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Specialty Shots
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Many golfers struggle with their bunker play by failing to control low point; this is most often due to an overly shallow angle of attack. While shallowing may be beneficial for normal shots, a steeper angle of attack is required here. That is, we want to make sure the club is entering the sand roughly an inch behind the ball and that it is also bottoming out about the same distance in front of the ball. This will help us properly utilize the "bounce" of the club and effectively eliminate the dreaded fat or thin shot.
Tags: Bunker, Drill, Intermediate
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This drill is low point training in the bunker. So many golfers struggle with their
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bunker play, not just because of where the club hits the sand but because of where
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the club bottoms out. So if I draw a line kind of like so, we know that we want to
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make contact somewhere in that one to two inches behind the golf ball. Now when you
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make contact with sand, you're trying to make contact with the bowed's edge of
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the club and if you look you can see here's the leading edge, here's the
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bounce edge. So you can see that the bounce edge is a good, you know, half inch or so
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behind the leading edge. So for me to put the bounce on that line where I want to
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make contact, it looks to me like I only have about a thumbs width or so or
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maybe even less than that between the leading edge and the golf ball. The key
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here is that not only do I make contact or first make contact with the sand
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right there but that the bottom of my swing is out in front of the golf ball. So
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I want to make sure that the club is traveling down until about two inches in
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front of the golf ball, something like that and then it starts to come back up. If I
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do so, I virtually if I make that low point out in front of the golf ball then
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really all I can the only contact miss I can really circle with is shanks or toe
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whiffs. But if I'm able to get the club to splash the sand and go down all the
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way until in front of the golf ball. So if it makes contact with the sand before
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the golf ball and keeps going down until after it, I've virtually eliminated the
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two big misses which are the chunk and the blade. So to set it up you're just
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going to draw one line and inch the two inches behind the golf ball and then another
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line about two inches in front of the golf ball. So there should be a little bit
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more than a club head width in between those two lines. I'm going to then
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practice not just hitting the sand but hitting the sand and having the club
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continuing to go down so the middle of the divot is roughly even with the
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second line. Once I can do that without a ball, I'm going to step in and try to do it
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with a ball. Weaker grip, nose on top of the golf ball, narrow shot and as long I hope
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you saw that catch the flag. So it contacted the sand just a tiny bit before so it
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didn't have quite as much spin but you can see that the bottom or the middle of the
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divot is pretty much even with the divot. If you go for that pattern and you keep
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working on your ability to get the club to travel down all the way past the
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golf ball you'll be fine. One of the most common problems that I see with bad
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bunker players is that they get shallow. Shallow and most swings is good.
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Shallow and bunker shots is a big problem. So while I want to have a
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flat-tish swing I want to be pretty narrow with a steep angle of attack.
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A lot of bad bunker players do is they get stuck on this back foot so they sway too
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much off the ball or they get the club too far away from them and then it's going to
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be coming up into the golf ball so even if the club contacts the sand in the right
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spot the low point is in the wrong spot and it's a complete disaster. So don't just
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train where the club hits the sand, train the low point being ahead of the golf
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ball if you really want to improve your bunker play.
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That's fine.
