How to play greenside bunker shots
GENERAL GREENSIDE BUNKER TIPs
While average golfers curse their luck when the little white ball kicks off-line down the fairway and pops into a bunker, most tournament professionals shrug their shoulders. To them, the ball is in a position for an attacking shot. Bunkers can be fearsome, like the infamous ‘Hell Bunker’ guarding the 14th green on St Andrews Old Course, or ‘Hell’s Half-acre’ the biggest bunker in the world, at the 7th at Pine Valley, New Jersey; or they can be shallow traps laid well down the fairway to catch the wayward tiger-line drivers. Not only are they all shapes and sizes, but the sand within them sometimes differs even around the same course. To discover what you have to beat, you need to be in the bunker getting the feel through your feet.
But before you ever go into a sand bunker at all, there are two rules that you must always remember. The first is that you may only ground the club in striking the shot. If you touch the sand while in the address position or in the course of the backswing you will be penalized. When addressing the ball therefore, make sure that your clubhead is clear of the sand. It is better to hold it three inches (75 mm) above the ball at the address position than 1/is inch (1.5 mm) too low.
The second thing to remember is that when you have played your shot out of the bunker, always rake the sand flat, both where you have played the shot and where you have made foot marks walking in to play the shot. However, this carries no penalty, unless a golf club committee has made a local rule.
One other thing worth mentioning is that when you are taking your stance in a bunker to address the ball, you are allowed to twist your feet into the sand. This will give you a good solid base from which to start your swing, and it will give you an idea of the depth and texture of the sand in the bunker.
The club for bunker play is, not unnaturally, the sand wedge, which is designed with three outstanding features: it is the heaviest club, which helps when striking down and into the sand; it has the greatest loft of all golf clubs to help lift the sand and ball up and away; and it has a flange which will level off the clubhead as it travels under the ball.
