Archive for the ‘Bunker Shot Tips’ Category

High Soft landing Greenside Bunker Shot

High Soft landing Greenside Bunker Shot

Hi Soft Bunkers

Mark Wood PGA Advanced Professional, has a very easy and effective way in playing a very high soft landing greenside bunker shot. All you have to do is weaken your right hand grip so that the ‘V’ of the right hand is pointing up towards your left collar bone. Keep your left hand as normal but just make this slight alteration in the right hand and watch the results.

Make sure you set the face open a little to add some loft but to also engage the bounce.

Keep your bunker shot swing as normal, coming into the ball nice and shallow, utilising the bounce of the wedge.

Keep the swing nice and aggressive and watch the ball spin.

You can watch the video of the tip here

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From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

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Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

 

 

40 Yard Bunker Shots

40 Yard Bunker Shots

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The 40 yard bunker shot is one of the hardest in golf to play. You need to be able to treat the shot more like a greenside bunker shot, not a fairway bunker shot.

I have a great way for you to do this and it does not involve your wedges at all !!

Take a 9 iron and open the face of the club a little to engage the bounce of the club and to also add some loft onto the club. Take your normal regular splash shot stance, ball forward, weight forward, wide stance with the centre of gravity set low. From there just make a fairly full splash shot swing and you will be amazed at the results !!

This is how the pro’s play them.

Go ahead and make someone’s day share this tip with a friend!

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

Greenside Bunker Shot Swing Technique

Bunker Shot Swing Technique

Once you have established a good solid set up for this bunker shot your focus now turns to executing the swing.

Firstly I want to briefly describe the bounce of the club and what it does. The bounce of the wedge is there to help you and it will guide through the sand if used correctly.

As the bunkers have become better over the last few years, with the quality of the sand and drainage, manufactures have improved there wedges with varying degrees of loft’s and bounce angles. With this in mind you have all the correct tools to be playing this shot well. The only thing that is still “old school” is the way golfers set up to these shots, so I am going to explain the modern way of escaping the sand with ease.

“If the leading edge digs in, poor bunker shots will be the result. Remember the bounce of the wedge is your friend, so please use it”

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Hinging the wrists to much in a good greenside bunker lie creates a steep angle of attack and this can lead to the leading edge to dig in. Remember we are using the bounce of the wedge in this situation.

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Swing back to a position where the left reaches parallel to the ground (a 9 o’clock position) and keep your wrist set to a minimum. The backswing should be on a slightly flatter swing arc than normal. I want you to feel that you keep your weight forward as you swing your arms around your body.

The weight should have stayed on the left side during the backswing, as keeping in this fixed weight position helps you to strike the sand in a consistent point (an inch or two before the ball).

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As you turn your body back to the ball I want you to release your right arm angle and wrist angles very early on so by the time impact occurs the club head will have overtaken your hands. This really gets you using the bounce of the wedge and adds loft as well so your bunker shots will come out high and soft with spin control.

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Continue to turn and release your body through to the target so the right heel release out of the sand.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

The Plugged Lie

How to easily and effectively play a greenside plugged lie bunker shot 

This shot is really simple to execute as long as you follow some early principals in the set up and swing movement.

In a normal greenside bunker shot we are using the bounce of the club (the back edge if you will) to play these particular shots from a normal sand lie. In a plugged lie situation we need to use the leading edge of the club a lot more to cut down deeper into the sand, creating a deeper divot. Using the bounce of the wedge will create a nice shallow divot.

So knowing we need to produce a deeper divot by using the leading edge of the wedge, we are going to use the most lofted wedge say 60 degree that has 8 degree of bounce. The trick here is to close the face slightly so that the leading edge becomes lower than the back edge. This now ensures that the leading edge digs into the sand first, not the bounce.CIMG5046
Hold the club in front of you with the leading edge facing up towards 12oclock and turn the face to 11.30oclock and then form your grip.

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The stance is going to be slightly wider than normal for a regular bunker shot and you are going to keep the ball in the centre of the stance. The weight is still going to favour the left side (target side) as normal of at least 65%.

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The trick in the swing is to get the wrists setting as quickly as possible in the backswing as we want to use this steep energy in the downward blow into the sand which is going to pop the ball up and out onto the green. We want to hit 1 – 2 inches behind the ball and allow for some run on the ball once it lands onto the green.

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The swing is going to be very short in the follow through as a lot of the energy has be forced down into the sand to pop the ball up and out.

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

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Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

The Greenside Bunker Shot Set Up

The Greenside Bunker Shot Set Up

Pic

 

When setting up to play a regular greenside bunker shot there are a few important things to get right as this will go a long way in helping you to execute the shot.

Firstly I want to briefly describe the bounce of the club and what it does. The bounce of the wedge is there to help you and it will guide through the sand if used correctly.

As the bunkers have become better over the last few years, with the quality of the sand and drainage, manufactures have improved there wedges with varying degrees of loft’s and bounce angles. With this in mind you have all the correct tools to be playing this shot well. The only thing that is still “old school” is the way golfers set up to these shots, so I am going to explain the modern way of escaping the sand with ease.

“If the leading edge digs in, poor bunker shots will be the result. Remember the bounce of the wedge is your friend, so please use it”

Open the clubface a little as this will help encourage you to use the bounce of the wedge. Grip the club after you have opened the clubface a little and use your normal neutral grip. 

Take a nice wide stance a wriggle your feet into the sand a little as this helps you to feel the texture of the sand with your feet. It also lowers your centre of gravity ensuring sand is struck from under the ball.

Keep at least 70 percent of your weight on the left side as I want you to turn around your left side in the swing. Setting your weight forwards also helps create a consistent strike pattern in the sand. The feeling here is that you are braced into the left side.

Keep the ball position forward in the stance, just inside the left heel as this will help create a consistent strike pattern in the sand, forget the old cliché of looking 2 inches behind the ball as this set up will promote the strike pattern required, one less thing to worry about!!

The shaft angle should be leaning back just behind the ball as this will ensure the bounce of the wedge is being used. If you lean the shaft forwards you will start to dig in too much with the leading edge creating poor quality bunker shots.

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Keep the body alignment parallel to the target line as this will encourage you to swing the club down the target line and not across it, promoting pure backspin and not slice side spin.

Keep your posture angles nice and engaged as stranding slumped is a sure way to hit bad shots!!

I also like to feel that I am stretching out towards the ball a little with my arms as this lowers the shaft a little and helps create the soft swing arc required to play these shots well.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

Mark

Mark Wood Golf Academy
Dale Hill hotel & golf club
East Sussex

 

Fairway Bunker Shots

THE FAIRWAY BUNKER SHOT

Escape the sand and play these shots like the pro’s…

Fairway bunker shots can be very intimidating for many golfers, but if you learn and practise the right techniques you will soon enjoy these shots. To start with, when playing out of fairway bunkers, it is important to take one to two clubs more than normal and make sure you have enough loft on the chosen club to clear the lip of the bunker. Set up normally with your feet slightly wriggled into the sand for stability and the ball positioned more toward the middle of your stance. Next step, which is very important, grip down slightly on the club for greater control. By also lifting your chin up a little from your chest gives you the feeling of standing “tall” and increases the chance of hitting the ball first, which if you are going to be successful at this shot, it’s a must. Making a swing at 70 percent of your normal speed will give you a great chance of hitting a clean, solid shot.

So, Hitting a shot from a fairway bunker poses no great problem if the ball has a good lie.

On long fairway bunker shots, Rescue (Hybrid) clubs or middle irons as well as 5 and 7 woods can be used with great confidence in this situation. Don’t try to overpower this shot. Restrict your golf swing a little via your body turn and swing easy and in balance.

With a bad lie in the bunker you need to re think and play more of a percentage shot, choose the club you are confident with, from say a 7 iron upwards. Take note of any other trouble and look to get the ball back into the fairway. Observe the course. Aim for a safe part of the fairway and just get your ball back into play.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

Mark

Mark Wood Golf Academy
Dale Hill hotel & golf club
East Sussex