• 16 hours ago
In this video, top 50 coach Alex Elliott demonstrates fives easy drills to help you get out of the sand and close to the flag every time.

► Video shot on location at Infinitum Golf Resort, host of the DP World Tour Qualifying School.

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Transcript
00:00i want to give you the confidence to get out the bunker first time every time so i'm going to share
00:05with you my five top tips to help you master your bunker shots now there are five we all learn
00:11differently we all improve differently so make sure you stick around for all five because one
00:15could just be the answer for you first things first we've got to have good foundations right
00:21so follow these real simple steps now i'm going to show you this from the player cam perspective
00:26because i think you can get a real good sense of what i'm showing you here i want you to open the
00:31club face and then take your hold so your club face is open relative to you but your grip is
00:37actually the normal grip you would take on every single shot then take a nice wide stance i like
00:43to dig my feet into the sand as i do this because it can move under your feet a little bit so you
00:49can see there my stance is just wider than my shoulder width apart my ball position is a club
00:54bed inside my left heel and the final point and for me probably the most important point here
00:59to help get that loft point into target just sit down and put the weight left
01:04you are now ready to hit a bunker shot and let's use these drills now
01:14so the first drill is hit the line really easy to set up all i've used is my alignment sticks i've
01:21got one directly on where the gold ball is and then a golf ball back of that i've made an impression
01:27to create the two lines just throw your alignment stick out of the way so the essential part of this
01:32drill is learning to control the bottom of your arc and having a focus point we don't actually
01:38want to hit the ball in the sand we just want the sand to cushion the ball onto the green so really
01:44nice and simple use the forward line to make sure you've got your correct ball position from our
01:48foundations and then simply just create three practice swings trying to hit the back line
01:54and then move into your shot if you go a bit too far back learn from it and improve it's okay
02:00here you go about to put me to the test there and see if i can do it okay good that one
02:09okay that was a little bit far back just reset myself again and really focus on that back line
02:14and now you're ready to go so learn where your bottom of the arc is
02:19and build it into your shot look at the speed we have got at the bottom
02:26one of my favorites that one
02:32now number two in our list is about you creating speed with the correct release okay i call this
02:38okay i call this striking the match so i've drawn the sand here effectively a match box i've got a
02:46line in the middle and that middle line is going to be where we're trying to strike so that point
02:51before where the golf ball is where we're trying to hit into the sand now nice and simple we have
02:56to understand that if we're striking a match right and we had a match we'd have speed right where we
03:01contacted the box and off we need the same down the golf ball in order to cushion that ball onto
03:08the green so i want you to do it like this now i am terribly right-handed so i want you to do this
03:15one-handed with both hands we're not going to hit a golf ball to begin with so hit those points get
03:20that correct grip with your face open but your grip normal to you put both hands on to start
03:26with if you want and then take your right hand off what i'm focusing on is creating this hitting
03:33the line with speed and the loft pointing back at me then have a go at it right-handed i'm actually
03:40worse with this hand than that hand and same again the momentum of the club allows me to create speed
03:48in this direction not like we would in a full shot so learn that feeling if you need
03:55more than two goes to find out what feels best for you go for that
03:58and then have a go at striking one away trying to emulate the exact same
04:07and you can feel like you're striking that match right at the bottom
04:10so the two ball drill quick easy simple let's do it so nice and simple place one golf ball
04:19and give yourself a good lie we're learning to play our bunker shots right in the sand the second
04:25one all you're going to use it to do is create an impression just behind a golf ball behind so
04:31press it into the sand take it out and pop it in your pocket if you're confident enough
04:36just to hit one away afterwards without an impression in there so i'm making all the same
04:41address points as before but all i'm looking at and i i would stress this as well i focus
04:46on that dot in the sand not the ball the dot in the sand quick easy and simple
04:59so so far we've learned to have some speed we've got the correct
05:03setup and now we've got the release the final thing and this drill is great for
05:07learning to keep the loft on in the bunker we need loft to get the club to glide so really
05:13nice and simple have a look at this too put your club into the sand and get a nice healthy chunk
05:19of sand on that face the idea here is you're learning to keep that sand on the club face
05:25for as long as possible through that backswing and only throw it off over your shoulder if you're
05:31throwing it off early you're manipulating the face far too much so have a few goes get that
05:37feeling and then just work the same exact feelings into your shot because you've got
05:43everything you need now to help improve your bunker tips so remember the speed remember
05:50the loft remember the setup and let us know down in the comments what is your favorite drill