, concentrate on getting the sand out!
CommentsLoading...
It's true that public courses have "variable" amounts of sand. The trick is to settle your feet into the sand giving you an idea of how deep it is, then adjust how much sand you are going to take. In very deep sand it can help to open the club face more as this has the effect of giving the club more "bounce" and this will stop it digging in so far. In shallow sand keep the face square so the club does not bounce into the ball!
Give it a try
Mark
Sound advice, Mark. I'll sure try it the next time I get caught in one of those bunkers.
I find myself decelerating oftentimes because I think that I will hit it too hard, or I may skull the ball and send it way over the green. I don't do it on purpose, but it's a natural reaction that I need to work on. Thanks for the tip.
William F. Torpey Level 2 Commenter 4 years ago
Thanks for the tip, Mark. With a good lie, the bunker shot is easy when you swing through it as you suggest. However, it gets tougher, I think, on public courses where I often find foot-deep sand that looks like a dump truck just dropped it there -- and it's wavy like the Atlantic Ocean. That's when my club usually digs into the sand and I shank the shot.