I can't get out of bunkers anymore. Its in my head

[Todd Ruggere]

I've always been between a 4 and a 6 handicap. Unfortunately last year i got all the way up to a 9.. A lot of things have gone wrong. Achilles injury etc..

But for the last 2 years I have become unable to get out of bunkers. Every single shot is a skull 50 yards over the green or it takes me 2 to get out (many times the 2nd one is a skull)..

When the snow melts and i get out there this  year i need to find a way to get out of bunkers again. I used to be awesome getting up and down out of them. Now the 2nd i see my ball go in the bunker i immediately panic.

Help? THoughts?

[Harmonious]

THere's a ton of videos online on how to hit out of bunkers.  Here's just one:

Basically, hitting out of a bunker is pretty easy.  Open the clubface (more than you think).  I usually have the grooves pointing at my left toe.  Play the ball forward in your stance, around the left heel or so.  Align your stance left so that the clubface points more or less at your target.  Keep your weight on your front foot throughout the swing.  Swing along your stance line, not at the target.  Hit anywhere from 1 to 4 inches behind the ball, making sure not to dig into the sand but letting the bounce do its job.  Listen for that neat "thump" that tells you that you've hit the sand with the bounce and not the leading edge.  Then grab your putter to make the putt.

It takes practice, but once you get comfortable with the routine and how to "read" the sand, bunkers are not hard.

[Aquaguru]

It sounds like it may just be in your head.  I'm sure your technique is fine, if your a 4 HC, maybe a little tweaking.  I say just get in the bunker no practice moves and just hit it out. The less time you give yourself to think how your going to screw up the better you will be.  This happens to me sometimes and I just go up to the ball and hit it with any practice swings.

This is the best advice I can give since I can't see your swing.

[Zeph]

If you don't already know it, read up on how to perform a bunker shots. Learn what bounce is and how to use it. Make sure you really understand what the impact position should look like and why. After that, go out and practice bunker shots as much as you can. It may be in your head, but skulling the ball is a result of doing something wrong, so you either don't know what you are doing wrong, or you don't know why.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by Todd Ruggere

I've always been between a 4 and a 6 handicap. Unfortunately last year i got all the way up to a 9.. A lot of things have gone wrong. Achilles injury etc..

But for the last 2 years I have become unable to get out of bunkers. Every single shot is a skull 50 yards over the green or it takes me 2 to get out (many times the 2nd one is a skull)..

When the snow melts and i get out there this  year i need to find a way to get out of bunkers again. I used to be awesome getting up and down out of them. Now the 2nd i see my ball go in the bunker i immediately panic.

Help? THoughts?

Make sure you're using a SW that matches your sand conditions.

[Stretch]

For me, a skull in the bunker means I've let my upper body shift forward on the downswing. Get your feet nice and wide apart and sit well down into your stance to stabilize your lower body. Set weight on front foot (it helps me to feel as if my spine is actually leaning a bit left toward the target) and DO NOT let it move through the swing. Then just splash some sand and let the ball go along for the ride. Paul Azinger has a simple practice drill: draw a rough oval in the sand around your ball, about the size of two or three CDs next to each other. Then just work on getting the club to enter the sand around the one end and exit around the other, without thinking about the ball at all. No fuss, no mess.

[1par2win]

My bunker game (and chipping) tends to drift on me during a season so when it goes south I know to see the pro and it's always something small in my set-up that he corrects and after a little practice I'm back to my usual form. Which isn't that good to begin with but that's another story. Just curious about something though, being a low handicap you must have had issues creep in on other aspects of your game from time to time that you had corrected. How did you resolve those issues? Are you self taught?

[Mr. Desmond]

If you're that good, it's a confidence issue.

When I go bad in the bunkers, it's confidence and the arms swing too much independently of the lower body turn (resulting in a skull). Mentally, I try to take the arms out of the swing and focus on the arm-body connection and am confident.

[zeg]

I'm not nearly the golfer you are, but I rarely fail to get out of a bunker any more.  One thing I've found is that the Stan Utley method works a lot better for me than the more traditional approach.  It looks funny, but seems to work.  The other thing is not to worry about hitting the perfect shot, just something good enough to get out.  When I do get into trouble is more often than not a situation where I try to hit a soft shot to a nearby flag.  If I just aim for the middle of the green, I may leave myself a long putt, but I don't scuff it 3 feet and get another try from the sand.

On the shot, I try to focus on keeping my weight to the left and using a wristy swing firmly into the sand just behind the ball, erring on the side of a steep swing.

[iPutt]

I think that the most straight forward, yet helpful, video on bunkers was Gary Player's explanation on one of those Golf Channel teacher specials. He's really funny too. I don't know, it may be old news to you as a low handicapper, but since you're having so much trouble it wouldn't hurt to take a look at it. And also like others have mentioned, there's millions of videos on YouTube.

[max power]

I was having the same issue last summer.  I moved from Western NY back to Tucson and I wasn't adjusting enough for the hard/gravelly bunkers out here (even on nice courses).  I got a tip from a guy I played with (by way of Gary Player) to visualize bringing the club back at 2:00, and I watched a video on TGC with Lee Trevino giving advice on various bunker shots (many that he got from Gary Player).  That did the trick.  If you keep skulling the ball try moving to a lower loft/lower bounce club (GW or PW) and coming down even sharper behind the ball.  When I do this I get more runout, and I'm less likely to stick it real close to the pin, but the ball always gets out of the bunker and onto the green.

[bunkerputt]

Bunker technique is almost identical to flop shot technique:

1.  Keep the weight forward

2.  Keep the ball forward

3.  Open the face

4.  Swing along the stance

5.  Hit it towards the toe some

6. Swing hard

7.  Quiet legs

Just like a flop shot, it's tough because you usually don't have far to hit it, so your brain doesn't want to swing as hard as you need to.  Now 6 must be qualified.. and is especially true for fried-egg lies.  If you are trying to get a lot of spin out of the bunker, you need a clean lie and you should pay attention to #3.  The more you pick it, the more the ball will fly off in the direction of the face.  The more explosion you play, the less face angle matters.  The reason is simply the amount of sand between your club and the ball.

Practice from good, uphill-sidehill lies first because they're easier and it will build confidence.  Then work on the downhill lies and ball below the feet.  Then work on your ballstriking so you don't get in the bunker.

Good luck.

[TourSpoon]

Originally Posted by Harmonious

THere's a ton of videos online on how to hit out of bunkers.  Here's just one:

Basically, hitting out of a bunker is pretty easy.  Open the clubface (more than you think).  I usually have the grooves pointing at my left toe.  Play the ball forward in your stance, around the left heel or so.  Align your stance left so that the clubface points more or less at your target.  Keep your weight on your front foot throughout the swing.  Swing along your stance line, not at the target.  Hit anywhere from 1 to 4 inches behind the ball, making sure not to dig into the sand but letting the bounce do its job.  Listen for that neat "thump" that tells you that you've hit the sand with the bounce and not the leading edge.  Then grab your putter to make the putt.

It takes practice, but once you get comfortable with the routine and how to "read" the sand, bunkers are not hard.

The only thing that I can add to this (great job Harmonious) is to slow your swing down and swing about twice as hard as you would to get the ball to the target.  Once I realized that technique gets the ball out of the bunker, I was able to slow it down and make that nice little thump.  The biggest thing that I see with most people is that they swing for the fences and then that 1-4 inch zone is really hard to hit.  The same thing for a buried lie.  Just close it down, pick it up and drop it.  The club does the work, you just have to make sure you hit the sand.  Once you work it out, you won't mind the bunkers and once you don't mind the bunkers you will hit more greens.  It's funny how that works.  Good luck.

[Todd Ruggere]

Thanks for the tips. At the beginning of last year when i was a 5 handicap id always say im he only 5 handicap that can't get out of bunkers. It literally got so bad that i got to the point where (if there was no lip) id put the ball in teh back of my stance and hit down on the ball .. Hitting all ball and chipping it. I actually became quite good at it, although its just a bandaid for now. Id have 1 bounce and then a whole lotta bite to it. IM having a little Ian Baker Finch syndrome... At my club htere is a hole that is only about 300 from the front tees, but the front is guarded by a gigantic bunker. I went for the green 3 days in a row and all 3 days i came up short in the bunker. those days i took a 6,6, and a 5...Yes its that bad.