9-Iron Practice

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This drill is bunker practice with a 9 iron. So I've actually got a 7 just to

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kind of show the concept a little bit more. But one great skill that you can

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work on is being able to hit bunker shots with a club that's a little bit

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longer than your sandwich. So a 9 iron is a great place to start but I've seen

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John Rahm hit flop shots with a 4 iron. So and Sevi was famous for being able

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to

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spin a 3 iron out of out of the bunker. If you can do it with a longer club you

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've

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demonstrated the basic skills. The basic skills in order to do this with a

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longer club are swinging the club a little bit more around while controlling

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the face rotation. On a shallower swing it's almost easier or more natural to

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have the face close on the way through. So you have to fight that tendency. You

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still have to get the bottom of the swing out in front of the golf ball. You

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don't want to be hitting up on this but in order to produce some loft you have

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to release the arms a little bit even sooner than you would do with the

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sandwich or lob wedge. If you get any amount of shaft lean and body rotation

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you're typically going to blade it and leave it in the sand just like so. So

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this

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helps with the timing of that right arm throw as well as controlling low point

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and it exaggerates the need to get even more shallow with your body. So I'm

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going

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to basically try to lay this almost flat like so, swing it around my body while

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keeping and managing the face as it comes more around kind of like this. So as

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I

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said I recommend starting with something like a nine iron and work your way up

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to something longer like say a seven iron. This is also one of the common ways

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that you can hit the ball a little bit further. So if you find yourself with

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your sandwich you can only hit it 15-20 yards. This might be a good way for you

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to add a 30 to 40 yard bunker shot just by making the same swing but switching

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clubs.

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All right not too bad. I did a decent job of managing the bounce. I'm going to

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see if I can add a little bit more loft with a little bit earlier release and

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getting the grip a little bit lower to begin with. So there you can see now I'm

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I started to get a little bit higher launch by getting the grip down and

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releasing it just a little bit earlier with that right hand. If I did that with

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a sandwich that would have been the high really nice floaty soft bunker shot

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but

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it's a lot tougher. If I can do it with a seven iron I know you can do it with

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a

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sandwich.

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There we go. You saw me get way down low for that one. You saw me really

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swing around and pop that up. That came out nice and soft. I would call that a

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win and now I can move on to the next drill.