Subscribe now to watch the full video.
The ability to hit a high, soft bunker shot can be key when it comes to scoring. Players that struggle with this usually have a large amount of face movement, or more specifically, shaft & forearm rotation.
To avoid bringing your "stock" swing to the sand, a simple cue to focus on is the feeling of zero face rotation from impact to finish. This will require that you keep your right palm facing up and that you maintain the relationship between the leading edge and shaft as it was set at address.
Overall, this can be a very effective cue for improved bunker play, especially when you are short-sided or faced with a high "lip".
Tags: Poor Contact, Bunker, Drill, Intermediate
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000
The drill is no face rotation on bunker shots.
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:10,000
So while I say no face rotation, what I really mean is no major shaft rotation kind of
00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:11,000
like this.
00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:17,000
So if I was hitting this at this camera here, what you would see is that on the way
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:23,000
through after it went through the sand to keep the bounce exposed, the hand would stay
00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:26,000
more underneath kind of like this.
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:31,000
Instead of letting it rotate on top and getting a lot of forearm rotation like we do
00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:34,000
in the stock full swing.
00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:40,000
If you have a lot of shaft rotation, it will tend to throw the low point forward, which
00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:43,000
can cause you to hit some thin shots or blade shots.
00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:48,000
It will take away bounce, which we'll cause the club to dig and come out really low and
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:51,000
have a lot of run, best case scenario.
00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:56,000
Oftentimes it gets your path going too much to wide on the way through, which causes
00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:58,000
you to want to hang back.
00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:00,000
So then you get into the blade chunk pattern.
00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:02,000
Causes a whole host of problems.
00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:08,000
So what you want to start practicing is you want to start practicing finishing with
00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:14,000
the leading edge pretty much the same to the shaft as it was down here at impact.
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:17,000
So here it's slightly open compared to the shaft.
00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:21,000
There in follow-through it would be slightly open in front of the shaft.
00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:25,000
If you do that, you'll have a much better chance of getting the club to slide through the
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:32,000
sand, kind of make that noise there as opposed to if it rotate, you'll hear it kind of
00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,000
dig and go down into the sand.
00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:39,000
Because if the leading edge hits because I've closed the face, it will tend to drop down
00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:40,000
like this.
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:44,000
But if I keep that face open, even though the club is trying to go down, it will
00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:47,000
skid because of this bound angle.
00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:52,000
So when you're practicing this, you're just going to focus on trying to get to that
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:57,000
follow-through position and check and make sure that your right hand is slightly under
00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:00,000
your left and that the face hasn't rotated.
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:04,000
Once you can do that with just the simple line and controlling your low point, then you
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:12,000
can try a few with the golf ball getting in the way.
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:19,000
They're checking the follow-through position.
00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:25,000
That came out pretty good and you can see when I got it into that follow-through position,
00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:27,000
the club was still facing up.
00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:31,000
That's why the club was able to slide underneath the golf ball, pop it up.
00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:35,000
If you have a lot of trouble when you have a high lip because it launches really low,
00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:40,000
this is definitely one thing that you want to explore because as a big impact on the
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:42,000
line chain goal, coming out of the sand.