The Cock-And-Pop From The Sand

I learned this at one of Dave Pelz three-day schools that I attended and I absolutely love it.  This shot is spectacular; most people are scared to death of the lies that this shot is used for.  It works every time.  Well, almost every time.  I really think you’ll love this shot.

When you have a lie In the sand; whether it is one third buried, fried egg, or completely buried, when there is not much green between the ball in the hole, you might want to try this shot.

Just as you do when playing from a nasty lie in the grass, the cock in pop calls for violating most of the rules of a good finesse swing. You are most concerned with is supplying enough power to get the ball out, some of it must come from a hand and wrist muscle pop, and you are going to have no follow-through.

Play the ball from the normal positions for all three lies.  That would be off of the instep of your front foot. The difference is that you want to cock your wrists as much as you can early in the backswing, which shortens the radius of your swing.  This gives you the ability to make a very descending blow into the sand, popping the ball up and without too much forward power, because of your own abbreviated follow through.

The same technique works on the completely buried lie, but you have to supply even more pop, so a lot more sand comes out.  The more you follow through with this shot, the surer you are of getting the ball out and onto the green, but the father it will roll.  Don’t get to cute, or exacting, with this shot unless you have practiced in many, many times.

Try this shot the next time you have one of these terrible lies in the sand.  But before you do, make sure you get into a practice bunker and spend some time practicing this shot from the difference lies that I mentioned earlier.  When I demonstrate this shot to my students they all are in awe.  It is almost like a magic shot.  My students honestly don’t believe that I can get the ball out of the sand and that easily.  In fact, I could not believe that I could get the ball out of the sand that easily, before I’d learned the swing.  I can now get the ball out of the bunker almost every time now.  Most of the time the ball is close enough to the hole to make the putt.

Put some time in the practice bunker practicing with the terrible lies that I mentioned above, and you will have great success with the cock and pop shot.  I guarantee it!

Bunker Swing "Set Up Fundamentals"

The fundamentals of the bunker swing have been written, said and shown many different ways over the years. In fact, I have found that most people are totally confused about what to do when they get into a bunker. Most of the time what they do is not correct. There is so much anxiety that one feels when he or she gets into a sand trap. Most of the time golfers brains go blank, their muscles get tight, their breathing rate increases, they swing faster similar to swinging an ax and all they want to do is just get out of the bunker!
So when I tried to teach the bunker swing to someone, I am fighting many negative thoughts and feelings. I've found that simple is better. When people get too many thoughts in their heads, they will never get the ball out of the bunker, unless they are lucky.
Let's make this simple, shall we? Yes we shall.
First let's discuss the set-up. Remember, 95% of swing errors derive from an improper setup. So let's discuss a simple sand swing set up.
Your feet should be 14 to 18 inches apart, about shoulder width. Stand tall, with knees slightly flexed, upper body Bending forward slightly from my hips, and we centered on the balls of your feet. Let your arms hanging loosely, almost straight down from your shoulders, leaving 4 to 6 inches of space between your hands and legs.
Use a neutral too weak grip, and reasonably light grip pressure. Your upper hand should be about 1/4 of an inch from the butt end of the club. You should be able to feel the club head as you waggle and swing.
Don't crouch, is this pushes your arms away from your body and flattens your swing plane, which is determined by your size and posture. With short clubs such as your wedges, your body is fairly close to the ball, so your swing plane should be quite steep.
When you're in the sand, remember to set up and aim slightly to the left of your target, open your club face wide, in position your ball on a line with the inside all of your left heel.
Hopefully, if you follow these simple set up fundamentals, your ability to perform a simple and effective bunker swing will follow and your shots will fly out of the sand more consistently.

Learn To Be Successful With Your Sand Shots From The Sand

One of the most intimidating shots in golf is the fairway bunker shot.  Most people have a problem with bunker shots that are around the green.  When someone’s steps into a bunker that is 150 yards or more from the green the mental anxiety begins.  I would like to say that it should not be intimidating.  I think a bunker shot from around the green is much more difficult.

You must consider that a greenside bunker shot is a somewhat different swing and technique than your normal golf swing.  Were-as the fairway bunker shot is very similar to that of a fairway shot from the grass.  Considering these two factors, one must realize that the chances of success should be quite good from a fairway bunker.

Once you find yourself in a fairway bunker the first thing to do is access this situation.  How deep is it?  Many of these bunkers having raised lead and you must choose a club with enough loft on it too clear the lip of the bunker, even if it is not enough club to get you to the green.  Your number one priority is to get out of these bunkers successfully, even if the situation does not allow you to reach the green.

As I said, that technique for playing out of a fairway bunker is completely different from that used for hitting a shot out of a greenside bunker.  From the greenside bunker we are splashing the sand out of the bunker and not actually hitting the ball.  From the fairway bunker we are most definitely trying to hit the ball.

Provided you can clear the look on the fairway bunker, always take at least one more club, or maybe two, then you need for the required distance.  Shuffle your feet into the sand to create a stable base contacting the sand under your shoes.  Remember, we are trying to hit the ball first.  In order to compensate for our feet now being below the ball, we need to grip down on the club.  Some people call this choking down on the club, but I prefer not to use the word to choke.

Your ball position is very important; we should play the ball a little farther back in the stance than normal.  This will steepen the angle of attack and help us to hit the ball before contacting any sand.

We are now ready to hit the shot.  It is important that you keep your lower body quiet or passive during the swing, to hit the fairway bunker shot.  Too much movement with the lower body will likely lead to inconsistent strikes, the result being either fat or thinned shots.

Provided there is little or no luck on the bunker, a thin shot can work out really well.  A fat shot, however, will not go very far at all.  This and will absorb most of the power generated and the result will be very similar to that of a greenside bunker shot

Keeping the lower body quiet, making three-quarter quarter backswing, and focusing on hitting the golf ball first will make the shots much easier.  Remember two swing with conviction through impact and swing all the way too full finish.

Find a fairway bunker where you play, make that time and throat 20 years so balls in it.  By the time you have practiced the technique outlined here, you’ll have no fear of fairway bunkers. 

Chipping from the Bunker

Many golfers make the sand trap shot more difficult than it has to be.  This is because they were taught that the only way to come out of the trap is with an explosion shot, a rather unnatural stroke for the beginner since the club head has to strike the sand behind the ball and does not strike the ball itself.

There are a number of occasions when the lie of the ball and the lay of the land make playing an explosion shot unnecessary and even unwise. Whenever the bank of the trap is low and there is enough putting surface between the trap and the hole, a golfer would be more sensible to play a variation on a chip shot—with the club head contacting the ball cleanly and lofting it onto the green. Allow for some roll. 

A chip from the sand is played the same as a chip from any other lie, with two modifications. First, you grip the club low on the shaft, as far down as the bottom of the leather if this is comfortable. Secondly, glue your eyes on the left half of the ball rather than on the right half as you do on ordinary shots. This enables you to deliver a clean, descending blow, and that is the essence of all chip shots.

Distance Control From Greenside Bunkers

When I ask the average golfer how they control their distances hitting shots out of greenside bunkers, the standard responses are: Vary where the club hits behind the ball, swing harder or softer, grip up or down on the club, or just pray!  Only one of those answers is correct, gripping up or down on the club.  Praying may help, but we have yet to prove that theory.  Gripping up or down on the club can help vary your distance control, but that’s not the whole story. Throughout my amateur and professional playing career I never really had a good understanding of proper distance control in the bunker.  For shorter shots I would try to hit four, five, even six inches behind the ball and for longer shots about one or two inches behind the ball.  But I never really became very good at the guessing game, nor did I become a very good bunker player.  I now understand why.  I didn’t have the correct knowledge that would allow me to hit the shots properly.  Most amateurs also lack that knowledge. When watching golf on television one rarely hears any mention of what club is being used out of greenside bunkers.  In the past year or so I have heard announcers mention during different broadcasts that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson use clubs other than just a sand wedge out of bunkers. Phil was hitting pitching wedge for a twenty yard bunker shot and Tiger hit an eight iron for a thirty yard shot, which also happens to be the clubs I use for those same shots.  I believe that many golfers assume that because the club has “sand” written on it, that it is the club to use for all greenside bunker shots.  But the name of the club doesn’t have anything to do with its performance in the sand or anywhere else. When asking how to control the distance of your shots, here is how NOT to do it: 1.       Don’t change the rhythm of your swing.  Keep it constant. 2.       Don’t change how close you hit behind the ball.  Usually between two and five inches behind the ball will work nicely.  Just let it happen.  Don’t force it. 3.       Don’t change how hard you swing through the sand.  Your natural swing speed will do. The easiest way to vary the distance of your sand shots is to use clubs of different lengths and lofts, while keeping your backswing the same.  The backswing length should be at 9:00 o’clock, where your leading arm is parallel to the ground at the top of the backswing.  Your wrists should be cocked fully so there is a 90 degree angle between your lead arm and your club. I recommend using four wedges, 49 degree pitching wedge, 56 sand, 60 lob and the ultimate scoring club, the 64 degree extra lob wedge.  The 64 and 60 degree wedges have more loft than the standard 56 degree sand wedge, and work incredibly well on shorter bunker shots.  Try them, you won’t believe what happens.  The pitching wedge through the six iron are also clubs of choice.  All eight clubs will work with pleasantly surprising results, providing you play the ball forward in your stance, off of your forward instep, open the clubface 45 degrees so the leading edge doesn’t dig in the sand (the bottom and back of the club should bounce and scoot through the sand) and finally, make a great follow-through! Go to the practice area and calibrate your 64 degree through 6 iron distances.  These distances should cover any distance situation from just around the green to 50 or 60 yards away.  With practice you will blast your way to shots closer to the hole and you will lower your scores.

Secret of Feedback; Rule # 5: Hold Your Finish While You Learn

If you want your short game to be the best it can be, you must be able to see and feel the swing you need, to produce the shot you want, before you need it. This mind's eye and visualization must happen before you swing so it can help you make the perfect motion. 
The only way to achieve this ability is with experience, seeing and feeling how different swings cause different golf ball behaviors. You can't learn this by watching someone else hit, from videotapes, or from books. Those can teach you why and what to do and how it is done. But you must make the swings yourself show so you can add feel to the swings you observed, giving your mind's eye the complete correlation between actions and results. Once the feelings in images are internalize and accurate in your mind's eye, make enough practice swings until you see and feel the one that will produce the results you want. 
What do I mean by "holding your finish"? Remain in the completed follow-through position of the swing, without moving, so you have the feel of that swing as the ball lands. This simultaneous experience of shot result and swing feel is what enables a golfer to learn and internalize the swing mechanics/ball flight correlations for future use in the short game. If you hold your finishes until your shots land, you learn these correlations. With continued practice you will develop great touch. If you don't hold your finish, as soon as you stand up, step back, look away, or turn your back, you lose the feel of the swing and with it the chance to learn another swing/result correlation. Unfortunately, this is exactly what most golfers do and why their practice doesn't help them when they get to the course. 

The secret of feedback can be summed up this way: if you are raking and beating balls; if you or not set up with good aim; if you're not getting good distance feedback from your shots; if you're not aware of the trajectories of your shots; and if you're not forming a habit of holding your finishes, then you would be better off lying on your back, looking at the sky, and dreaming about a good short game.  

Secret of Feedback; Rule # 4: Watch the Trajectory of Each Shot

Watch most golfers hitting wedge shots on the practice range and what you see are people beating balls. They think they're working on their wedge games, but all they're really doing is making a wedge swing, striking the ball, taking a quick glance to see whether or not it's airborne, then looking back at the pile of balls and raking another into place for the next swing. They don't watch how far the ball flies, they don't notice how high it goes, and they sometimes don't even have a target in mind. They have no idea what they, or their shots, are doing. 
Whenever I see a "rake and beater,"  I wait until he's hit a ball in begun looking for the next one to hit, then I say, "look at me, please." Once I have his attention, I ask, without looking back, what did that shot just do? Where did that ball go? Most of the time they can't tell me. They have learned absolutely nothing, so they have wasted the time it took to get ball and body into position and make the swing. This isn't practice, because they aren't learning anything. It's just exercise. 
Not that I'm against exercise. I just prefer exercise with good feedback, which is just as much fun, just as healthy, and has the added benefit that it helps you become a better golfer. So I want you to learn to notice and care about the height and character of each shots trajectory, and make it a habit to watch your shots and flight. If you are making a true finesse swing, with no hand-muscle control and no hitting action, you will create consistent trajectories and a consistent, repeatable amount of backspin on the shots as the land. (To evaluate backspin, you occasionally must hit to a well maintained greens service for feedback on your shots bounce and roll behavior, particularly on shots inside 30 yards.)

These are the questions you should be answering after every shot you hit: did it land the distance you wanted? Or was it too long or too short? Instinctively you already know if it was right or left of the target. Did it have the trajectory you wanted? Did it have the same trajectory as the previous shots you been hitting, and if not, why not? Finally, would it have behaved as desired on the golf course, to a real green with a real pin?