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The general slope rules apply. You want to try and match the slope with your pelvis and upper body so that the club acts as though the ball were on a flat lie. In general, there are only a few scenarios that you will face.
Downhill - lean with the slope so that your pelvis and shoulders match the slope. Open the face a little more, or take a more lofted club, in order to adjust for the change that the slope made. The ball will come out slightly lower, so you may need to try and catch the ball more cleanly in order to minimize roll.
Uphill - Lead forward with your lower body and legs, while you keep your upper body in the middle of your stance. This will make your shoulders match the slope. Take a less lofted club and make sure not to side bend too much on the downswing. Expect the ball to come out very high and land softly.
Ball Below your feet - Squat a little more and bend more from the hips in order to get your sternum the right distance away from the sand. Open the stance slightly and expect the ball to come out a little more to the right of your aim.
Ball above your feet - Stand a little more vertical with your spine and/or choke up on the club. The club will have a tendency to dig more, so open the face more than normal and aim a little bit more right as the ball will also have the tendency to pop out more to the left of your aim.
Tags: Bunker, Practice Strategies, Set Up, Concept, Intermediate, Beginner
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In this bunker video, we're going to go over adjusting for uphill and downhill lies.
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So we're adjusting for a different lies, I should say.
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So there's an uphill lie and this bunker is a little flat, so it's not going to be too exaggerated, but there's a downhill lie.
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Essentially what you'll see or what you may have been told is that you want to try to match your body to the slope.
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And yes, that makes sense because we want the club to be entering the same way that it was on a flat shot.
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So for the downhill slope, we'll start back here.
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So for the downhill slope, instead of thinking of getting your shoulders level to the slope, I want you to start thinking of getting your pelvis level to the slope,
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or your hips level to the slope.
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So in order to accomplish that, we're going to take our normal stance, normal ball position, and then we're going to lunge forward.
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And when we do that, we see that the ball position move back.
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So you're actually going to have the ball further forward, but then lean into this left thigh in order to get the pelvis a little bit more level with the slope, like so.
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If you were to lean backward, it would just make it as possible to hit that shot, but I don't think it's the percentage play.
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So you're going to lean into it now, that right hip is a little bit high. My chest is going to stay square to my pelvis, so that accomplishes my shoulder being level.
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And then from here, I'm basically going to take that normal right handed bunker swing.
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And you'll see that with good contact, the ball is going to come out pretty low and have some run to it.
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There's not much I can do about that. So you may want to take the more lofted club.
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You may have to increase a little bit of loft.
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Some of the things that we talked about in controlling distance.
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With the uphill bunker shot, it's the opposite.
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As in, it's the opposite as the ball is going to come out higher. There's nothing I can do about that.
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So the first thing is, if I normally hit my 58, I may want to take my 54 in order to hit about the same trajectory, I would normally hit.
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But you can play around with that when you get to your local bunker.
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So I'm going to take my normal bunker stance and then I'm going to shift forward. Now you might be thinking, how come I shifted forward there?
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And I shifted forward there.
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With the downhill one, you're going to stay more on top.
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With the uphill one, you're going to stay more parallel or square to your pelvis.
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So you're going to take that weight leaning forward just like so, but your upper body stays centered.
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So now I have a little bit more of a spine tilt to match the slope.
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And then I'm just going to do my normal.
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Of course I caught it thin for the video.
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It happens to us. No worries.
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So we're going to lean back.
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Make sure that I let that arm drop and there we go.
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It comes out a little higher, a little softer, still full finish, all the normal technique.
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And you can experiment with downhill or ball below your feet.
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So if I was hitting right at you or ball above my feet, if I was hitting off here,
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what you'll typically see is with ball above your feet, you're going to be a little bit more tall.
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Not bent forward because we got to match the slope with the ball below your feet.
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You'll be a little bit more bent over, which neutralizes the hips.
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They can't really do much. So you may have to aim a little bit more left because you're going to come a little bit across it because the hips can't flatten out the swing.
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So all that stuff, it's mostly about understanding your swing.
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So I recommend you go to an uphill bunker or a shot where you have an uphill slope, draw a line.
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See where the club is hitting the sand if you make certain adjustments.
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Go to a downhill slope, draw a line, see what adjustments get you to get the club to do the right things.
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But these are just some general suggestions that work pretty well.
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So if you want to try, use a line and figure out how to adjust yourself in the practice ground so that you'll be able to do it on the course.
