Long Bunker Shot Technique

The long bunker shot.  It’s one of the most difficult shots in golf and probably after watching this video, you’ll still find the shot difficult. It really is one of these situations you wanna stay away from if at all possible. There’s only two categories of golfers with the long bunker shot; players who play the shot badly, and players who play this shot OK or well. There’s virtually nobody who is an expert at this shot who is getting up and down a high percentage of the time. Now, what I see with players who play this shot badly is they use the leading edge of the club with a steep swing, taking a deep cut of sand. It’s a dangerous way to play this shot. Because you’re taking a deep cut of sand, let’s say you hit two or three inches behind the ball, where you want to contact the sand, giving yourself a little margin for error. Because there’s so much sand between the club face and the ball, you can’t get the forward momentum.  Perhaps the ball doesn’t get out of the bunker.  If it does, you’ve still got a huge putt.

Now, because you’re not getting the distance, you’ll start to have to hit closer to the ball, and that’s when the danger of hitting the ball first comes into play. The ball takes over the other side of the green. That’s when you start making double-bogeys. Players who play this shot well will use the bounce of the club. They’ll create a shallow swing, taking a thin cut of sand. Because they’re taking a thin cut of sand, they’re going to hit two or three inches behind the ball. Because there’s not that much sand between the ball and the club face, they can get the required distance. They’ve got that margin for error, but they can still get the distance.

So my tip for taking that thin cut of sand, which is really the key to playing a long bunker shot well, is to stand square at setup, opening the face a little bit. One of the biggest mistakes I see players make is closing the face, thinking that’s going to get more distance, only resulting in the leading edge digging into the sand. So keep the club face a little open, and then try to make the splash of sand travel to the right side of the pin. In doing that, you’ll naturally swing the club a little more around your body on a flatter plane, shallowing out your swing, and that’s what’s going to give you that thin shallow cut of sand.