Bunkers, you either love them or hate them. Shots from the sand are one of my favorite ways to evaluate a player’s skill level. Good players lick their chops from greenside bunkers with a flat lie, while the high handicapper just hopes not to embarrass themselves. Below is a 30 minute practice progression that you can follow to take your bunker game from skulls to skillful.
1- Line Drill. Draw a line in the sand, without making any changes to your normal setup for a basic approach shot, take a swing and try to have your divot start right where the line is. The best bunker players are able to hit the sand in a very precise spot every time. Do this for 5-10 minutes or until you can get 5 swings in a row where the divot starts right on the line.
2- Double Line Drill. Draw a line just like in the first drill but add a second line ahead of the first one with two club heads distance between the two. This drill will help teach you to take a long enough divot to get the sand to lift the ball out rather than a shallow divot where the club can still contact the ball. Do this for 5-10 minutes again or until you get 5 swings in a row where the divot starts on the back line and erases the forward line with the divot.
3- Doube Line Drill with Ball- Repeat the same drill but add a ball right in the middle of the two lines. If you accomplished the 2nd drill no problem all you have to do for this one is learn to ignore the ball. Many amateurs get too ball focused in the bunkers and end up hitting the ball because of it, learn to focus your attention on where you are going to hit the sand and you will start to see high soft shots coming out of the bunkers with this drill.
4- Bunker Leapfrog- Now that the ball is getting out of the sand the key is to learn to control the distance of the shot. Start by hitting the first shot to the far edge of the green, the ball cannot go off the green for it to count. Each shot must go shorter than the previous shot and has to remain on the green to count. This is a very difficult drill to get more than 3-4 successful shots in depending on the size of your green.
5- Club Change- If you feel confident in your ability to control distance out of the sand with your highest lofted wedge now we get to test your creativity. Hit a shot out of the bunker and onto the green. Each time you succeed, attempt to hit the shot again with your next highest club. The best bunker players in the world can hit some remarkably high and soft shots with their 4 iron for this drill. It’s a fun challenge that will put your bunker skills and creativity on full display.