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Distance Control - Bunker

Use one or more of the following strategies to help you control your distances better out of the bunker

  • Establish a consistent tempo and "bunker stock swing" (about shoulder height)
  • Open the face to take away distance and add height
  • Switch to a club with less loft for longer shots or more loft for shorter shots
  • Add more squat to hit it higher and less squat to hit it farther
  • Learn how to add more speed from just the arms. If you add too much from the body, your contact will usually suffer.

Playlists: Master Your Distance Wedge

Tags: Cast, Bunker, Transition, Drill, Intermediate

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This video is learning how to control distance out of the bunker.

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So similar to how we were controlling distance with the other wedge swings, the finesse

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swing, the distance wedge is.

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tempo is going to play a big role.

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So if you're getting up here in one time, it's nice and smooth and the next time it's

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really fast and aggressive.

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It's going to be hard to control how far the ball is going, but you're welcome to try

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that method.

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It does work.

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I recommend you find kind of your stock bunker swing and then build off of that.

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So for most of you, it'll be kind of like a distance wedge swing where it's going 9 o'clock,

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but with the different setup position, the downswing will be more of this letting gravity

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or letting your arm drop.

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So then once you have your standard swing, let's say that my standard swing goes about

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15 yards, which is ideal because that's about how far you're going to have for a lot

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of bunkers shots if you're in green side bunkers.

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Well then, there are things I can do, like opening up the club face, will take away some

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distance, squaring the club face more can add a little.

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So maybe that gives me a three yard buffer on either side.

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I can switch clubs.

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So let's say I normally play my 58 and that goes the 15.

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I could take even, this is my 9 iron.

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Right, there's no rule that you can't use the normal iron.

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I mean, SEVY was pretty good at it.

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But you can take your normal, you know, 9 iron and do your normal swing.

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And so if my normal 58 went certain height, this one probably went 25 yards.

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So now I just added a whole another shot to my bag that makes it a little bit easier to hit

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the pin 25 yards away unless I have to carry it the whole way there.

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There will be times where you have to adjust off your normal swing and just add more speed.

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It just gets a little bit riskier.

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So playing with loft, playing with different clubs.

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And then the last one is playing with your squat stance.

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So if I really want to hit this thing high and short, what you'll tend to see is we'll

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get down even further so that the club is going to work very much under the ball.

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Now I'm going to have some good amount of loft with this.

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Get down pretty far and we'll see how many it tastes for it to be kind of a good looking swing.

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So it took one.

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You saw how aggressive and how much speed and compared to my normal bunkers swing, that

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only went about 6, 7 yards.

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So went about half the distance, how the ton of speed and was a spin and was going to stop

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very, very quickly.

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So getting down in the squat stance, getting that handle low, can help create height

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and take away distance.

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This is a little riskier in the bunkers but standing up a little taller, a little bit

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more bend, can add a little bit.

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But those are just some easy ways that you can play around with distance control.

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Either way, you want to try to establish a consistent tempo just like we're using in

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your finesse swing and your distance wedge.

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So try that to work on your distance control.

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You can play ladder drills, all those kind of fun games that we have in the Layer 3 practice

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section.

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They'll help you dial in and figure out how to become really deadly out of the bunker.

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