Four Slopes

WEBVTT

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This bunker game is the four slope challenge.

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So this is for building more of your skill base.

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So let's say we've worked on some technique and our technique is pretty solid.

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How do we adapt it to the four basic slopes of ball above your feet, ball below

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your feet,

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uphill, downhill?

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The goal is to hit a good shot from each of those live in succession.

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But if you're new to this, then maybe what you'll do is give yourself three or

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four shots

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at each one and try to hit one good shot, whatever that might be, whether it's

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inside

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a 10 foot target, a 8 foot target, something like that.

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So the goal here is to get instinctive about how to adjust for the different

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slopes.

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Okay, so let's go through the game.

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Normally I'll baseline one or two, just kind of, you know, having hit a bunker

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shot here.

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So just kind of seeing what we got for the day.

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Now each of the slopes is going to help decode or reveal what's going on with

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my swing.

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In general, when the ball is above my feet or it's on the uphill, those are

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both going

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to do better with a little bit shallower swing.

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But I still have to make sure I get the low point forward so I make good

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contact.

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When the ball is below my feet or on the downhill slope, those are going to do

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better

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with a little bit more of a steep swing.

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Now how we how we steepen in shallow matters.

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So when the ball is above my feet like this, I'm going to tend to get a little

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bit more

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vertical.

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This can make you more prone to kind of hang back.

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Some people will fall in that pattern.

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But feeling like the club just swings a little bit flatter, kind of a little

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bit more around

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like that usually works out pretty well.

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And the thing you have to watch out for here is the one of the tendencies is

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when the club

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gets up like this, it points the club face more close.

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So you're typically going to have to aim a little bit more right and you may

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even have

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to play a little bit of a hook because the club, depending on the severity of

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the slope,

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if the ball is way up here, club face is quite left of your target and you're

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going to have

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to adapt or adjust for that.

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So ball above my feet, I'm going to aim a little bit more right, sit a little

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bit more

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vertical and feel like we come a bit from the inside and it's just going to

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have a little

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bit of a hook spin.

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You can see as it landed, it actually hooked down that slope, that was a really

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good shot.

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Happy with it, we'll call that one for one.

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Okay, so now on the uphill slope, we've got the same overall tendencies coming

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a little

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bit shallow, can be helpful.

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The danger here is it's easy to get the low point backward and kind of pick it

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up.

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The hard piece here is if you have to hit more of a low shot, the easier one

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here is

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to kind of go with the slope and hit more of a high soft shot.

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So oftentimes if you have a longer bunker shot, this is where I would advocate

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using a little

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bit less loft, going down to your 50 degree wedge or maybe even nine iron,

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depending on

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how far you have to hit.

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Because for this further one, if I make about the same swing, probably won't

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get there.

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So I'm going to feel like I just have to swing a little bit firmer.

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Now, even though I'm leaning back, I want to make sure that I'm, or sorry, even

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though

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I'm tilting a little bit back to match the slope, I'm going to put a little bit

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more

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of my weight into that front foot.

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Oftentimes to make it so that I don't have to do that quite so much, I'm going

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to open

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my stance, which effectively makes my pelvis a little bit more flat compared to

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the ground.

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Or let me put it this way, if I'm angled like this, my pelvis to match the

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slope gets

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like this.

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If I turn 90 degrees, my pelvis is matching the slope and I didn't have to tilt

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quite

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as much.

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By opening up, I can take away some of the need of the tilt and still match the

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slope

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with the pelvis.

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All right.

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So a little bit flatter, kind of like that.

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Again, that might have been one of the better ones of the day, almost went in.

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It's natural to have a little bit deeper shot, so that's where getting shallow,

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like I can

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see that that was just a touch on the deep side.

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It might be something I would have to watch out for, especially when I was

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playing on

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some fluffier sand.

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Okay, so now ball below my feet, I can feel a bunch of sand here, but what I

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was feeling

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down there, there wasn't a bunch, so I want to make sure that I get a little

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bit steeper.

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This can be one of the ones where golfers who have a tendency to kind of really

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fire

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that upper body will almost top the ball.

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Or if you have a tendency to kind of lunge into it, this is where the shank can

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really

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come into play, so I'm going to really get stable, but I'm going to emphasize

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getting

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a little bit more on top of it.

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And I might aim a little bit more, I might position my body left, but put the

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right foot

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back to give myself a little bit more room.

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This is where the more you practice it, the better you'll get at kind of

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accommodating.

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Anytime you start getting this right leg too close, then this right leg tends

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to get in

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the way.

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So when we're steepening things, I don't want to do too much, and I have the

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ball below

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my feet like this, I want to make sure that that right leg is out of the way

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for my hand

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path or my arms.

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So I'm getting a little bit more open with my shoulders, but this right foot is

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a little

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bit back.

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And now I'm going to feel a little bit more vertical, came out pretty nice

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there, oh man.

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We saved the tough one for last, everybody will have one or two of the slopes

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that are

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a little bit more challenged, sometimes helpful to put those out of the way.

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Oftentimes the downhill slope is the hardest one for a lot of golfers.

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So when we have this downhill slope here, we'll move it, just wasn't sure if I

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'm in

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or out of camera view, okay, yeah, we'll go with it here.

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So if we're on a little bit of a down slope here, you can see probably 15, 20

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degrees

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or so like that, one of the most important things is I need to match this with

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my shoulders,

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and if I had my feet square and narrow, then if I matched it, I would fall over

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.

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So anytime I have this downhill slope, I'm going to point my foot almost

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directly at

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the target.

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So that way I can kind of lunge that knee past, I've got this left shoulder

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down, and

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now I'm going to feel like I have more of my upper body kind of staying forward

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.

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If anything, I'm going to fall forward.

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One of the big tendencies here is a natural balance movement is to kind of fall

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backward,

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but if I do that, that would make the bottom of swing way back here, and I'll

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probably

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top it, leave it in here, or blade it over the green.

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Now this is naturally going to come out low, so I'm going to err on having my

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face wide

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open, pointing outside the toe.

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Okay so we're going to lean into this, and then we're going to get a little bit

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vertical.

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One of the tendencies here is to kind of create too much shaft lean, so I'm

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still going to

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make sure that I release it, I'm just going to release it down the hill because

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of my

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body position.

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So I'm in a good set up position, left legs, starting to feel holding this

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position for

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a little while, let's see if we can release one, just kind of like that.

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Came out great, happy with that.

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For in a row, great way to work on building the skill set of being able to

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adjust your

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stock bunker shot to the different slopes.