Simple Tips On Playing Bunker Shots
Are you struggling with your bunker play? This was certainly the case for Golf Monthly editor Michael Harris. He was suffering with bad strikes and inconsistent distance control so we recruited top coach Fredrik Lindblom to help. In this video, Fred offers some really simple but effective techniques for escaping sand every time.
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00:00So one of the best things about my job is if my golf game gets into trouble
00:05I've got a little black book of contacts that I phone get in touch with to help me out
00:11And I posted on social media recently
00:14I had a roundup at Formby Golf Club
00:16And I posted a couple of videos and Arcos screenshots and I posted the best and the worst bits of my games
00:22There was a great drive found this really tough fairway
00:25and then there was a bunker shot where I hit it about there and
00:32Ended up 45 degrees to the right. So post it on social media. I love to share my wins and a lot of fails there
00:39Frederick popped into my replies and said man. We need to sort out your setup. We're gonna sort out your bunker game
00:46Let's meet up at the PGA show week. Here. We are PGA show week Frederick help me out
00:52Yeah, I think yeah, why don't you hit one or two, but I've already seen kind of what you're doing
00:57Which is a very common kind of pattern I see in many amateurs when they're in the bunker
01:02Okay, go ahead and hit one here. See what happens
01:08Let's start out with a hole
01:10Very good
01:11But what you can see that in my opinion is that the club is moving a little bit too much
01:17Underneath the ball luckily here the sand is not very fluffy. It's kind of compact
01:22So you get away with it hitting it kind of far and deep behind the golf ball
01:25But if the sand is too fluffy that club is just gonna work too much underneath it and if you're gonna tend to hit a lot
01:32Of shots. Yeah that happens. Yeah, or you feel like you have to hit it so freaking hard
01:36Yeah, get it out of bunker, right? So what I see if you go to the side
01:40I'll show you what I see which is very common
01:43That is a swing path that's way too far to the left and steep
01:48So a very common miss is obviously pretty much with all clubs of amateurs. They swing out in kind of over the top
01:55Yeah, like a mad accident. Exactly. Yeah, pretty much tee to green. Chopping woods. Yeah, but
02:01So when you do that, the club is gonna tend to get a little bit too steep the leading edge and especially the hustle
02:07Kind of leads into the ball
02:11Yeah, so if you see really good golfers a lot of them
02:15I I was kind of filming with Luke Donald a couple of months ago. He's pretty good. He's pretty good at a bunker, right?
02:21Yeah, he he feels like it's much more kind of
02:25Neutral into it. It still feels like it's swinging slightly left, but a lot less to the left
02:30Okay
02:30So if you can feel like you're more kind of having more neutral plane swinging up a little bit too more to the right
02:36You're not gonna get as deep underneath the golf ball
02:39You're gonna be a little bit more shallow and you don't have to hit the ball so hard
02:43For it to go the whole way you see how much spin that ass. That's nice
02:47Yeah, it's because the ball is not and the club is not working too much underneath the golf ball
02:52So it's just a shallow divot. You're gonna feel that little clip. Yeah, and the ball is gonna stop right next to the pin
02:58So give it a go here. Okay, so what I'm gonna do me so your face look really open
03:04Where do you set it you set it at address you do it or do you set it?
03:08No, so I cannot I spin the club until the club is open. I don't do this and then you okay. Yeah
03:15Yeah, so that's just gonna bring that puzzle even more. Absolutely. Yeah, so we're gonna do this. We don't want that
03:21We don't want that. We want we're gonna put an alignment stick here to mess with you a little bit. Okay
03:26We're gonna put the ball on the outside here
03:28So if you were to swing too much to the left there, you're gonna hit the line
03:32Yeah, and then we're also gonna put the right foot back a little bit
03:37Okay, it's further gonna help you to swing a little bit more in to out
03:41Okay, the right foot is too open. We're gonna tend to swing left, right? Okay, so I'd always been
03:47Probably open the club, you know get it into a dress open the club then open my style. Yeah
03:51I'm just bringing in a whole world of pain. Yeah. Yeah most often. Okay, most likely because the swing path
03:57Oh
03:57So if you can neutralize the swing path still feel like you really release the club like you actually did pretty good on that first
04:02One that would use a little bit more shallow. So along the line of the stick along the line
04:07I'm worried about hitting the stick. Yeah, of course. Yeah, so I not to there you go
04:11Lovely open there. Lovely. So move back the right foot a little bit. It's gonna feel awkward. Yeah that way
04:18There you go. Close dance. Lovely just like that. Okay, and now swing a little bit less hard. Okay a little bit softer
04:25along that line
04:27Okay, that's all right. So what happened there is that you bought him out a little bit too far, but okay
04:32So it's a little different feeling. I mean a lot of things to think about
04:35It shouldn't be too much back foot and then swing a little bit straighter. Try one more
04:41So you we don't need to hit it so hard now there were stances
04:43It's a little bit too far up in this dance, isn't it? Move a little bit more left. Yeah, lovely, right?
04:47so what just I
04:49Would say like all inside the left heel is good for you. Yeah, and again straight through on the line
04:56And softer
04:58Beautiful
05:00Stop way faster there. No, it's still
05:04Slightly too far behind. So we're gonna do one more drill. This is gonna be kind of your baseline
05:08But here we're gonna see exactly how skilled you are in the bunker here
05:12Alright, I want you to hit a shot here where you bought him out just on top of that line
05:18Okay, so we don't want to be behind it
05:20So give me three swings here where the divot is bottoming out just to the left of that line
05:24Okay, okay
05:29Okay, so set up to that line again, I'm gonna tell you exactly what you're doing
05:34So if you were to see yourself and I was reflecting right in front of you you have a little bit too much
05:41Tilt and the shoulders and the head is way back behind the golf. Okay
05:45So what happens is that you're pretty much setting up like you get about to hit a driver
05:49Yeah, and the driver will hit up on the ball, which means that the low point is behind the golf ball
05:54Right. So instead so instead of setting up in this type of fashion
05:59We need to get the shoulders more level and the head a little bit more right on top of the golf ball and the beauty
06:05In the bunker is that we don't really need to create that much power with the body so we can try to maintain
06:11The head over the golf ball throughout the whole motion so we can control you see what that started right on top of the line
06:18That way I said up to the line again
06:21Imagine like the ball is right there
06:23Yeah, so we want the shoulders to be more level so you can make the feel the left shoulder down
06:28You see what happened to the head? Yeah went a little bit forward. Okay, and now I want you to rotate around that around the head
06:34This is a lot of stuff to remember. Yeah
06:37Okay, okay
06:38Rotate it around there much much better. Now you started on top of the golf. Okay. Yeah, okay
06:43So we're gonna give that a go here. You don't need to hit it that hard. We'll try it again
06:47Now we're gonna hit a ball
06:50Beautiful there. So we're thinking about the shoulders still tilting a little bit too much there
06:55Open up the face good and I feel like you swing a little bit more straighter and a little bit softer motion and bottoming out
07:02on that line
07:03Beautiful shot. Look at the height and spin great shot. Look at that not behind at all
07:09So just to summarize, okay
07:11So you were setting up you were swinging a little bit too much to the left
07:15Yeah with the path and you were setting up like a driver
07:18Yeah, which means that you're gonna bottom out too far behind all it because I think subconsciously I was thinking I need to get a bit
07:25of help to get it up in the air
07:26whereas I know really that
07:28Need to keep my weight on the on my left foot and you're gonna do that easier by just changing the tilt and the shoulder
07:35Yeah, so the lower the left shoulder is the easier is is to maintain the pressure left
07:40Okay, and then if you look at really good bunker players, they have levee shoulders
07:45Definitely more pressure left and then they just rotate around the head. Okay, you don't see any pressure shift or slide
07:53They just go very rotational from that point
07:56So a little bit straighter path a little bit adjustment in the setup and you're gonna be golden
08:01That was a good shot. You see the height difference. Yeah, I'm gonna straight up in there great
08:05That's it. Everybody needs to see a bit of Frederick
08:14You