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BUNKERS
MAKE IT SIMPLE
Butch Harmon on mastering the short-sided bunker shot
24 days ago
By Butch Harmon
BUNKERS
Michael Breed's quick tips to hitting it flush from fairway bunkers
32 days ago
By Michael Breed
EASY OUTS
Add more control to your bunker play. With David Leadbetter
36 days ago
David Leadbetter
GIMME ONE THING
Quick tips for hitting one of golf's toughest bunker shots
Of all the tough lies you can get in a greenside bunker, perhaps the worst is when your ball comes to rest so close to the edge, you can’t stand with both feet in the sand. It’s a tough shot, but not…
PLAY YOUR BEST
Try This To Splash It Out And Land It Close
Greenside bunkers are not happy places for most golfers. Chunks, skulls, shanks—a lot of bad shots can be traced to a faulty setup, usually with the ball too far back and the hands too far forward. That leads to…
GREENSIDE GURU
A Bunker Swing You Can Rely On
Madelene Sagstrom of Sweden had her biggest breakthrough in her first LPGA Tour event of 2020, winning the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio. Sagstrom joined the LPGA Tour in 2017 after one of the most successful seasons on…
BEST YOUNG TEACHERS
Control Is key to success In fairway sand. With Mike Sweeney
Fairway bunkers don’t have to be intimidating. To recover from here, all you need to do is adjust your setup, make a balanced-and-smooth swing, and hit the ball before your club makes contact with the sand. Let…
LESSONS FROM THE PROS
What you can actually learn from watching golf on TV
Yes, tour players are way more talented than you are, and they do things physically you can only dream about. And yes, the angles they show on television might not always provide the most technically relevant look at a…
BUNKERS
Bunker shots shouldn’t feel like hard work. With Luke Donald
Greenside bunkers have always been one of my favourite places to be on a golf course. As a kid, I pretended to be Seve Ballesteros and would try to get the ball out of all kinds of difficult lies in the sand. It was…
BUNKER GAME
Upgrade your sand game. It takes some practice, but not a lot
If you were to strap a heart-rate monitor onto a tour pro’s body, you’d barely see an uptick on the display when a shot hits the sand. That’s because better players know bunker shots are easy to…
STRESS-FREE SAND PLAY
The No-Practice Bunker Solution
I play a lot of golf with my students, and I watch them closely when their ball is heading toward a bunker. Their reactions range from simple inquiry ("Did I make the sand?") to panic ("Did it stay out?") to the grim…
BUNKER PLAY
The first step in fairway-bunker play: Clearing the lip. With Scott Chisholm
You've run down the fairway-bunker checklist in your head—take an extra club, dig into the sand with your feet, grip down on the handle, aim a little right of the target—all the things you've been…
WET BUNKERS
How Do I Get Out of Wet Sand? With Jim McLean
Playing on a course after a big soaker presents all kinds of challenges—thick rough, mud balls, slower greens, etc.—and one that bothers many is a bunker with firm, packed sand. Too often, golfers…
TOUR TECHNIQUE
Escape Any Bunker: How To Get Over A High Lip
This might go against your instinct when you're in a bunker with a high lip, but the last thing you want to do is try to help the ball over the lip. When you try to force it up and over, it almost always comes out…
GREENSIDE GURU
A bunker swing you can rely on. With Keely Levins
Madelene Sagstrom of Sweden joined the LPGA Tour and had four top 10s in her rookie campaign. Known to be a good driver and solid putter, Sagstrom, might be at her best in greenside bunkers. Here are her smart (and…
STRESS-FREE SAND PLAY
The no-practice bunker solution. With Will Robins
I play a lot of golf with my students, and I watch them closely when their ball is heading toward a bunker. Their reactions range from simple inquiry ("Did I make the sand?") to panic ("Did it stay out?") to the grim…
UNPLUGGED
Ball buried on the upslope? You need speed. With David Leadbetter
One of the most difficult lies you can get in a greenside bunker is when the ball embeds a little into the upslope, like the PGA Tour's Patrick Reed faced here. This is especially true if the sand is soft. It's…
SEARCH AND RESCUE
Momentum savers: Two deft shots to keep your round going
You're going along playing well, and then the wheels start to rattle. You hit some loose shots and three-putt once or twice, and now it feels like another mistake will end your round. You can tell yourself to stay…
GOLF MADE SIMPLE
Get long bunker shots to the hole with David Leadbetter
Long greenside bunker shots, more than 20 yards, can prove troublesome if you try to play them similar to a shorter bunker shot. Simply taking your regular sand club—a 60- or 56-degree wedge—and making a…
BEGINNER BASICS
Bunker Shots are the Easiest Shots on the Course
Golf instructor Will Robins says bunker shots are the easiest shots because there’s more room for error in a bunker shot than any other shot on the course. Think about it: Where else can you hit a few inches…
TOUR TECHNIQUE
Sand Secrets From The Bunker Queen
My caddie on the LPGA Tour calls me the "Bunker Queen," so I guess you came to the right place for some tips to get out of the sand. One of my favourite drills teaches you how to use wrist action to produce good…
BUNKER STRATEGY
Simple Tips To Get Out Of Any Fairway Bunker
A lot of golfers think hitting it into a fairway bunker is a sentence to a big number. But that doesn't have to be the case. No matter whether your ball is up against the lip, on a downhill slope, or resting in the…
PLAY YOUR BEST
Try my game plan to escape the sand
My technique in greenside bunkers comes courtesy of Butch Harmon. With his advice over the years, I've boiled this shot down to a few easy steps that make getting out of the sand routine for me. I'll share them with…
THE LEADING EDGE
The three things you need to escape the sand
Here's your greenside sand lesson in two words: speed and bounce. Splashing a ball out of a bunker takes more power than you might think—that's the speed part. And to use that speed effectively, the club has to…
BUNKER PLAY
Bunker shots shouldn’t feel like hard work
Greenside bunkers have always been one of my favourite places to be on a golf course. As a kid, I pretended to be Seve Ballesteros and would try to get the ball out of all kinds of difficult lies in the sand. It was fun,…
TOUR TECHNIQUE
Escape Any Bunker: How To Get Over A High Lip
This might go against your instinct when you're in a bunker with a high lip, but the last thing you want to do is try to help the ball over the lip. When you try to force it up and over, it almost always comes out…
SAND SAVIOUR
Ariya Jutanugarn's bunker technique helped major titles
Ariya Jutanugarn was on her way to the worst collapse in major-championship history, blowing a seven-shot lead on the back nine of the final round of the U.S. Women's Open in June. She needed something good to…
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