Monthly Archives: March 2020

Basic Bunker Shot

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The majority of the bunker technique that is described in books, tv, or the internet use concepts that is foreign to most golfers.  The various phrases are “hit a dollar bill out of the bunker,” slide the club under the ball,” “knocking the sand from under the ball,” etc.  These analogies are the what accomplished bunker players “feel” when they execute a good bunker shot.  But this does not tell the average golfer how to create those feelings.  This blog article describes how to create those feelings using the hands.

The basic bunker shot is all about using the correct technique.  It must be noted that the basic bunker technique has nothing in common with the efficient full swing technique because the objective is to splash the sand and not about ball contact.  The full swing’s objective is to swing the club down from the top of the back swing and up to the finish using the chain sequence of the lower body, upper body, arms and hands.  The bunker technique’s objective is to focus on swinging the club to splash the sand using the hands and allowing the body to react to the hand action. The swing is hands oriented in the same way a “fat” shot occurs in the full swing when using only the hands and arms to swing the club.

The bunker swing is very steep and forceful in order to use the speed of the club head to “splash” the sand.    The focus is to splash sand out of the bunker by controlling the speed of the club head.  The ball is just another grain of sand.  The sand comes out first, followed by the ball.

Grip

Position the left hand in a normal grip.  Open the club face by rotating the left forearm clockwise so the first two knuckles of the left hand are visible.  The right hand is a little weaker so that the right thumb is just to the left of the top of the grip.  Splashing the sand requires using the bounce of the club. This grip allows the club to maintain the angle of the bounce into the sand and to automatically swing the club on an outside-in swing path.  The grip pressure should be light enough to feel a stretch in the arms and hands in order to allow the wrists and fingers to move the club head freely in the back swing and the down swing.

Setup

Aim the body a little left of the target and position the ball one-inch left of center.  Take a wider stance, dig the feet into sand, and lower the body to align the hands just above the knees.  Keep the weight on the left foot with the belt buckle in front of the ball and the sternum behind the ball.  Lower the hands to counter the open club face.  Aim the leading edge of the club perpendicular to the target line and hover the club above a point in the sand that is one-quarter inch behind the ball.  Align the hands to tilt the shaft just in front of the ball.

Back Swing

To initiate the back swing, feel the bottom outside of the left latissimus dorsi stretch down, feel the bottom of the palm pad of the right index finger stretch up, and feel the bottom of the palm pad of the left index finger stretch down.  Maintain this stretch between the hands throughout the swing.  The pressure of the hands is light to allow the grip to move in the hands and to feel the stretch in the arms and hands.  This makes the club swing up steeply.

Down Swing

The focus in the down swing is to be very quick in order to create club head speed to snap the club head past the hands in the down swing.  As the hands reach the appropriate back swing length, feel the continued stretch down of the bottom outside of the left latissimus dorsi and feel the top of the palm pad of the right index finger stretch up.  Feel the top of the palm pad of the right index finger “bounce” up to snap the club down and feel the left hand “hold” down to the left.  The “holding” left hand causes the club head to snap past the hands, with the palm of the right hand facing up, and finish with a vertical club shaft in front of the left upper arm.  The length of the back swing determines the speed of the club head into the sand.

Light the Match

Gary Player describes the motion of the swing as “Light the Match.”  The video below is Gary Player showing the “Light the Match” motion.  Notice the stretch up of the right hand as if getting ready to strike the match and then the snap down of the hand to “light the match.”  The body reacts to the action of the right hand.

This demonstrates how the bunker technique is very different from the full swing motion.  This arm and hand action in the bunker shot is different than the action in the full swing.

Learn how varying the ball position, how much the face of the club is opened, and the amount of stretch up of the right wrist affects the distance and trajectory of the shot. The swing does not necessarily need to be rhythmic; after all, sand is being splashed.

The basic bunker shot requires practice in order to learn the unique bunker technique.  This technique gets the ball out of the bunker, but there are a variety of other techniques that need to be learned in order to become an accomplished bunker player.  There are many books and YouTube videos that discuss the various techniques of the bunker game.  Learn the basic bunker shot and move on from there.

This video of Lee Trevino discussing the various situations is very helpful:

One Plus One Equals Three

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The mind is always trying to be logical.  As adults, we have been trained to think logically.   Golf is an illogical game.  Good golfers embrace the illogical nature of golf.  My golf blog, “The Mental Game,” describes the illogical concepts of golf.  The most illogical concept in golf is that you are not trying to hit the ball.  Learning the golf swing is like learning how to dance.  Like dancing, golf is a series of motions that must be done in a rhythmic and precise manner.   Once the steps are learned, it is the ball that indicates whether or not the motion was performed in a rhythmic and precise manner.  If the ball does not travel straight and long, it means the motion or “steps” were not done in a rhythmic and precise manner.  Either the rhythm was too quick or one of the steps was not executed precisely.  That sounds illogical!

If I proposed the illogical concept that 1 + 1 = 3, most golfers will not accept this concept.  That is not logical.  But in order to play consistent golf, the mind must be able accept the illogical concept that 1 + 1 does equal 3.  That means that the mind must accept that the motion is the focus, not the ball.  This means that the golf swing will never be “natural” because what is natural is trying to hit the ball or help the ball into the air.  So, the main practice in golf is to train the mind to always focus on the motion that is happening on the right side of the body, not the golf ball that is in front of the body.  Easy to say, but hard to do.  1 + 1 = 3.

If you watch the swings of the greatest ball strikers, golfers like Ben Hogan, Lee Trevino, Moe Norman, and Count Yogi, you will see them doing the SAME pre-shot routine and swing, exactly the same, every time!  A swing cannot be executed the same way every time unless the focus is on doing the same thing during the swing every time and the focus is NOT on hitting the ball!  They have accepted the illogical concept that they must focus on doing the same thing EVERY TIME.  Each of them may focus on their own peculiar things during the swing, but they make sure they do them.  The result of this illogical thinking is a very consistent golf swing.

My blog posts, “Feel an Efficient Swing,” “How to Use the Fingers.” “How to Feel Rhythm,” and “Patience In the Golf Swing” describes concepts that sound very illogical but must be done in order to develop a consistent golf swing.