Sand Play

Usually the typical green bunker shot which I know (at least the theory) is to open face, and hit the ball 1-2 inches behind.

But sometime back and thru Golfchnanel, I noticed that there is one or 2 golfers where they actuall close the face and kind of sweep it thru fm green bunker


Anybody is doing that? and is there any benefit of doing that?

Reason for asking, my greenside bunker game pretty suck...so toying with other technique.

oh boy, this is a topic i can appreciate... thanks duval for asking something i should have asked a long time ago...

There is a dvd that you can look at. ISBN AV 796.352 MEN -[REC] from NLB. Title is Men's Golf Instruction with Wally Armstrong & Friends. It show many trouble shots from different types of bunker as well as other spots.

btw, where is a good place to practise sand play?

personally so please try it out first and don't see which one works for you

1. deep bunker soft sand (think marina bay). I'll go with something above 54 and open the club face AND stance. Ball forward and hit 1-2 cm behind ball the ball flight will follow the club face, the open body stance will make sure the club goes from inside to outside swing path (don't worry about this just do your normal swing it's automatically should be like that).

2. Deep bunker hard sand (after rain etc). I'll go with open stance still and hit clean on the ball.

3. Plucked ball / ball lie is crap. I'll go with normal stance and close club face on wedges.

4. shallow bunker. I'll just hit it as if it's a fairway wood swing / long iron. focus on maintaining stable lower body balance.

yeah.. i know lots of crap, but that's what I did.

My best technique is actually avoid getting into the bunker in the first place

An open club face exposes the bounce preventing the club from digging into the sand as you play the explosion shot. A squared club face can dig into the sand and is useful when you have a less than perfect lie in the sand eg plugged ball. The ball that comes out from such a shot tends to be a low runner. It all depends on what kind of shot you are trying to make.

you can open/close clubface, position the ball more to left/right foot, bottom of your swing, amount of swing...

For me when in greenside bunker, usually I aim to have the bottom of my swing behind the ball... unless I need more distance, I will have the bottom of the swing infront of the ball... to open the face or not will depend on how much green for the ball to release to the hole... same for the position of the ball.

end of the day, the swing tat get the ball near the hole is the swing you should use... there are so many ways to get the ball out of the bunker.. you can even use a putter if the condition is favorable.

there is something I read also from a magazine for plucked ball near green with little area to roll.
The problem with close club is trajectory will be lower and the ball will come out from the bunker hot and hard to stop.

The technique is to still use open club and stance but instead of a wide swing, use a steep swing to dig the ball out with the open club. I haven't tried this out and to be honest not really sure how this will turned out. I'll try this out on the next game.

Happy digging.. !

thanks for the advice guys... its really helpful... i hope it will help my pathetic bunker shots come next round...