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Specialty Shots
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This is a great drill from short game guru James Sieckmann and it is helpful for golfers who have a tendency to get the hand-path out to the right, or too in-to-out, on their bunker shots. Players who exhibit this pattern will typically struggle to use the bounce properly and have an upper body shift away from the target; these factors can lead to heavier contact and a low trajectory. To use the bounce properly and hit higher, softer bunker shots, we have to create a more leftward path. By simply rehearsing a frisbee throw under the lead armpit, we can quickly feel the proper hand path and release pattern (palm staying open) before applying it to a full shot. Note, as this drill combines both of these patterns, it can be useful for amateur and skilled players alike.
Tags: Bunker, Drill, Intermediate
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This bunker drill is through under your left or lead armpit.
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So this is a drill that I got from James Seekman that works pretty well for golfers
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who have a tendency to get the handpath on the way through going too much out to the
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right or into out.
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That typically takes away bounce and causes the body.
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When arms are extended forward like that it causes the body to want to hang back or move
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backward so it tends to cause kind of like this where at the very least I catch them with
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not a lot of bounce and I hit them really low.
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So in order to get a little bit more leftward path and keep the bounce open we're going
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to imagine that we are going to throw a frisbee or throw a ball under our left armpit.
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So almost similar to something we've done with the driver I'm going to get down towards
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impact so right arm only feel and then I'm going to feel like I throw that palm underneath
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my left armpit up towards the sky.
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So it's kind of having a motion going more like this where the thumb is pointing away
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or going into older deviation but there's not a lot of rotation and extension like we might
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do in the full swing.
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So now if I keep that arm out has a feeling kind of like that and you can hear how well
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it hits the sand.
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It's hard to do this single arm but you're welcome to give it a try so if I hold this
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out or even put it on a club I can do single arm kind of throwing it over there and
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then if I put my left arm on you'll feel that if you're used to the club going out
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to the right you'll feel that your arm is very bent and almost along your side instead
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of if it goes out to the right you'll tend to keep both of those arms straight because
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the club's going to pass the hands down at the bottom of the shot it's much more common
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for this arm to bend pretty quickly or chicken wing on the way through and finish over
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here kind of in your holster as opposed to out to the right like we might do in the
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full swing.
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So once I have this feeling of the the hand going more under and more around I can apply
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that feeling into my full swing now or sorry my full bunkers shot.
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One thing that I've noticed is that some golfers when they start trying to do this in order
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to keep the palm up you'll see that they start leaning back you want to make sure that
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you stay on top of it with your upper body and that you don't get tilting backward because
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that's going to make it really hard to get the bottom of your swing out in front of the
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golf ball.
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So now working around and under getting on top kind of like that that's one way to help
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control the the splash and the depth of your bunker shot if you're a good player or
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to control solid contact and not getting too shallow if you really struggle with
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bunker shots.
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So it's a great drill for both good players as well as poor skill bunker players because
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it combos the path working more around as well as the face staying open as long as you
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control low point with a little bit more arm sequencing.
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You're almost guaranteed if you make this movement you're going to get out of the
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bunker shot and it's going to help build your feel of how you become really adept with
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your bunker touch.
