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Practice With A 9-Iron - Bunker

Using a longer, less lofted club is a great way to master the basic skills of bunker play; World Golf Hall of Famer Seve Ballesteros was even famous for being able to hit delicate bunker shots using only a 3-iron. While we certainly don't expect you to match the short game prowess of Seve, you can begin to perform this drill starting with a 9-iron. In order to do this though, you will have to become competent at a few of the most important moves for good bunker play and rid yourself of any bad habits that you may be bringing into the sand.

Tags: Bunker, Drill, Advanced

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The drill is bunker practice with a 99.

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So I've actually got a 7 just to kind of show the concept a little bit more.

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But one great skill that you can work on is being able to hit bunker shots with a club

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that's a little bit longer than your sandwich.

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So a 99 is a great place to start, but I've seen John Rom, hit flop shots with a 4 iron.

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So and 7 was famous for being able to spin a 3 iron out of the bunker.

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If you can do it with a longer club, you've demonstrated the basic skills.

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The basic skills in order to do this with a longer club are swinging the club a little bit

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more around while controlling the face rotation.

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On a shallower swing it's almost easier or more natural to have the face close on the way

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through.

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So you have to fight that tendency.

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You still have to get the bottom of the swing out in front of the golf ball.

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You don't want to be hitting up on this.

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In order to produce some loft, you have to release the arms a little bit even sooner

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than you would do with the sandwich or a lot of wedge.

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If you get any amount of shaft lean and body rotation, you're typically going to

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blade it and leave it in the sand just like so.

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So this helps with the timing of that right arm throw as well as controlling low point

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and it exaggerates the need to get even more shallow with your body.

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So I'm going to basically try to lay this almost flat like so.

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Swing it around my body while keeping and managing the face as it comes more around

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kind of like this.

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So as I said, I recommend starting with something like a 9 iron and work your way up

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to something longer like say a 7 iron.

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This is also one of the common ways that you can hit the ball a little bit further.

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So if you find yourself with your same wedge, you can only hit it 15 20 yards.

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This might be a good way for you to add a 30 to 40 yard bunker shot just by making the

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same swing.

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Let's switch in clubs.

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All right, not too bad.

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I did a decent job of managing the bounce.

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I'm going to see if I can add a little bit more loft with a little bit earlier release

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and getting the grip a little bit lower to begin with.

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So there you can see now I started to get a little bit higher launch by getting the grip

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down and releasing it just a little bit earlier with that right hand.

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If I did that with a sand wedge, that would have been the high really nice floaty soft

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bunker shot, but it's a lot tougher if I can do it with a 7 iron.

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I know you can do it with a sand wedge.

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There we go.

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You saw me get way down low for that one.

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You saw me really swing around and pop that up.

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That came out nice and soft.

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I would call that a win and now I can move on to the next drill.

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