I'm at Bali National Golf Club. This is hole number one,
I've hit it into the bunker in front of the green.
You can see what I've got in front of me. I've got a really steep bunk.
Pin's pretty close to the edge of the green.
And the sand is really soft here. Fortunately,
the ball's bounced onto the top of the sand. That's great,
but I have a problem that a lot of people have,
and that is with really soft sand and a deep bunker. What do you do?
How do you play that shot?
And this is advice for advanced level players all the way back through the game,
because a lot of people have problems with it.
Pretty soon we're going to focus on two things here. We're going to focus on:
sand iron have
bounce on the bottom,
which means you've got a leading edge of a golf club and you got to trail edge;
the back edge of the club and the front edge of the club. And in the sand iron,
generally they are designed where the back edge sits a little bit lower than the
front edge, but we need to emphasize that.
So it doesn't matter how much you've got there.
We're going to get more by opening the clubface up a little bit.
Now when we open the club face up a little bit more and we got more loft and
this is cause I've got a 54-degree wedge. That's my sand wedge.
A lot of people are going to have 56 and some will have 60.
If you got 60, you've got enough loft. If you've got 56,
you could open it a little bit.
And why we're doing that is to increase the bounce of the bottom because we're
this really soft sand.
I need to make sure that the golf club has enough bounce so that I can keep the
club on top of the sand, because it's going to go into the sand.
When you swing the golf club down, the sand is so soft,
it's going to sink in underneath.
You're going to get a lot of sand between the ball and the face.
So I'm going to open the club up. And as I look at it here,
as I look at the face, this would be one o'clock on a clock face for me from 12.
And I'm going to take it two o'clock with this club.
So it's got additional loft on it,
but now it's got a very big bounce on the bottom and I need that.
Now that's number one. Number two; If I have more loft,
I need more swing. In other words, I need a longer swing.
And the reason I need that is I need some speed to be able to create lift.
Just like a plane, going along a runway.
You need a certain amount of speed for the plane to get in the air.
You need a certain amount of speed to create enough lift,
to carry the top of the bunker. If we don't have that,
we will end up leaving it in the bunker.I'm
slightly uphill here. I'm going to play the ball towards my front foot,
towards my highest foot. In fact, if I'm standing on a hill,
good rule of thumb here, is that when you've got a slope,
play the ball towards your highest foot. For me, that's my front foot.
My target side foot.
I set up in the sand and I'm digging myself down and I'm going to make sure,
and I've said this in other lessons on bunker shots.
I'm going to hold down the club a little bit.
If I hold up the end of the club and I've dug down two or three inches
underneath the ball, I'm asking for trouble.
Because when that club goes into the sand,
it will go at least three inches underneath the ball and now have too much sand
the ball and the face of the club.
So I'm going to hold down the golf club near the bottom of the club.
This is the other reason why I want to make a longer swing.
I'm going to lean a little bit towards the target,
and I'm going to keep my pressure in that front leg for as long as I can.
I'll just stay looking here and,
and get my follow through as far through as I can.
So good thing to remember here is as I strike it,
I've got sand on the face, toss sand over my shoulder. In other words,
get the golf club all the way through. I'm making a long back swing.
I'm making a long follow-through.
Last thought is the tempo of the swing.
When you get to the top of the swing,
I don't want you to go at it like you're going at a bullet in a China shop.
I want you to make a nice rhythmical swing.
So it's going to be a long evenly paced swing.
So you might back your normal speed back to 70%.
Let's see what happens fairly square on. You don't have to stand too open,
face there, push in to the hill a little bit. Nice long swing.
Nice long follow-through.
Well, that golf ball is coming out really well. Remembering.
This is a 54-degree wedge, but opening it up. I've got maximum loft.
It has gone much higher than the bank. It's probably ended up pretty close.
I'll have a look when I get up there,
but I didn't go too deeply into the sand because I held down on the club.
I made sure I got a full back swing and a full follow through.
I followed through. I kept my pressure in my body towards the target side.
I didn't lean back, which is a very common thing to do.
I kept my tempo even at about 80% of normal.
And I got a pretty good result. I'm out there now.
I can give myself a putt and go from there.
So I hope this lesson on this very tricky shot that a lot of people have
problems with has helped you. And if you like this lesson,
share your comments below. We'd love to know what you thought of it.
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