Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in
America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America.
Meet your new instructor.
Subscribe now to watch the full video.
Their are two typical ways to get out of the plugged lie. We are going to refer to them as the easy way, and the hard way. In both cases, the club needs to get under the ball. If you had a normal path and the club went under the ball, it would have to travel through so much sand that it would take a lot of speed and energy. As a result, we tend to hit the shot with a much more steep angle of attack with both the easy and the hard method.
Easy Method - Close the clubface and hit straight down on the back of the ball. The club will get under the ball, because the closed face exposes the dig side of the club head, but the ball will pop out very low and with no spin. Expect this shot to run a fair amount when it hits the green.
Hard Method - Open the clubface as you do in a normal bunker shot. But we still need to get a steep angle of attack and the club head under the ball, so lean into the forward leg and swing the club nearly straight up and down. Expect the ball to come out a little higher, but still with no spin. The added height will help the shot stop sooner than the easy method. Use this method only when you are short sided and absolutely need to get up and down AND have given it enough reps in practice to be able to control your entry point.
Tags: Speciality Shot, Bunker, Impact, Intermediate
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000
This drill video is looking at plugged lies in the bunker.
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:10,000
So we're going to talk about the two strategies that we tend to see for getting out of a plug light.
00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:14,000
The first one, this is my easy one, right?
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:19,000
So let's say there's my ball kind of fried egg, it's about half plugged.
00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:24,000
I've got to get underneath this ball in order to get the sand to lift up.
00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:31,000
So the easiest way is everything I've talked to you about using bounce and taking away bounce,
00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:35,000
or sorry, adding bounce, making sure that the club skips, we're going to do the opposite.
00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:40,000
So you'll see very easily, if I play this ball a little bit more in the middle of my stance,
00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:49,000
and I close the club face or have it at the very least square, but you'll see closing the club face works fine.
00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:54,000
This ball is going to pop out, but it's going to have a lot of forward momentum.
00:00:54,000 --> 00:01:04,000
Okay, so if I have a good amount of room between myself and the flag, that little popping down into the bunk or into the sand works fine.
00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:06,000
You know, I left myself about a five footer there.
00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:12,000
So, and the other thing you'll see which I talked about briefly in the mechanics video.
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:18,000
Normally you'll see these big, full finishes out of the bunker where the hands get up in front of your face or in front of your chest up here.
00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:26,000
With these shots, I can pretty much go straight up, straight down, head to tiny bit behind that.
00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:29,000
So, got a 20 footer probably not saving part on that one.
00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:36,000
But I can pretty much go straight up straight down and almost leave this club in the sand.
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:42,000
The only problem with this technique is the ball runs a lot.
00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:55,000
So, if the pin were closer to me and I had to, I really had to get up and down to make the cut when the tournament, whatever you want to call it, beat my body.
00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:02,000
There's a technique that's a little riskier which you'll see more of the tour pro's do.
00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:11,000
Which I'm going to teach you, but if you're anything above a 10 handicap, I would stick with the clothes of the club face because it's just the easiest way to get it out there.
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:14,000
And not take too much risk.
00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:20,000
So, with this shot now, I've got the plug glide in order to get it to come up a little bit.
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:22,000
I still have to maintain the loft.
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:30,000
But by maintaining the loft and keeping the open club face, I now have to come in incredibly steep, which gives me a small margin for air.
00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:40,000
The way that will typically pre-set some of the steepness is getting a little bit more weight leaning into this left thigh, left knee,
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:45,000
kind of like so, and working very, very vertically with my wrist.
00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:52,000
Now, you can see from the face on view, I would get to here and working very, very vertically.
00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:57,000
If someone was standing behind me, they're safe because I'm working straight down into the sand.
00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,000
It's going to take a lot of energy.
00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:05,000
There's going to be a pretty jarring impact because the club is going straight down and I'm going to have almost no follow through.
00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:15,000
And hopefully the ball is going to pop up a little bit softer, but you'll see that it's, it's rarely as dramatic as I would need for this shot.
00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:29,000
But hey, sometimes you've got to try to pull off the film Nicholson hero shot, so we'll see how we can do.
00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:45,000
So back on that one, like I said, it's small margin for air.
00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:52,000
So notice how that came out a little bit higher, had a little bit less run, granted.
00:03:53,000 --> 00:04:04,000
I hit it a little too hard, so I ended up with about the same distance as my simple little pop shot or the simple little, just kind of close the club face and get the ball out there.
00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:14,000
And so that's why I tend to prefer that shot, unless you have time to really put some practice into this and get really good at where the club enters the sand, like they do on TV.
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:21,000
If you're more of your weekend warrior, stick with a closed club face, it'll get you out of the plug lie every single time.
00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:24,000
And that's really all we're trying to accomplish there.
00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:27,000
Get it out, hope you make a put, move on to the next hole.
