HOW TO PLAY A GREENSIDE BUNKER SHOT 

Thanks Jerome 👍

Thanks 🙌

Thanks Roger 👍

Thanks Jacob

+Steven Murata thanks Steven

Yup that’s me

one of reasons that keeps my score high

Ye average is 46 and below went to play today 6 shot where taken for not getting out and ended up getting a 51

I just watched 3 different videos and all 3 guys said something totally different. No wonder I'm screwed.😂

@@danielives379 yeah man, I’m a 10 handicap. On the cusp of breaking 80 all the time. And I’m so inconsistent In the green sides. Sucks. But I’m getting better. Keep the weight forward. And trust it. Inch behind the ball. Loose hands , open the face a little.

Thanks Roby 👍👍

Thanks Will 👍👍

Hey Chris, I tried it today.....it bloody works!

Not to forget the forward placement of the ball

+demco84 really glad it helped, it's not easy trying to remember everything in set up and swing. 👍

Same here with gripping then rotating

benjamin pham '

Thanks Sam, appreciate the comments and glad your enjoy the vids 👍

Hi Jim, definitely ensure that you set your feet well into the sand, then focus on the sand where you want the club to strike 👍

Scatter Gunpaul u should open ur stance until ur clubface points to the pin, exactly Like u say. Ryan is Also to the right off the pin each shot since He dont open enough. Atleast Thats what other videos and the Pro in my club says too. But good detailed video on stance etc. I learned something apart from the alignment. Nice video.

+Scatter Gunpaul hi, glad you like the video. Yes a little experience helps and just plenty of practice. The ball will generally start closer to the path that the club takes provided the technique is sound. I would always open the stance a little, just not loads 👍

Really pleased with the results in practice today. Thanks Chris. Balls popped up to land softly. About 5/8 makable putts on average which is good for me and didn't leave one in the bunker. Best results from making sure that I ignored the intended ball path and concentrated on swinging down the target line of the open feet. As expected, allowing the club to overtake hands was difficult but concentrating on keeping connected in the downswing before this helped. Once again thank you Chris.

I mentioned in an earlier comment that the consensus, generally, with short-game is a hip to hip rotation of the clubface. Even though he holds on to the club and doesn't let it turn over in the video (to get power and height under the ball), he still swings hip-to-hip, or around. Aiming the face at the target you're setting yourself up for inconsistency. The swing tends to be inside to out and you won't get the needed power to hit behind the ball. As far as opening your stance, it all depends on the sand and lie. If your plugged or lying on an uphill slope the clubface is going to be more closed to a natural position and your feet should aim at the target. from a standard, flat lie the more you open your feet the more you are setting up for a flop sand shot. Under these circumstances, the more you open your stance, the more you need to split the line between face and stance, but with a sweeping, hip-to-hip swing of the club, the ball will almost always come up on a line closer to your aimed stance than that of the face. The face isn't irrelevant, it's important, but stance aim is more important and you have to learn a feel for the division of the two with the stance aim being dominant. Cheers!

Note Chris is totally right in that the ball takes off in the path of the club just keep in mind the words "path of the club". Its not "aim of the clubface".

Chris, Looking for your comment and not the banter and name calling as shown below from a year ago!

Exactly. Its the bounce/sole of the club that should sweep underneath the ball. When playing a standard sand shot. The bounce provides the power and angle which then, in turn, lets the ball roll off the face and take the loft up and land softly.

I do also think that players get a bit nervous letting the bounce swipe under with power which lends credence to the failure in execution that you see. The difference between half an inch and an inch behind the ball in those conditions could very well be on or off the green, so a lot of it comes down to practice and confidence.

Thanks Xavier appreciate that 👍

Same I like putting my ball a bit more in the front too

This instruction is stupid! Why must hitting a ball out of the bunker be any different from a fairway pitch or chip shot when the ball is sitting up on top of the sand instead of half-buried? Why the hell is it necessary to hit fat behind the ball and scoop up all that sand even though the ball isn't plugged? There's absolutely nothing behind the ball to prevent the clubface from making clean full contact with it. Pitching and chipping the ball out of the bunker allows for much better control and accuracy. Using the club's normal loft, just hit the ball high with a normal pitch shot, or hit it lower with a normal chip shot depending on the bunker's lip height. Only when the ball is buried do you need to do something this extreme and easy to screw up like severely opening the clubface and hitting fat behind the ball in order to dig it out from underneath the sand. You golf instructors are making things way harder than necessary for your naive paying customers... or is that done on purpose to keep them coming back for endless lessons?

You don't even qualify to be called idiot. Sand absorbs more energy than firm turf. This is why PROFESSIONALS don't chip out of bunkers. Unless you're on tour, which obviously you aren't because you're on RU-vid saying stupid stuff like you just did, you have zero room to talk about your ridiculous approach to bunker shots.

@xxthadouche. Going by your moronic theory, explain to us how the pros are able to hit long distances out of a fairway bunker by picking the ball clean without hitting it fat behind the ball using a hybrid club then, genius? Why did they deem it UNNECESSARY to hit fat into the sand behind the ball in this shot? How is the lie of an unburied ball sitting up in the middle of a fairway-bunker any different than one sitting up similarly in a greenside-bunker?

Because they hit the ball shallow. They sweep it out of the bunker which is easier because of the reduced loft on the club. Hitting a ball 10-15 yards is much different than hitting a ball 100 yards. When was the last time you saw a pro pick a ball out of a greenside bunker? But even better, when was the last time you heard Butch Harmon or any Top 100 teaching pro instruct someone to pick a ball out of a greenside bunker? You think you know better than they do? If so, why has NO ONE ever heard of your teachings? And yes I am a genius compared to you. Thanks for noticing.

@xxthadouche. "They sweep it out of the bunker which is easier because of the reduced loft on the club." From your weak nonsensical argument, it looks to me like you're admitting that hitting fat into the sand behind the ball to get it out of the bunker is NOT necessary. Hitting the ball first instead of sand first is the correct way to get an unburied ball out of the sand then you say? Correctamundo! Good boy, Rover! Here's a doggie treat!

Hey Ian, I’m sure there is some amount through the ball but the less the better for these shots

Let me say I love hitting high loft out of the sand, but your question kind of answered itself; too much loft is too much loft haha. But to throw out my two cents, If you only rely on a 60 or higher out of the sand you're not choosing a club that is versatile to every bunker shot. You can easily add loft to a 54-56-58, but you can't take loft from a 60-64 unless you are specifically punching it out, either on an uphill slope or away from the green. Hitting 60 or higher also increases the chance of hitting it fat because of the lack of power behind a slightly lower loft. Or, if you have a downslope shot, one might assume more loft would help, but it might just hurt you. A 56 has way more power behind the ball and a downslope shot is a powerful flop out of the sand, and in that scenario, you're matching your stance and shoulders with the downslope and have to really accelerate down into the sand with an uncomfortably open face for most golfers. Open the face of a 60 to what you need to for a steep downslope shot and you're asking for a shank because there is such a thing as gripping the club too open, especially with that high of a loft, and to hit that shot you need to open the face to an almost absurd amount. Back to the power issue, it's extremely common to not be getting through the sand to the ball with enough power to clear the bunker, even with a standard lie for the average golfer. If you take a steep angle of attack, properly align your stance and shoulders, a 56 has plenty of loft when opened correctly with added power on that downslope. You're basically hitting a hard hard downslope flop-shot. And for the average golfer, I would assume its a much more comfortable setup knowing you have the power to get under the ball. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of instances where a 60 would suit a similar downslope shot, especially if your playing in really light and soft sand, and like I said, I play a 60 out of the sand all the time, but overall, a 56 covers all your bases. I ONLY use my 60 when I know I have a really suitable lie that I can finesse-spin and attack the pin with a high shot. If I'm forced to play a short-runout shot I'm taking my 56, because I don't want it to check up, or worse, spin. Simply, a beginner-intermediate golfer could and should play a 56, or close to, in the bunker, and in my opinion around the greens as well, because at that skill level you also have to factor the need for more clubs to fill distance gaps. A 56 is a much better approach wedge than a 60 which is prone to skulled shots and chunks. Beginners have ball-striking issues, distance issues, putting issues, and the last clubs they need are clubs for specific and highly-skilled finesse short-game shots. There's nothing wrong with more loft, it's just more practical to carry a 56 and maybe an extra utility iron/fairway wood or gap wedge to fill the distance gaps that a regular golfer would benefit from due to a lack of consistency trying to control their overal game.

With too much *club* loft, it means you wouldn't be able to open the face as much as you want (about 45*). When you open the face, it increases the amount of "bounce" the club has, which means the club won't dig into the sand as much as it normally would. So if the club face has too much loft, then you can't open the face as much, which means you won't have as much bounce as you want.