Long Bunker / Sand Shots
Sorry, you need to be a member to access this video.
You Are Just Seconds Away - Become a member here!
Already a member? Log in now
The long bunker shot in the 25-30 yard range is considered to be one of the toughest shots in the game of golf. In truth, it's not that difficult of a shot, it just requires the golfer to make a confident, aggressive swing. If you follow the fundamentals from "Short Game Made Simple", you will see that there are only a couple things to consider when playing a long bunker shot.
- Many golfers fear the longer bunker shots, but there are two ways to approach them
- You can use your usual club and make a bigger swing, or take your usual swing and use a club with less loft
- Taking a bigger swing with the same club gives you a margin of error, but requires a little more swing control
- If you use a club with less loft, you take your usual sand shot - a little less aggressive, less acceleration
- Learn and practice both methods so you can choose the approach that feels right on any given day
all right now we may be faced with one of the scariest shots in all of golf for most golfers and that is this 20 to 30 yard bunker shot it's right in between kind of a you know a normal little pitch shot that you might hit from the fairway and how you would hit a normal bunker shot because the things that you do the requirements for a bunker shot having loft and taking out a lot of sand start to change as you get further away from the green and so this shot really causes a lot of problems for most golfers i'm going to show you two ways to play it today they're going to make it really really simple so you don't have to overthink this shot because if you start thinking it thinking about it too much you start getting tense you start getting nervous you start getting worried and you start making a shot that's really relatively simple very mentally difficult and that's what we want to do i'm going to get over these mental hurdles in golf and this is one of them this shot can cause you tons of grief the simple truth of the matters is two basic ways to play this shot one is to play every bunker shot you have with the same club now personally that's actually what i do now i don't talk a lot about what i typically do in the golf swing because i want everybody to think about mechanics and fundamentals rather than what one person might prefer to do what they feel is best i don't really like to talk about feel a lot but the reason that i use my 60 for every shot is it gives me the most versatility and the most amount of spin now sometimes i don't want that spin so i may back it down a little bit but if you practice with one club it makes things pretty simple you just technically swing a little bit faster and take a little bit of loft off so on this shot for me to hit a pretty good ways you know with a 30 yard bunker shot with a 60 degree wedge what i'm going to do is start taking a little bit of loft off now as i start taking loft off i start bringing this nasty leading edge in so it's really critical that you master the fundamentals of bunker play like i've talked about taking out this box and making sure the club doesn't dig it enters on that line and exits on that line and if you do these things you don't have to worry about this shot even as you start taking loft off which will make the club tend to dig more it's okay you just still practice the same shot of having entering the box and leaving the box i'd had the same divot that i always do but i had less loft on the club that ball would have went about 15 yards now as i start needing to go a little bit further i need to get that 20 or 30 yard range what do i amp up the velocity it's that simple so i'm going to go ahead and hit one here i'm going to normally i would lay the club in the sand almost literally on its back obviously not touching the sand but when i'm practicing i will so that i can get comfortable with laying the club on its back but when i'm on the course obviously i got to hover a little bit now i'm going to start taking loft off to the point that it's almost neutral it'll still be open i still need that openness in there but this is going to have not nearly as much loft but a lot more speed and that ball perfect about 25 yards so if i want to hit it 35 i add a little more speed to it there's a point of diminishing returns with taking this loft off i won't get back to square because in the club will definitely dig and i'm i'm still working on releasing the club through the sand just like i would on a normal shot now not all of you will be comfortable with that shot and that's perfectly okay because there's another way to do it and that is with another club so here i have my 54 technically it's bent to 55 i do that to take a little bit of bounce off of it but with this club i don't just swing very hard at all and i can keep a ton of loft on it so if you're the type of person that doesn't get to practice a lot or doesn't have a really good feel for the release through the sand making the exact same swing twice just with a different club makes this a no-brainer you play it exactly the same way you would a 10-yard bunker shot and let the loft do all the work both are perfectly acceptable ways to play it i like to say that for people who don't get as much time to practice that this is the easier way to do it because now it's it's it's brain dead i don't have to think about anything i'm just going to play this bunker shot the exact same way i normally would and it literally went within two feet of the other one i didn't swing any harder i made my normal bunker swing everything's the same it's a piece of cake so if you struggle with getting out of this bunker from these long distance shots it's so simple if you just use the same fundamentals and either swing a little bit harder with a little bit lost less loft by changing the way you set up at address with the loft on the club or just grab another club you can go down you really wouldn't go down to a pitching wedge but uh you know a mid sand wedge maybe even a gap wedge for this shot and you can pull it off as you start getting past this 30 yard range you start getting into almost needing to pick the ball clean it's pretty difficult to hit to take out that much sand without swinging really hard and you start losing control so you can use this up to about 35 yards every single time even on this most difficult shot in golf
charles
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Greg
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Johnny
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
gordon
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
gordon
Jarek
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jarek
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
gary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Carver
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Martyn
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
James
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
KARUMBAIAH
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Terry
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Mads
Aaron (Certified RST Instructor)
Brandon
Chad
Scott
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)