Muddy Bunkers

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This video we're going to discuss hitting it out of a dirt or more of a mud

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bunker.

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So this is our fairway bunker near my training center.

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And we've had a bunch of rain, so they haven't tilled up the sand.

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It's very hard.

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You can see, if I get set up, I can dig my feet in a little bit, but the ball

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just kind

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of like if I swing through, it's more mud where the club barely digs there as

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opposed

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to sand.

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So this can cause a lot of golfers problems, especially if you have more of the

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classic

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case of having the bottom of the swing too far behind the ball, because what

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will happen

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is the club is going to tend to bounce off the sand.

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It's not going to dig very easily.

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So if it bottoms out behind, it will tend to come up into the golf ball like

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this.

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So you can see if I try and draw my line, it's actually hard for me to make a

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deep line.

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So the main principles here are what I tend to find is a lot of golfers tend to

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try to

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get more shallow and almost lift this up where because the surface is firm, it

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actually makes

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it easier to get steep.

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Typically, the times where you want to get more shallow is when the sand is

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more sugary

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or fluffy.

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So now I'll add a caveat to that.

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If you're really good at controlling your low point, then potentially you can

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almost pick

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the ball and get a little bit more shallow.

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But the risk here is opening the club face too much, which elevates, if you

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have a bunch

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of bounce, that elevates the leading edge.

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So if I open the club face and I hit a little bit behind it again, that's going

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to go straight

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up.

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It contacted the sand right there and just came up into the golf ball.

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So what I'm going to try to do is I'm going to try to air on getting a little

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bit more

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steep by changing a little bit my setup.

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I'm going to play the ball instead of in line with my left heel, I'm going to

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play it about

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an inch back or a ball back.

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I'm going to lean a little bit more and then I'm going to feel like I bring the

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club even

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more up or vertical.

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I can also air on hitting this more towards the toe, similar to what we do for

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the hard

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pan shot.

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So if I lean a little bit more left, still have the hands kind of in front of

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my body.

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So hands aren't way forward.

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But then stay left and get the contact point closer to the ball.

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So that only hit a good half inch behind.

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Typically I can still get underneath the golf ball and pop it up.

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And depending on how hard it is, like this has a crust but then underneath it

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there is

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a little bit of sand so it goes down but not too deep.

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So this technique works.

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You just have to experiment with the firmer the sand, typically the ball is

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going to come

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out faster.

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So I won't have to swing quite as hard.

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The ball will almost come out a little lower and a little bit faster.

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It feels like it takes less energy to get the same amount of distance or effort

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.

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So we've got our normal contact point.

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We're going to shift just slightly forward and then we're going to swing a

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little bit

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more vertically.

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This is one where I'll tend to stand just a touch closer to it.

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So my hands will be a little bit closer to me instead of when I get farther out

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that tends

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to help limit the depth, it's not the worst thing for this shot, especially I'm

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getting

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under this a little bit more than I thought that I might.

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So I could almost play my normal hand distance out of this shot and then just

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lean a little

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bit more left.

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You can see that one I actually caught ball first but because it was coming

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down steeply

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and the bottom of the swing was still just slightly ahead of the golf ball, it

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ended up

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being a pretty good shot, but the normal one out of this, I'm going to get a

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little bit

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closer to the golf ball, lean even a little bit more left, played off the

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slightly off

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the toe and then swing a little bit more, almost cut stroke, a little bit more

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up and

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a little bit more across, but really making sure that I come down steep.

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Like I said, the normal tendency I see is people try to get too shallow.

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The club bop skims off the sand and almost always blades it because it's really

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hard

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to chunk in on this shot.

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So to avoid the chunk shot, we're going to lean a little bit left and get more

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steep.

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That's your simple recipe for handling the winter bunkers or when the bunker is

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more

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dirt or clay.

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One last little consideration.

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If you have very little lip like you have here, I won't go grab the putter but

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you can

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actually put the ball and it'll typically get out if you have a really low lip

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out of

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these firmer bunkers.

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That's one shot that you can go to if you're really having trouble with this

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steep mud bunker

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technique.