How To Play a Fairway Bunker Shot

We all know that modern day equipment, as well as the modern day players, are hitting the ball farther than ever.  As a result, the recent trend in designing new golf courses is to place more and more fairway bunkers because it is difficult to keep making the courses longer.  Even the older course are following and adding new bunkers to their original design to create more of a challenge from the tee shot; as well, fairway bunkers help the image of a hole.  All of this means that you need to know how to recover from a fairway bunker more than ever!
Regular lie – What I mean by this is when your ball finishes in the middle of the bunker, on a flat lie, with the ball sitting nicely on top of the sand.

• Start by gripping a little shorter on the club – there are a couple of reasons for this.

1) By gripping shorter, it will encourage your miss shot to be slightly thin, which is better than a heavy shot for a fairway bunker.  A thin shot will still travel 80% – 90% of the total distance, where as a heavy shot from a bunker might only go 10% of the total distance.

2) The bottom part of the grip is thinner.  This will allow you to cock your wrist on the backswing more than normal.  The more you can use your hands and arms in a fairway bunker shot, the more stable you can keep you body, which will increase consistency of impact.

Wiggle your feet into the sand and place the ball in the middle of your stance.  This ball position is a little more to the right than normal, which will encourage a ball first contact.  This is another reason why gripping shorter is necessary.  As you wiggle your feet into the sand, you will lower your body relative to the ground, and a normal set up position, gripping shorter, will counter balance this.

• In the swing, keep your body as stable as possible, feeling a more hands and arms swing.
• Stay down and do not try and lift the ball in the air.

Poor lie – It is very rare that the ball will sit perfectly on top of the sand.  Many times, part of the ball will sit just under the top of the surface, as the weight of the ball pushes into the sand in soft dry sand conditions.  In this situation, making a normal regular lie bunker shot swing will not result in good contact.

Firstly, understand the type of impact you need to create solid contact.  The angle of attack needs to be steeper into the back of the ball to ensure that you can create a ball first contact.

To create this type of impact, you will need to change your address position and swing slightly from a normal regular lie.

• Place more weight on your left foot by tilting your spine towards the target.  Your left shoulder should feel lower – how much will depend upon how much the ball is sitting below the surface of the sand.
• In your backswing, pick the club up on a steeper plane so that in the downswing you can come down on a steeper angle, creating more of a descending impact.
• Because of the steeper backswing plane and impact position,  it will create a left to right ball flight – how much will depend upon how bad the lie is and how steep you make your swing.  Adjust your alignment by aiming slightly left of where you want the ball to finish.

Part 2 will be published on Sunday 18th June.  It will cover how to play from the 4 corners of the fairway bunker.