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Narrow Backswing - Bunker

This is a great bunker drill from Stan Utley that was discussed in his book, "The Art of the Short Game". It is one of my favorite drills for golfers who tend to get too wide of a backswing in the bunker. Players who default to their one-piece take-away and long backswing almost always bottom out before the ball, leading to thin and/or chunked shots. There are two variations for achieveing the right amount of "narrowness" discussed here, so be sure to figure out which one works best for your game. 

 

Playlists: Specialty Shots

Tags: Bunker, Drill, Intermediate

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The drill is the narrow backswing in the bunker.

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So I got this drill from Stanotley from his book, whenever that came out ten years ago,

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and it's been very helpful for golfers who tend to have too much of a wide one piece

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takeaway, have too much width at the top of the swing, and as a result, they tend to either

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chunk it or blade it, but they almost always bottom out before the golf wall.

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So to feel an extra narrowness to the swing, you can do it one of two different

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you can get set up, so leaning slightly left, nose basically inline with the golf wall,

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I'm going to hinge the club up towards my nose so that it's kind of

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pointing just between my legs kind of like so, and my arms were pretty close to my side,

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and then I'm going to make a backswing. So this is going to feel very narrow if I'm used to

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making a wide backswing kind of like this, so it would be narrow, make a little backswing pivot,

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and then from here I'm basically going to throw the club down towards the sand,

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getting the bottom of the swing out in front of the golf wall. So I'm going to bring it up,

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make a little turn, and then from here, throw it down towards the sand as long as I go from

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a narrow space and don't overly close the club face, as long as I keep the bounce working,

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I'm going to get out and hit a relatively good shot. The second way, so that's option one,

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hinge it straight up to feel this narrowness in the backswing. The second way is to take one of my

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favorite bunker drills for good players, which is the single arm where the right arm

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bunker shot. So with the right arm bunker shot, if you're any good at all, you'll notice that

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you swing it up a little bit quicker, you don't swing it wide the way you might with a full swing.

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So what you can do is you can do that single arm bunker and then put your left hand on,

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and you'll feel that that is pretty close to where we were just hinging it up. So it's a little

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tougher to do this one in a two piece kind of re-grip and stop from here, but it's definitely possible.

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So once you get it up there, hinge it, get back to setup, try to get right back to there.

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That will tend to feel very narrow, and as long as I get the club to pass and I get the

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bottomless wing slightly out in front of the golf ball, I'll hit a reasonably good shot,

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virtually no chance of bleeding or chunking if I keep it a little bit more narrowed and centered

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at the top of the swing. So try that drill. If you have a tendency to get really wide or too much behind

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the ball, getting basically too shallow for what we're trying to do with a bunker shot.

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