Your nose needs to be forward to the golf ball in impact. But when
you try to help something up and you start silking backwards to do it,
you're starting to move your low point behind the ball and there we go.
Now we got are Chunkin's calling it. I hate using the term cuff do
the work, but let the lot and the club get the ball up and
out of the stand. There's some lips that people come to take less you
last such a high and rim. I'm like, that lip's not even in
my awareness. They're getting scared at something that's not really relevant. Once you
understand what the club can actually do, especially if you open the base,
you can get so much high on the golf ball. Hi, this is
Peter Blackmore from Melbourne, Australia and I play at the Melbourne Airport Golf Club.
And this is Golf Smarter number nine four four mastering bunker play with tips
and tricks you can use and myths to avoid with Josh Sander. This is
golf Smarter sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf mines to help you
lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green.
Welcome back to the golf Smarter podcast. Josh, thanks for having me
back Brett on all It love having you back, man, Like the amount
that I learned from you every time totally justifies why I do this podcast.
People are like, really do you How did you start this? I said,
I wanted free lessons, and it's like, I figure, I'll just
talk to golf instructors. And it's like I could bub golf, that's for
sure. And the way you and I met, I was playing in a
golf charity golf tournament and you gave a clinic beforehand on short game and bunker
play, and I learned so much from that that I thought, let's do
that again. I wanted to talk to you about bunker play today because you
gave me some tips that I remember and then sometimes I'm like, wait,
am I supposed to stand here or put the ball there? So there's so
much that we can discuss about bunker play. Where do we start on fairway
bunkers or greenside bunkers. Let's start at green side boxers. They're very different.
They're very different shots, Yeah, they really are. And I kind
of look at bunkers it's kind of like a little sport, little game within
a game. It almost always there is a big misconception in boker play,
and that is that you want to get behind the ball. And I'd like
to clarify that and say, it's not hitting behind the ball. It's entering
the sand behind the ball. But the actual low point of the swing has
to be past the ball. So the club should still be descending as it
enters the sand behind the ball, continue to go down and under the ball
and actually reach its low point half the ball, just like on a normal
fairway shot. Well, on a fairway shot, you're going to hit the
golf ball first and then here you in the sand at first. But the
club should still be descending as it's hitting the sand and going under the ball.
So sometimes I'll fall, I'll bury a tea into a ball and say,
let's just get the tea out come under the ball. Oh, that's
a good one as a good just little little tip. And that gets people
to actually try to go down and under the ball rather than hit behind the
ball, because if your low point is behind the ball, you will either
spat your bunker shot, hit that'll chunk and run, or even worse,
the club has reached its low point and it's now ascending by the time it
gets to the ball, and that's the one and it stulps. So when
people come in and say, well, I'm both fatting and sculling my bucker
shots, I'm like, oh, it's simple. Your love point's way too
far behind the ball. And they're like, well, aren't I supposed to
hit behind the ball? I said, you're supposed to enter the sand behind
the ball, But no, you're not going to You're not trying to hit
behind the ball. You're actually trying to hit past. But the club is
still descending as it enters the sand, water or two itch is behind the
ball, and then it's gonna bottom out pass the ball. Then the question,
because well, how do you bottom out pass the ball? What's the
best way to do that? And I kind of think of my nose as
kind of like the stutter line of my body, your nose or your stirrum,
and that's pretty much where you're gonna bottom out. So if you put
your head or your nose forward the ball so on the target side of the
ball, you're gonna have a good chance of having that below. Now,
you'd like to have the club descending into the sand on its way to that.
So I just put my pressure forward. I'm a right and a golfer,
so I clean my pressure onto my beat, slug my left foot,
and then I put my nose forward to the ball and then hit the boxer
shots from there, and you end up pitying closer to the ball, but
you'll never skull it because the club is still going downward. Those are the
really fine shots people have their home because like, oh my goodness, that's
what I'm supposed to do. They hit that nice high bunker shot that takes
one off and then it stops like oh god. So I think that's the
biggest misconception that people have is that oh I got to I got to pit
behind the balls. They put the ball wait for in their stance. Their
nose is now behind the ball, and now they're flirting with chunks and skulls,
and you'll never get really good distance control. I see the first step
that's get yourself out bunker right, like your weekend golfers like, just get
me out a great r thing too. But if I could make bud,
that's a bonus, right. The more advanced looor anticap colleague or even touring
pro thinking I want to get this up and down. I'm going to try
to hold this bummer shot so they have a lot of control over it.
And on tour, the bunkers are so perfectly manicured in there, so it's
almost like they had easier bumper shots than most of us do. Because caddies
after after a touring pros hit a bumper shot make that thing like look like
the work of art. I remember one time I was doing some work for
NBC at the Ryder Cup and totten this top dating myself and Tom Lamy just
hit a great side bunker shot, and uh, it is Kennedy break the
things so beautifully. I had to give him a compliment. I'm like,
that's like the work of art. If I don't do this, then the
guys be hiding me super pissed offs. It's just standard procedure for us that.
But you know, the rest of us are playing in you know bunkers
that are sort of Parsley Ray footprint there. They did put an upstanding.
It's raty whatever it is. They're not perfectly adding here, so they're so
they're challenging. So the last thing you want is to make a challenging shot,
even worse by having or a creage more information out there. That's that's
around it. Most people's head to come and take lessons, at least for
me, is well, I got to hit behind the ball, so I'm
gonna play the ball waight forward. I might have the ball or to my
stands, but it's not ordered because I'm so much pressure im onto my needs.
So that's the first thing I would say for most people out there is
be careful warrior about yeah, and how you know? That's interesting because that's
different than a fairway shot in the sense that you said you hit the ball
first, but you got to bring the low point of your swing even lower
right, And so how how do you position your body? So now you
want to create that steep rang right okay shot requires a steep rayle or what
I call the D shaped bottom of the lid. So so if you think
about how to create a steep angle, while you can do it cetaal ways,
you can do it by leaning your weight off your leads. Lowering your
lead shoulder will make a clup go up more and time down steeper. You
can have more or leaning your shaft that creates a steep right in the live
of the golf ball. You can injure risks more. You get the clup
up and out of the stand delivered quicker, you can narrow your back split.
There's this whole mad menu of steep angles that players you to be effective
out of the bunker, and that creates an angle it's going to bottom out
more under the gulf. Whereas if I was trying to get something off the
top of the sand, like a fairly bumper shot, I might go from
some more shallow arrangles ball it was a little bit more forward in the stands.
The width of this wing, uh, the width gets where that the
width gets wider, as you will, I might have the less risk age
going back doing a lot of things that shallow angle approach there versus an the
green sanded bunker Oromo games were more of a steep bottom of this. That
means there's a lot of information to process before you step into the bunker.
And there's also I call it, I think you've talked about this where I
call I call it doing the map before you get a shot, Like what
the first thing you gotta do is you got to assess the lot? Okay,
what what what does this light telling you? About what's going on?
What's the story this lifestyle is? Are the bunker's heart that are they are?
Is it fluffy standard? They just throw a bunch of new sand in.
Uh. What kind of a club do I have that's going to have
a proper bounce to get at the bunker of this situation? What effort level
do I need to create the proper distance control out of this shot? So,
for example, let's say I get in a bunker that's got very little
stamp. It's it's you know, maybe maybe there's been a little bit of
moisture, some dew, maybe a lit literate, it's a little harder pack.
Well, I know I can't open the face as much because then the
bounce will get right in a little the back of the bole skullets. I
didn't have to square the base up a little bit more. But now that
effects my distance control. The ball is going to come out faster, so
not the effort level my sling has to change. So this is all part
of what's going on in my head. I look at the lie figure out,
you know what, what's the ideal shot I'd like to hit? What
can I get from this slide? And what does this slide tell me about
what I can and can't do well, it's the effort level I need.
How much can I open the face or how much do the square up the
base? Do I even have to? Is it varied to close the base
maybe or create a steeper angle. But there's all this mathic goes out,
goes on in uh, in my mind before I hit this shot, or
even when I'm teaching different disc wives out of the poppers, because you can't
go in there with the one size. That's all mentality, because if you
do that, you're going to be successful, very very small art. Yeah,
yeah, and yeah, there are there are bunkers that you know,
I play public courses and so sometimes it'll if we had moisture or the sprinklers
were on with something, but it's just like hard pan. It's just you
know, and then it's like, well, am I treating this like a
bunker shot? Or am I treating this like a chip shot? I mean,
we're we're still on a green side bunker here. Yeah, it's it's
it's interesting. I mean, if you're if you're really feel interested in being
very successful at ploppers, you need to understand what's under your fault. Right.
When I used to be back in the nineties when I was a tour
last wives playing all over the world. During the practice routes, I literally
rapped. I probably start digging, digging board, seeing what's underneath this?
What am I playing on this week? How's the ball kept? We come
out of the bucker this? Uh? That that was a huge part of
uh kind of the you know, the investigation process of being a good A
good player is understanding what the course conditions are the week that you're playing.
So that's that's, uh, that's super important. I kind of chuck you
a little bit here because I have this this one athletic student who U who?
You know? He plays all over the place. So if he said,
you know when and I'm a titleist guy, I'll put a plug in
titleist. They make boke Bop book. He makes great wedges, and so
he said, would you order me a portfolio of places but basically keep winding
them off. He said, just order all for me because I'm going to
be playing all different kinds of conditions And there's you know, the ballance,
the grinds that that that Bock puts in his clubs. Some of them fit
certain courses better than others certain you know, turf conditions, certain bunker conditions.
So there's there's they called the Kate Ryan, which is a fantastic buppet
club for slufty buckers. But if you're playing hardback buckers, I mean,
if you remember the old alien wife at the Huge Bottom, it's the closest
pot bok. He comes to Namly Wedge and it's like it's like cheating.
You get out of a bomper with why this is with one of his cake
ryans. If the bompers are fluffy, but it's if they're not, then
you're gonna have a tough time, you know, not staring with all that
glove. So uh. And then there's the Tea Grind that's like it's only
got four degrees of ballots. It's great out of tight wives and buckers and
pipelines around green. So I mean, if I'd a competitive player, I've
got I've got portfolio wedges that I'm going to look into to figure out which
ones are making the traveling team, so to speak, for this week.
You can't expect. You can't expect one club to fit all situations, just
like you can't expect to you know, set the club up the same for
different situations, or have the same effort low. There's a fantastic player flash
teacher the past away if he was gonna Phil Rogers and I was first getting
into the teaching business. I I was looking into, you know, just
learning back then the pja Quichy and teaching. Some that they used to put
out VHS tapes of the recordings of all the great teachers talking about bunkers and
Phil Rogers talking about about about teaching. Phil Rogers was doing a bunker one
and he said something interesting. He said, a bucker shot will go about
one third of the distance that the same swing would produce from brets. So
a stock basic bunker shot, if you want to hit, for example,
a ten yard green side bopper shot, it would require the same effort level
that it would to hit a thirty yard shot. And I always thought that
was a great starting point to help you know the week helper understand like how
much effort level do you really need to get this ball? But that's also
based on making good content. So I've always said, you know that that
distance control comes from good contact and paying attention. Right, So if you
if you want to chip it really well. You first have the happy contact,
but then you also have to pay attention to out part of the ole
is you know where to land it now? I just roll up, builds
down. All that information is a matter of paying attention, and a lot
of times I get frustrated when people like practice things without looking at the ole
eye. You look at the old see where you're going to land this ball?
How's it going to roll out? Part? You know, there's this
intuition that we have as human beings at alses understand you know, I'm gonna
throw all the three feet awaight, I don't three feet away. I don't
wind up and shift my weight. I just tossed it to the really softly
right. So it's the same thing when you do at short game shots is
understanding what effort level it takes. But you need to have I go back
to the first thing we talked about, which is you need to know how
to make proper contact in the bunk because about that, you don't really know
what after a level put in there. Because if you you're chunking and spelling
your brands like you spalling hit that with art. No, you didn't hit
it to art. You bellied it. You just alled it over the grate
that you really have an effort level to really get that shell. You just
bottomed out behind the bull, caught it up in the EPs. All right,
well, let's take a break, and when we come back, we're
going to talk about amateur players and their game and the myth that they have
in their head that that ruin every bunker shot they take. And we'll be
back right after this. So yeah, a lot of time you'll be talking
about these professionals who did this and this, you know kid who's on your
you know, your team, and you're getting them ready for high level competitive
play. I think that when I watch the people that I play with,
amateurs and recreational players that are you know, mid handicap, it seems like
everyone's trying to lift the ball out of the bunker with their clubs. And
we've been talking a lot about that lately, about lifting the ball as opposed
to making that contact go ahead. There's this instinct that you want to lift
the ball out the boxer and sure that the tendency if you do that is
to tilt backwards. Throw something up you tilt backwards. I remember, we
go back to the first part of our conversation, where should your nose.
Your nose needs to be forward to the golf ball. In it fact that
we try to help something up and you start tilting backwards to do it,
you're starting to move your low point behind the ball, and there we go.
Now we know are Chunkin's calling it. So yeah, let the I
hate using the term do the work, but let the lot and the club
get the ball up and out of the stand and you will be amazed.
There's some lips that people you know, come take less. You're like,
well, that's such a hide it. I'm like, that lip's not even
in my awareness, it's not even close. And then I'll take a video
of them hitting it shot and the balls their the lip by like three or
four feet. It's like, you know, they're they're getting scared. It's
something that's not really relevant once you understand what the club can actually do,
especially if you open the face. You can get so much high on the
golf ball if you got the proper the proper content. Another thing, if
you don't mind me going on with what's a different thought here about bunker playlet,
I'm real good on going in different directions go for it. This is
something that's that's that I would say one of my another one of my pet
fieves and bunker play. It's people think they need to cut across the golf
and have an open stains. So they take, well, I've opened my
club base, so I now have to open my stands. Right, if
I'm a right hitded player, well, I open the club base is pointing
to the right, so now I need to aim my feet to let and
then we have this able to try to hit the golf ball so out across
the golf ball. And when I was a rookie teacher back in the early
nineties, I hated teaching bucker because I could not help people with the traditional
open your club face, open the dance swing across swing out. And at
one point I said, this is so bad both my little bucker game,
trying to do this and teaching it. So I did to do the oposit
I'm going to close my stands and I still open the face, but I'm
going to close my stands and I started hit these beautiful high stop bunker shots
with square spin, no sides. I hate the ball kicking out on the
grid and kicking off to the right things they came across. So God,
I can't remember how many years ago spoke the golf chair. I was at
a teaching at vent and the Golf channel asked me to do a bunker the
bunker baby, and so I set up and then I set up alide from
my feet, which was dead square. I opened my clock face but then
lowered my candle. For those who understand, and you lower the handle,
the face closes so that offsets the open face. So and I had a
nice, nice line the boxers. I said, here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna have a square stance with my feet flared out, but no,
no open stands. I'm going to lower the handle. I'm going to
lead to my lead side so my nose is more to the golf and I'm
gonna swing into it on plane, not outside it. And they entitled it
Unconventional Bunker Advice was the name of the video. Wow, basically it was.
I want to say it was ahead of its time, but I think
it's time had caught that so many people were struggling with this open the face
come outside it. And then I'm watching golf on TV a day and Johnny
Miller says, you notice the tournet pros these days, they'd open, they'd
open their stances. Didny want bucker shops? And I started to laughing to
myself, of course, not because that old way of teaching to open the
face outside didn't sleep was poor. I don't know started it, but like
shaking them and saying, what didn't you do you set balker play back?
You know, God no, God knows how many years. So I'd say
another piece of advice I have to people is try squaring yourself up with your
stance in the bunker and not aiming way open. I would say, experiment
but lowering handle to get the left face back to square rather than trying to
hope your stance to do that. Let me stop you for just a second.
When you say I want to clarify lower the handle, so for right
handed golfer, does that mean going forward or lower lower the handle like you
were going to take. If you set up in your normal stance and you
said our family to left the club ball to the ground, the handle ball
toward the sayd I want to lowering forward to see so if you open a
club face down, a face to the right, whenever you lower a handle,
the face points to love, so they upset each other. And I'll
show people with one of those oh, I say, those li angle magnets,
and I'll show Okay, you lower the handle the face. It's kind
of like what happens when you're the balls of up your feet right, the
ball big bluff face points to his right hand because the handle has been lower
right face points to the right, and handles fire on a on a y
with the ball's lawyer right. So whenever you lower a handle points to face
that left, so that will offset the fact that your face is open.
Now all you have is a loft. So if I start with my sixty
and I open it up to eighty degrees, I can lower the handle and
make my bluff based to pine at the target. Now I have an eighty
degree locked up in debt square. Highball comes out straight and rolls straight,
and it doesn't have that quirky little kick to the right that you see a
lot of people who swing out. Take it right out. That helps so
much on a distance control. The only redeeming value of having it outside of
the sway of the bunker is the fact that an outside of his swing is
a steep angle, and that helps you get down into the sand. Other
than everything else about it is awful. So I can create so many different
ways of getting a steep angle and sing it without being outside it. Like
I said earlier, I could lean more weight to my left side, I
could pop my wrists up sooner, I could lower my leech older more.
I got a ton of tricks to do that, and I don't, and
I can still have that ball coming out with what I call square backs.
So one of my coaches when I was a Tory professionals wrote used to be
at the Sanrcisco Golf Club and great, great, great guy, great teacher,
and who was playing in the era of Lee Trevino, And he said,
I'd like to sit at Le Trevito's bag watch him practice because he hit
his wedges and square stin And I never forgot that. Because when you have
square spin other vers true backspin, where there's not any kick to to the
right on your ball, that's a really easy shot to control, especially what
happens after the ball lands on the green. Because I'm trying to hold my
bumper shot right. Why would I want to app to try to get my
ball to start left, so get kicked to the right, carram into the
whole out way. It's like, just get it to roll straight. So
in order to view that, we need to be square back. So I
swing on a good plane inside to inside rather than the outside, and I
have loft on my face because I've lowered the handle and o face. I
bet a lofted square face and an on plane and swing. It produces beautiful
square stin bunker shots. So does it make any difference on your swing?
Sure, there's so many different variables involved here, like being close to the
front edge of the of the bunker bunker where you're on an upslope, or
being in the back of the bunker where there's a down slope. We're just
talking about a nice fluffy lie here. But then you know, we've all
the number one piece of advice would be don't go on the bunker. But
this is golf and it's going to end up there, sooner or later.
I tell people this all thought. If you get in the bunker, you're
pretty close to the greedy. You could have been that out of a shot
right around the greed. So don't try to avoid the bunkers. Become a
good bunker player. I get the bucker. I'm like, cool, that's
just too logical, Josh, come on, brockers, you're going to start
avoiding greens. It's hard, it's really hard to good players hit it in
the boxers. That's what they do because balkers are right next to the right,
next to the three, which is where the flag is. So I
don't ever tell people try to avoid it. I've never I don't think I've
ever uttered those where's try to avoid the bump. I can go back and
erase that if you want me to. You just got to. You got
to face the challenge is part it's part of the game. And that's you
know, make it, make it a strict Just understand. It's not like
it's it takes an amazing athlete to hit a bunker shot. It's just you
just have to have the right informations, like just building skills. Here as
golf instructord we build the skill of being a bucker play. But it is
a different skill than almost any other shot at golf. Yeah. Yeah,
that's why I wanted to focus on it. And you know, it's not
just the right information, it's the right attitude because if you if your ball
goes in the bunker and you're like, oh god, I hate playing the
bunker. Oh this is going to be too right. If you do that,
you're doomed. But if you go into it going this is going to
be fun. I love these shots. This is going to be great.
You know, it's going to help. May not, you may not have
success, but it's going to help. I think a lot of times when
people hit in the bunker, they think, Okay, well now my score
is going to go up, and so they have a bad attitude. Right
right, I could have been on the green, but not. I'm a
bucker, so I have to figure out how to save how to save myself
from the situation. It's like if you think of and this sport go down
and totally different having me about how to you know, mentally play the game.
Yeah, I like what you just said about, Hey, I've got
this cool opportunity or I could hold this or I can't wait to see what
kind of challenge I have here. And it's an individual event in this day
of golf, you're playing that you get to get this cool shot. I
was playing. I was doing a plane lesson yesterday and I'd hit a bunker
shot, which I fought was really good, and it just kept rolling and
there went down this embankment and then I had I had a lob shot with
no greedy to work with that. I hit it a little short, right
back to my feet and my shot to the green which is purely out,
and it topped the top of the bucker went in. I hit this beautiful
bunker shot exactly how I want to do, but I misjudged it when green
was going away from me and I didn't maybe I didn't take that A new
acout kept quickly. I mean I hit the bunker shire by my group's ah,
great shot, and I'm like, oh, oh, pleasy, lob
shot to about ten feet and I hit a beautiful pot and I missed the
butt and I looked at the plane like one of my idt to play Lessondell,
like I think I just hit. I had really good shots on that
bar three and I just laughed. I'm like, man, this game,
this game, really, this really something. Hit a batch out on the
hole. I'd made a double on a one hundred and fifty side yard par
three, which you never should be should be a great birdy hour or three
where you get to hit all with one hundred and fifty five, which is
is a cop eight hour. Yeah, you got my first at fifteen feet
and boom in the fucker. But you know what, like if you got
to, you gotta take it. You got just like that. That's coff,
you know. Now the time hit the edge of that boxer kick right
next to the hall, I make it too, you know. It's like
that. So all I can say is, Josh, welcome to our world.
We'll be back right after this. Okay, we've talked about ball being
back of the bunker, ball being in front of the bunker. We haven't
actually talked about that. We mentioned, we mentioned, Yeah, well I
do. I do want to, you know, figure that out because you've
got different attacks going on here, correct. So I use this. I
use this visual where I just hold up the club between my thumb and my
exs finger and I just let it splay back and forth, and I show
people this is a club swing. There's a point where the club is sleep
that word, and there's a point where the club is sleep upward. Well
point lowest point is directly underneath the top end of the club. So if
you can visualize club swinging back and forth like a pension. Right. Okay,
so it's we're on a on an uphill lot. Right, you're on
the up slope. Well, where do you where do you want it?
How do you want to set the club so you can splain them up the
slope? The hand little should be behind the club. The other words,
you need to have a shaft this leading as a right and ended player to
the right. We're away from the target, so the club can swing up
the hill on your setup on the swing, yeah, on the set,
yeah yeah, so it can swing it up along the slope. If I'm
on a down lie, then I wanted to have a forward the chat because
that being the club is swinging downward at the moment straight right, and then
you can It's a little tricky when you're doing an uphill lie. I had
a great discussion with James Seepman about this is a fabulous Shorking teacher. We
were doing a school together and it was we were trying to upbilized out a
bunker and he said, I don't really like my students to add their shoulders
a laminus slope, you know, with parallels and the slope on bunker shots,
because if they happen to fit one. You know. That's that's dot
trip each teaching toys. You're mirissing cuts if you do that kind of stuff.
So and I said, I agree, because the other thing is when
you tilt your shoulders with the slope on an upfill, lie all going back
away from the target pitch. Now, if it's the loop, like way
too far behind the ball that you talked about it earlier in there, you
know, So what I do is I set my shoulders not with the slope,
but slightly into the slope, so the club has a chance to get
into the ground, but the handle's back enough so it doesn't dig into the
ground too much. So set up for rupt hill lives. Write this down
for you folks, or stuff shoulders not parallel to this, Slightly into the
slope and the handle back. Okay, Now, when you're doing it downhill,
lie usually in the back of the bunker. On a down slope,
you need to get your shoulder big type of the slope or even more because
you try to dig down into it and you want the handle for them.
The ball will come out low. That's just part of the deal. So
if it's goat come out low. You need to understand how it's going to
react once it gets the greed and the pin is not always not easy an
option as far as where you're eating. So when you hit, I mean,
I think those uphill lies and in front of the bunk of those are
easy you can spot. With those the downhill lies, I'm thinking, I
can get it three out of here. I'm doing a great job. Get
it somewhere where I could get down into from wherever it is, because that's
where cripple doubles and triples out from on those downhill lies out in the bunker,
right, yeah, right, But then you have the issue of the
flag being close to the bunker and then the flag being on the opposite side
of the green from the bunker. When something the opposite side of green,
the downhill bunker shots actually out of bet because it ball comes out low and
the release and just keeps going. Yeah. That when the pin's tight to
the bunker and you're on an up though slope, that's actually super easy.
Just pops up really high and lantly softly. So those are those are kind
of green light situations. But the opposite, if the pin is tight the
bucker and you're on downhill slow. Yeah, I agree to work with some
help figure out how to get it in a position where you can get down
two strokes out that. Yeah, just take your boat and get out of
there. Have live to fight another day. Don't try to get cute with
that one. To leave it to the bucker right, slid over green the
other one carrier and then now you're just making a huge humber. Yeah.
Yeah, So just accept the fact that you're probably not going to par this
hole unless it's pure luck. And that happens in golf, and that's why
we keep going back. But yeah, because if you try to get too
cute with something, especially that's real close to it, you're gonna not even
get out of the bunker, and then you'll really be frustrated and angry,
and then you'll it'll just show up in the next shot. And then what
happens, which I've I've not only seen multiple times, I've done many times,
is you hit you try to hit the ball out of the bunker,
it stays in the bunker, and you don't take your full set up again.
You just walk up to it and swing and swing and swing and swing.
Right then your frustration gets in the way right. You know one of
the things that we we you know, we talk about a lot in this
is just having the proper information is a huge first step. Yeah, I
think it's a I think it's it's it's it's a bumber when you go in
there trying to do one thing and expecting that that one thing's gonna work.
You need to be able to adjust to all these different situations, and a
lot of that comes from just going and doing you know that work that didn't
work, I could do, I do this. This is the effort level
I hear. It's you see that that the people who sport a bunkers,
they spend a lot of time praxiing bumpers. And when when Tiger was at
stamp Or he and Noda Bagay used to give themselves the worst lies in the
bunkers and and have competitions. Now, that's how you really learn. If
you keep giving yourself that perfect line to bunker to make yourself feel good.
How often does that happen on the call? Not very often now, so
you're really not practicing for the test. You're practicing make yourself ill that you
can do it. It's like nat set, it's harder if you could make
your practice harder than the game, that's what great coaches doing. He hates
sports. They make practices harder than the gay. If you're making your gate
your practice easier than the game, you're not really preparing. So don't be
surprised when you fail. But if you do what Noda and Tiger would do,
I yeah, had a little bit of success. Well, yeah,
you might have had a little bit of success. Well, first of all,
they were both plankets Stanford. Yeah, so all right, so now
we've got ourselves. There's there's one hole in particular that I play that the
bunker is in front of the green, but it's about fifteen yards in front
of the green. So it creates this illusion because it's got this elevantor you
know that the back of the bunker, which is closer to you when you're
in the fairway, is higher up, so it kind of blocks where the
green is, and you're thinking, I just need to get it over the
green. And yet you know, well, when you're when you're in the
bunker, you just it's it's a longer shot, but it's not a fair
way bunker shot. Right. That's one of the artist shots at golf.
It's like that super long creates it. Yeah, it that's yeah, it's
an interesting that's a that's an interesting shot because I'd think back to like this
the strokes gain that Mark Brody talks about, and that's one of the one
of the shots that's like when somebody gets in a like a forty yard bocker
shot. It even the Tory pros they're not they're not getting those up and
down very well. It's shit. Is just a tough shot, but one
of the one of the best pieces about ice I can give you. On
those you can still play them explosions, But think about the ratio I gave
you earlier, the Bill Rodgers ratio of three to one. So if you
have a forty yard bucker shop, it's gonna take one hundred and twenty yards
wick gets you there. Is that your sandwich. I don't know a lot
of amateur players who get their standwich one hundred and twenty yards. I don't.
I mean, I've got some pretty good let speed. I had my
sandwich one hundred yards. I'm not going to get it there with a full
blast bucker shot. I'm gonna have to take my gap ledge or my pitching
ge. Sometimes I take a nine iron, I'll play it explosion shot with
the lass lotted club to give me some of the distance. Again, if
I can make a three from there, right, I can make it two.
That's a huge boutance. But I don't want to make a four from
forty yards in the in the in that bocker. But those those are some
of the artner shots. So maybe I'll take one thing back when I was
saying, when you talk about aiding buckers, avoiding those bockers, not the
green side buckers, but the ones that are thirty forty yards from the green,
Yes, because you're gonna do much better through seventy yards from the fairway
then you are forty yards from the fairy balker. Yeah, that kind of
inside slash fairry bunker you're talking those are those are just traps that are just
those are Yeah, they're they're they're there to mess with you. And and
this one is on a long part five right, Yeah, so it's hard
to get to that green and you know, so you you're going forward,
it's like, oh, I just put it on the side of the bunker.
Oh you're gonna flirt with it. Yeah, bad idea. Bad idea,
just come up short of you when you're already greedy. That's uh,
yeah, that takes, that's that's yeah. That's part of playing golfers to
be able to check your ego and play the smart what like like Tiger and
Nicholas, the two best ever say, make it, make an aggressives sling
to a conservative target and that's out of conservative target, be at one of
those thirty to forty yard buckers. You know what we say, golf smarter,
all smarter. There you go. All right, we're gonna take another
break. We'll be back right after this. All right, Well, what
we haven't talked about now, and let's do that since we've kind of inched
our way back from the green a little bit with those close ones that are
really annoying, but fairway bunkers. Now, is that the same type of
shot? Are you just you know, just trying to get it out or
if you feed or you're trying to get some distance on the ball and maybe
even if it's a par four you could possibly get to the green. Yeah.
A lot of it devans on assessing the lie. What's the lie about
you to do? What's the biggest let you have? To get over all
those fans of day so. In general, fair way bunkers don't tend to
have as much sand as green side boers. They tend to make them a
little bit. You rarely get into a bond crid that's a fairway bond gerd.
It's got fluffy, soft sand. That's usually not the case they want
to give you. I think they want to give you a chance. In
general, what I do is is kind of the opposite of what I do
on a green soap box. It's in a green side bumpker. You want
your nose forward the ball, I would say a fairry buker. I like
to at my nose behind the ball, so more forward in my stance that
shaft ever so slightly backward leaning, so the club will be a sanity by
the time it hits a ball. Now, if it's a setting, it
means that you're going to catch it a little bit on the thin side,
which is not necessarily a bad thing. So you clip the ball pretty clearly.
You might catch rub or two lower on the base there the sweet spot,
but you're getting the ball up and out of the bucker with some nice
distance on it. I was taught originally to play the ball more back in
my standings out of the bumper. I'm sairy dockers and I would hit these
lying dry missiles out of the bucker that could never hold a even if it
got so I've reserved those kinds of shots where if the line's not breaked and
I have to hit down eye to kind of hit more up like a punch
type shot a little back and stands. I'll do that, but it's always
the second choice. The first choice is if I could play a little forward
my stance and access to the back of the ball and I can kind of
flip it out on the top of the sand like that. That's what I'll
do, and I can get some beautiful height on because we put the ball
or forward your stance, you can get some nice trajectory on. I get
opened lip, and so that's how I'll do it. I also like to
play the club based a touch open, which is a shallow animal and he
ti close the club basic. You think about one thing we didn't talk about,
the green side bunkers. When it's super bary, one of the one
of the opts just can really shut the face, which digs a lot well.
The opposite. Opening the face a little bit is anti dging, so
it's easier to shallow out your impact. If you have the face touch open.
It also can see a little bit. So what I do is I
open the club base a touch. I'll grip down probably quarter inch, just
so I don't reach reach ground. I'm not a big fan of digging my
feet into the bucker in Eric ukers, so I don't. I just set
up normal. But the ball ford s tends to open the club base a
little bit and I catch the ball on the upsot. It's kind of like
what I do out of a fairway line when I'm trying to hit a super
high shot. You look at like Rory matt Roy hitting towering two irons and
to agree he's actually hitting up. He's not. He does not have a
downward attacking. So what I do is I have like a very shallow one
to two degree upward attacking. My trapman the boxer would show that I was
that I was catching the ball on the upslore. So the endal is the
I lick up ball. The club ped will be traveling up through impact,
so shallower higher ball flight ball and landstoftly. I agree that's how play my
favorite bunker shots. Mm hm. And you said they have the ball more
forward in your stands. Are you talking about like driver forward in your stance
or forward where you normally lay your redulate shots? Just be different for everybody
to hang out where you're where you're lows. So I would say, whatever
you do in the fairwight and move the ball a ball a few more forward
than that in your stands, keep that handle, FID. Remember handle forward
is a steep bank. Handle back is a shallowing. You're trying to hit
something really low, put the handle forward and delopping it down into the ground
and just hit a little bullet like under a tree. We're trying to the
opposite of that. Your fairy buck mm hmmm. Is the I have to
assume this, but I'm going to ask anyway, because whenever I assume anything
on the on golfight, I'm way off. Yeah. Right. Is the
sand generally the same sand in fairway bunkers as it is in green side bunkers?
I think do they maintain it the same way? Is it the fluffiness
and switch sand in the green and the fairy bumpers as they do with the
green side bumpers not as much. Not as much. I've found that,
like most arry bumpers are they but it's always a case. I mean,
if if you end up with the with kind of this soft loose sand in
a fairy bumper, it's a tough shot. It's a really tough shot.
But if you have wise the buckers, it's paneling being in a waste area
or something. It's just it's almost like if I was going to hit a
ball off a cart, you know, I wouldn't want to be hitting down
into the car. I catch that they at worst at the bottom hopefully is
out a scent. So what is the the most common myths that you come
across from amateur golfers on how they approach bunker play. I think I think
we've kind of covered them. I think the big thing is they think they
got to get way behind all I'm talking about green side buckers. They think
behind the ball. It's like, yeah, the two points behind the ball,
that's howth the look. That would be the first one. The other
one is said you have to cut across your bombers. Those things just make
the horrible book. I mean it's like the other thing is I think I
don't know if it's a myth, but I see this a lot just in
teaching bunker where people think they have to go down and get Now if you
actually think about it, like they feel like their body has to go down
and get the ball or dig it out, and what ends up happening when
you do that if you think about it and say you exaggerate, like you
take it up to the top and then you start lowering your by well the
sand, You're going to hit the sand way early because get you close to
the ground. And I see that as a big I would say fifty percent
of the people that I teach bumker shots are lowering it the tip eight.
The people who are struggling at the book and the people who are really good
at the bunker, they're actually pushing up out of the ground as their arms
are swinging down. You're looking at me like like you just had an epiphany.
Yeah, that was that was huge. So so if you if you
did this exercise, if you took a ball in your trail ant so it's
right handecop, you're just gett your right hand and you felt like you were
going to throw the ball at the ball that's in the bucker as hard as
you could, like you were trying to bounce it off the up the bunker.
You would notice that your body would actually be pushing up as your arm
was throwing the ball down. It's like you're spiking the put you know which,
up out of the ground as you're throwing a ball down. And if
you have that, you have that kind of feel of downward arm action,
upward body action. It's a custom bunker. M Now, I've seen people
take their putters into green side bunkers. Oh yeah, is that? Oh
yeah? Is that a good? I mean, what is that called the
Texas wedge? Well, it's it unless there's no lip on the bunker's terrible.
Like yeah, But my dad used to play his awesome on Saturdays.
The guy could not did a bucker shot go out of the bucker. He
just grabbed his putter whack it as far as he could, hope for the
best. And so you know, one out of every fifty. I used
to caddy for my dad. So I watched this guy's name was Rudy.
He did every side and begin the bucker. My dad was going to win
the all pretty guarantee, unless the some some lucky thing if anybody could get
a good putter out of us out of a bucker, it was it was
Rudy. But there was one time I think I saw Sevy get out a
really weird situation the bucker with the putter, But I don't even think he
used the face of the fire. I think he used to pull out the
putter. I can't remember. I wish I had a video of that.
But that's just an use of some major creativity, which was he was from
his pores as everybody that was sticking by Asteros's easy amazing ability to hit short
game shots. So I think there was no way he could hit a regular
bucker shot in the situation, so he somehow able to fighter app there.
But I would say in general, it's a bad idea. What was the
last time he so touring pros putter out of the fun It seems you don't
know how to do it. So again it goes back to just you know,
having the knowledge. But I'd say that if if you can have proper
information, you know, that's what we're trying to do as coaches. It's
like we need to arm you with the proper information and then coach you through
this. So bumker is not going to be something that you know keeps you
up at that. It's like, Oh, it's an opportunity for me to
have some fun in and I understand how to do it, and whenever somebody
cust me for bucker lesson, I'm like, I'm about to make this person
the happiest person of the world. Because they usually come in trauma the amount
of failure that they are. I'm like, I'm going to be a hero
in about three minutes here. It's so I mean, I guess it's selfish
on my part, but it's like I feel this gratification, like, oh,
you want to do budcker cool where I when I was a rookie teacher,
I'm like, the bucker up. I don't know if I can.
That's what I'm thinking. I was thinking in my head because because the information
of how to do it was so wrong, Uh, and now we know
we don't how to do it. You're not going to see I'm not going
to see that all style bunker shot. Very very few players at the highest
level are doing a deal. I'll do it the new one. You can
create Steve Bangles into the golf bar clash much simpler, more effective ways to
help create the proper impact and at the proper distance, so the trauma goes
away really quickly everyly, you know, at the end of the lesson,
like we're two minutes in the less like, well, wow, that's so
much easier than what I was doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well
it's just one more instance of you know, everybody wants consistency, but wait
a minute, there's no two golf shots alike. So can you be consistent?
Think you're going to be consistent if you treat every shot the same and
you have different situations. It's gat ring that information before you step into the
bunker and assessing all the different variables that are there before you try to have
your normal swing. It's it's not going to get you anywhere. So I
know you you probably talked to the THEGIT fifty four ladies piet Lane. They're
fantastic, right, and so they're amazing. It's been a long time and
I've been trying for years to get them back on and there. They travel
a lot and they're they're very busy. Yeah right, good. But one
of the things they always like to say is like, you don't want to
become a master of consistency. You want to become a master of variability,
right, because every situation is variable. Right, So so I agree with
that. And the thing is, it's interesting they were they were out here
one time and they asked a little lot player on the men's team, you
know what what what gives you confidence? And his answer was preparation And I
thought that was a great answer. And there's a lot of things to give
me confidence. Preparation is definitely. So we go back to what we talked
about earlier. How are you preparing for being a master of variability? Are
you giving yourself the same shot over and over and over again and you're practicing
your bunker shots? Or are you throwing your balls in random places? To
say? How am I going to figure out this puzzle? So when I
give a bunker lesson, obviously do the analysis of what's what's going on?
Help, you know, give them the diagnosis if you will, help them
understand what they should be doing. And then the second part of the bunker
lesson, after they figured out how they did a bunker shot, is okay,
Well, now let's let's do different lives. Let's talk about different lives.
So usually I'll give a bunker lesson. The'll be like half hour and
the first part we'll get them out of there, you know, out of
the bottom of the well where they feel like there's no oh, and then
they're like, okay, there's hope. Now let's talk about the variability,
because yeah, you've just had five good bunker shots. You think you got
it. Okay, let's let's let's make it harder, right, just like
I was saying earlier, to make your practice harder than a gain. Yeah.
Yeah, that's what I always loved about talking with Rick Sessenhaus about his
work with Colin Moricow as a kid. It would be situational golf. It's
like, Okay, I'm going to put a ball. I'm gonna put three
balls here. You give me three different shots to do to get you know
where you want to be. Don't just hit the same shot three times.
I want to see three different shots. Yeah. I love it, love
that stuff and love talking to you too. Man. This has been great.
Thank you so much. Pleasured. Look forward to the next lot.
All right, we'll do it absolutely. I need to give you an update
to our Royal adventure to Northern Ireland, and the deadline to register is just
days away on May first, and we still have space available. And we
knew all along that we were giving you very short notice when we announced this,
and if we couldn't fill the spaces, this trip would be postponed either
twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six. So if you are at all thinking
about it and I need to discuss, just write to me directly. I
really want the opportunity to travel and play with you, So here's some additional
time to fit us into your travel schedule and discuss our post summer opportunity,
because in September of this year, we're scheduling a different golf trip that includes
a tour adventure to Portugal, definitely a place that's been on Joanne's in my
bucket list for a long time. This trip will be nine days with three
rounds of golf and a lot more sightseeing since Johanne doesn't play those three days.
While we'll be on the course, the non golfers will be taking advantage
of spas, shopping and additional sightseeing. I'll be discussing this more in the
coming episodes, but remember this isn't the last of our travels together, as
we've got goals for incredible golf adventures for the next few years. And as
we discuss the golf bucket lists, how about Australia. Well, that's where
this week's Golf Smarter Ambassador, Peter Blackmore, plays at the Melbourne Airport Golf
Club. What made it so easy for Peter to join our list of ambassadors
to open an episode of where he's from and where he plays is that,
instead of calling our toll free line, Peter recorded the intro directly on his
phone and send us the file easy squeezy. If you'd like to choose from
three great gifts and introduce an upcoming episode, just write to me golf Smarter
Podcast at gmail dot com and I'll write back with some simple instructions of what
to do and what to say. If you have any questions, comments,
or suggestions for upcoming episodes or upcoming guests, or need more information and want
to discuss all of our travel opportunities, please write to golf Smarter Podcast at
gmail dot com or click on the Heyfred button when you visit Golfsmarter dot com