Most golfers hate landing in a bunker—greenside or otherwise. But there are few exacting shots when it comes to greenside bunkers. The worst is probably the “fried egg,” where the ball is buried deeply in the sand. The others are not as demanding. Yet week-end golfers often have huge problems escaping greenside bunkers, adding strokes to their golf handicaps. For many students taking our golf lessons, escaping a greenside bunker is the weakest part of their games. Part of this is confidence. Since weekend golfers don’t practice this shot often, they lack the confidence needed to hit the shot well.

The other part is that they fail to make the right adjustments in their stances and swings. That can cost you strokes. Many weekend golfers, for instance, try to dig the ball out of the sand with a sand wedge. This leads to fat shots that don’t leave the sand. The basics of the sand shot are relatively straightforward. Once you’ve mastered them, you’ll have few problems hitting from a greenside bunker. If you’re serious about knocking strokes off your golf handicap, you must master the basics of sand play. Below are some golf tips that will help you do that.

Most Common Mistake

The most common mistake weekend golfers make in bunker play is positioning the ball too far back in their stance. We see it all the time with players who take our golf lessons. They position the ball in the middle of their stances or sometimes even a little farther back. That’s too far back when you have a good lie in the bunker. A good lie in a bunker is one that has the ball sitting nicely on top of the sand without much of a depression. Playing the ball too far back creates a steep angle of attack and often leads to far shots.

With a good lie you should position the ball off your left heel and open the clubface slightly. This eliminates the need to purposely try and hit behind the ball. Also, open your stance a bit, but not too much. And don’t try altering your backswing by taking the club up too steeply. Instead, take a normal but slightly open stance and focus on a good amount of speed as the club approaches and passes through impact. You want to accele-rate through the ball on this shot. Deceleration kills the shot.

Another common mistake we see in our golf instruction sessions is hanging back behind the ball. Doing so forces the club to bottom out too soon, leading to fat and thin shots. Instead try for a more shallow swing plane and “slap” the ground. If your ball comes to rest in a bunker with fluffy sand, open the clubface a bit more. But don’t open it too much. It can confuse your aiming point and promote shanking.

Playing Bad Lies

A bad lie in a greenside bunker is a lie where the ball is buried deep in the sand. This is among the most dreaded shots in golf. That’s because most weekend golfers fail to make the right adjustments. Students in our golf lessons tend to open the clubface too much when making this shot. Instead, shift your weight more forward a little more, creating a steeper angle of attack, and hit down on the ball a bit more. In addition, close the clubface so it digs more into the sand. You never want to make contact with the ball in a greenside bunker. You want the ball to ride the sand out.

Some players in our golf lessons find the club bottoming out too soon with this approach, causing them to shank. If you find yourself doing this, shift your weight back a bit. You want to have about 60 percent of your weight on your back foot. Shots hit from a buried lie don’t spin as much as shots from a good lie. Plan for some release once your ball hits the ground. As with good lies, take a full swing through impact.

Hitting from a greenside bunker is easier than you think. But you must develop confi-dence in the shot and you must make the right adjustments in your stance and swing. These depend on whether you have a good lie or a bad lie. You also have to accelerate through the shot. Deceleration kills the shot. Needless to say, players who want to cut their golf handicaps down to single digits must master bunker play. It will save dozens of shots over the course of a season.

The perpetuation of golf myths often leads to inconsistency and injuries. It also plays ha-voc with your game and golf handicap. But swinging the golf club the way the body is designed to move improves consistency and limits injuries. Understanding why these myths are wrong is the key to swinging the club the way the body moves. Understanding how to fix them cuts strokes from your scores and, ultimately, whittles down your golf handicap.

The five myths covered below are among the most popular—and the most deadly to your game. Where possible, we’ve provided golf tips gleaned from our golf instruction ses-sions on how to correct the myth along with drills to help correct the problem.

Starting The Backswing

One popular myth says to start the backswing with your left shoulder (right shoulder for lefties). Beginning the swing this way creates two faults: It limits shoulder rotation and causes the club to get “inside” or “behind” your body. These faults hamper your power and consistency. Instead start the swing with your right shoulder. Doing so keeps the hands in front of the chest and assures a full shoulder turn. More important, it keeps the body connected.

Drill: Cross your arms in front of you. Lift your elbows and arms away from you until they’re parallel to the ground. Rotate your left shoulder to your chin. Return to the begin-ning and rotate your right shoulder to your chin. Notice how much easier it is to rotate the upper body when your start with your right shoulder.

Keep The Left Arm Straight

This is a classic myth we often see executed in our golf lessons. Trying to keep your left arm (right for lefties) straight leads to limited range of motion, poor weight transfer, and a lack of power. It also encourages the right shoulder to dip on the downswing. Correcting this fault is easy. Just maintain the natural bend in your left arm (right for lefties). This allows the shoulders to complete the backswing, eliminates dipping or lifting, and lets the chest rotate fully for a full release at impact.

Drill: Take your address position. Now take the club up until it rests on your back shoul-der. Complete the backswing so that your upper body is behind the ball. This is the cor-rect position at the top of your swing. Lift the club off your shoulder, make your swing and hit the ball.

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How To Break 80 Newsletter

November 11, 2011

"The Web's Most Popular Golf Improvement Newsletter"
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In this issue we'll discuss...

1) Tip: Avoiding The Lift And Dip
2) Tip: Hit Sweet Spot To Drain More Putts
3) Question: Chipping To A Close Pin
4) Article: Five Golf Tips To Sink More Putts
5) Article: Scoring From 100 Yards And In

Trouble viewing links? Your browser may be the issue. We recommend using the Firefox browser. Click Here To Download. Some email clients also distort links: try to copy and paste web urls directly in your browser, or turn on images for emails.

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1) Avoiding The Lift And Dip
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If you’re hitting fat a lot lately, you may be “lifting and dipping.” Golfers with this swing flaw feel the need to raise the club high on their backswing, only to dip the body as they lower the club during the downswing. Some golfers commit the opposite fault—the dip and lift, in which golfers dip on the backswing and then lift on the downswing. This flaw can cause golfers to hit thin shots. Committing either swing fault spells trouble.

Below are five tips on avoiding these swing faults:

• Keep your head still throughout
• Use your body correctly
• Move the arms up as body turns
• Maintain your spine angle
• Stay flexed throughout the swing

The key to eliminating the lift and dip (or dip and lift) is to keep your head still. If you watch tour players swing, you’ll see they keep their heads stationary throughout the swing. Occasionally, their heads may move a little from side to side, but not up and down. Any up and down motion—slight as it is—comes from their bodies during the swing not their arms and hands.

Instead of lifting and dipping, move your arms up simultaneously as your body begins to turn and you rotate away from the ball. This move will put you into the proper position at the top of the swing as opposed to just lifting your arms and hands with no rotation.

With some tour players you’ll see them momentarily dip their heads, but it’s not the kind of dip you think. It’s only momentary and its designed to help them leverage their lower bodies against the ground. But these are the best players in the world. They can some-times do things weekend golfers can’t. Plus, the pros maintain their spine angle and stay flexed throughout the swing.

If you’re hitting thin and fat shots, you could be lifting and dipping or dipping and lifting. Keep your head still through out your swing and rotate your hands and arms simultaneously as your body begins to turn into the backswing. These changes will help eliminate fat and thin shots.

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2) Hit Sweet Spot To Drain More Putts
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Most golfers change focus when hitting long and short putts. With long putts, golfers fo-cus on hitting the ball solid. They need to to get it close to the hole. But on short putts golfers focus on distance and direction. Unfortunately, if you become too focused on these distance and direction you can miss the sweet spot on your putter. That can cost you.

You want to hit the ball on the putter’s sweet spot. Hitting it there affects both distance and direction. Putts hit on the club’s toe or its heel often end up short whereas putts hit on the sweet spot almost always reach the hole. Balls hit on the toe or the heel also tend to stray offline, even though the putterface is still square to the target line. That can cause you to miss short and mid-length putts.

Many putters are imperfectly weighted, so your sweet spot might be left or right of center on your putter Here’s an exercise from Golf.com to help you find the sweet spot on your putter:

Finding The Sweet Spot

Dangle your putter halfway up the shaft. Take a tee and start tapping the face on the toe, which causes it to twist going back. Tap your way to the center. The closer you get to the center, the less twisting you'll see. When you tap your putter and the toe and heel swing back in perfect sync, that's your sweet spot.

Hitting a putt solid is critical for making putts of any length but especially for short and mid-length putts. So if you’re missing a lot of these putts, focus on hitting the ball solid instead of where it’s going. It could make a big difference in your putting.

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3) Chipping To A Close Pin
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Q.

One of my worst shots is a chip to a pin that's only 5-10 feet away on the green. I either chunk it and leave it still in the rough or I skull it across the green. Any suggestions?

Bob Gilly

A.

Thanks for the question, Bob. Short chips can cost you strokes, if you’re not careful. But you could try hitting a short check-up shot when the pin is so close. The keys to this shot are maintaining focus and making solid contact. You want to land the ball softly, check up, and then release. And you don’t have much room to do it in.

The club of choice for the check-up is your 60-degree wedge. Open the clubface slightly and play the ball off your back foot. Playing it back guarantees that you’ll not only deliver a descending blow but also make solid contact. The open face adds loft and spin.

The swing is straightforward. Use a simple arm motion back and through. Avoid hinging your wrist. And aim to land the ball on the green. If all goes well the ball will grab on the second bounce and creep down to the hole, just the way you want.

Practice the check-up shot to master the shot’s mechanics and build confidence. Then take it to the course.

If you've got a golf question you'd like
answered, send an email to us at questions@howtobreak80.com
and we'll review it. I can't guarantee that we'll use it but if we do,
we'll make sure to include your name and where you're from.

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If you want to truly discover the secrets of shooting like the Pros and creating a more reliable and consistent swing, check out: http://www.HowToBreak80.com

Also, for past issues of this newsletter and some of my most recent
articles, visit our blog at www.HowToBreak80.com/blog

Click here to view this newsletter on the web

Here are some of my recent articles:

4) Article: Five Golf Tips To Sink More Putts
...improve your putting without ever visiting the practice green...

5) Article: Scoring From 100 Yards And In
...most short game shots are “in between” shots. That’s a problem. It’s much easier to make a full swing shot than a shot where you’re in between clubs...

Until next time,

Go Low!

Jack

P.S. Feel free to share this newsletter with family and friends. If you would like to subscribe to this newsletter, go to http://www.howtobreak80.com/newsletter.htm

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About the Author
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Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book "How To Break 80 and Shoot Like the Pros!". He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicaps quickly. His free weekly newsletter goes out to thousands of golfers worldwide and provides the latest golf tips, strategies, techniques and instruction on how to improve your golf game.

Developing a solid short game is a must if you want to shave strokes off your golf handi-cap. As we’ve often said in our golf tips newsletter, a good pitch or chip from 100 yards and in turns three (or more) strokes into two. These saved strokes add up over the course of a round and can dramatically lower your golf handicap. But most short game shots are “in between” shots. That’s a problem. It’s much easier to make a full swing shot than a shot where you’re in between clubs.

Distance Control Is Key

The key to making these short-game shots is distance control with your wedges. Some players like to control distance by “feel.” But that can be difficult to do. An easier ap-proach is to control distance mechanically. You can do that by controlling the length of your swing. It’s the length of the swing with consistent tempo that creates the desired shot distance. If you can master this method, you’ll be able to dial in your shots from 100 yards and in, saving strokes.

Many players who have trouble controlling distance have two major flaws. They have a backswing and downswing that are not the same length and a swing tempo that varies significantly from shot to shot. Both are killers when it comes to distance control. Both are also the result of trying to hit shots with “feel” only. This method might work for Tour players, but its extremely difficult for weekend golfers to master. And judging from what we see in our golf lessons, few do. What’s needed is method that eliminates feel from the shot.

A Proven Method

A proven method for controlling distance involves three components: 1) where to place your hands on the club, 2) the width of your stance, and 3) the length of the swing. Each component contributes equally to controlling distance. Each changes based on the length of the shot. The method works well for many golfers because it is simple and easy to execute.

For example, if you were half the normal distance of a full wedge shot, your stance would be wide but not as wide as for a full wedge shot, and you’d choke down a couple of inches on the club. Your swing length would be shoulder height on both the backswing and downswing. These components would change if you had a shot that was 20 percent of a full-wedge shot. Your hands would be placed almost at the bottom of the grip, your stance would be narrow, and your swing would be short, both in the backswing and the downswing.

Keys To Method

One key to executing this method is that you must maintain a consistent tempo through-out your swing. Golfers at our golf lessons that often have a hard time achieving a consis-tent swing tempo. One way to overcome this is with a metronome. A metronome is a de-vice used in music to mark time. It’s a great way to train yourself to swing with a repeat-able tempo. When training yourself to do this, make a concerted effort to rotate your body all the way through to the finish while letting your arms and hands follow. This creates a smoother “connected” motion.

A second key to this method is to determine how far you hit the ball with each setup and swing length. That’s easily accomplished by going to the range or an empty field where you have plenty of room and hitting balls using the different setups and swing lengths. Once you learned the distance for each setup and swing length, you’re ready to dial in short game shots from any distance.

Developing a good short game is among the fastest way to chop strokes off your golf handicap. A good short game saves tons of strokes. One way to hit accurate short game shots is through feel. But this method is hard to master for weekend golfers. A simpler and better approach is the method described above. It enables you to control distance me-chanically and eliminates inconsistency. Once you’ve achieved these goals, your short game will take off.