Todays Golfer

Elite Teaching Professional Craig Lea, has featured in the UK’s most popular golf magazine. Practice tips from the game changing ‘Effective Practice Better Scores’ book are a feature in Today’s Golfer. The latest features from the magazine are here to help all golfers improve tournament performance.

Many club golfers dread bunker shots more than any other, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Much of this fear comes from two things – a lack of understanding about the shot; and the fact it is not practiced enough.

This drill helps familiarize you with sand shots and reveals how loft and bounce affects your ball flight and roll. Adding loft by opening the wedge’s face increases bounce (the curved sole that enables the club head to “bounce“ out of sand without digging).

Hit two inches behind the ball and feel how the bounce interacts with the sand. Acceleration through impact sees the loft and bounce lift the ball out on a cushion of sand. Experiment by adding extreme amounts of loft to your wedges – and trust the acceleration through impact.

HOW IT WORKS

1 Find a practice bunker or bunkers where you can hit three different shots to a flag. Mix up flat, uphill and downhill lies; steep and shallow bunker faces; and different distances to the pin. Start with three different shots then increase the number as you progress.

2 Hit one shot with your pitching wedge (about 48°), sand wedge (56°) and lob wedge (60°) from the three locations.

3 Record your scores in the table below as follows; five points for a holed shot, two points for finishing inside a 3ft radius and one point for finishing inside 6ft. Repeat as often as possible and analyse to see which club suits different situations and where you need to improve.