WEBVTT

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In this analysis video, we're going to take a look at bunker shots from pros

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and

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amps. So first, we're going to take a look at the overall shape of the bunker

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shot. So the bunker swing is going to be different from the finesse wedge,

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different from the driver's swing. It's kind of its own little animal. And part

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of the reason is because we have different requirements. We're actually

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trying to hit behind the golf ball. We're not trying to make really clean

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contact. And so as a result, we're going to have set up and swing

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characteristics

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so that we can get the sandwich to work through the sand properly. So first, we

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're

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going to take a look at loop Donald, and we're going to look at the overall

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shape

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of the swing. Now, I'm going to keep using a phrase that is probably new on

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this

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site, which is we're going to try to be steep and shallow at the same time. Or

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we're

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going to be narrow and shallow at the same time. So from this down the line, we

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're

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going to see the delivery path of the club for a bunker shot is going to be

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more

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in the shallow category, as in, we don't draw tunnel lines here. But if I were

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to

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draw a line at impact, you would tend to see that that would be a little bit

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more

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of an in the out path or a shallow path. Now, if we were to take a look from

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the

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face on view, we're going to see that as Luke Donald approaches impact, as we

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'll

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see with most of these good bunker players, you'll see that it's going to be

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fairly narrow. So his hands are going to get on top of the golf ball where

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there's

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still still a fair amount of wrist hinge. And then we'll tend to see a fair

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amount

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of right arm action through the ball. So the club is high off the sand at this

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point and working its way kind of steeply down. But as we saw from the down the

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line, it's coming in from a shallow path. Keep that in mind when we get to

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looking

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at the amateurs, because we'll tend to see that's one of their big missed

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concepts in how to hit the shot properly. So we know that we want to have a

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shallow and narrow path. What are some of the things that these golfers do in

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order to make that happen? Well, one of the things we're going to look at is

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going to be the engine of their swing. So what we'll frequently see is the

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setup position is going to have a lot more knee flex and a lot more vertical

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trunk than the finesse wedge or their full shot. Part of the reason is the

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closer we get this spine to standing straight up and down, the more the

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tendency is going to be a shallow path kind of like that. That's going to allow

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the club to kind of skim through the sand. Now what we'll see when we look at

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the engine is during the downswing, you're not going to see a huge lower body

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drive. You're not going to see a huge core drive. What you'll tend to see is a

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longer swing and then more of a trail arm straightening. So as we scrub back

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and

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forth, you can really see through the ball that right arm straightening to

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deliver the club. That helps with two things. One, the club on on the delivery

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is going to be in a fairly open position. So straightening that trail arm is

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going to get the club pointed in the direct direction of the target without

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using shaft lean. Secondly, if we look from the face on view, we'll see that

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that

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right arm straightening is going to help us achieve a pretty vertical shaft at

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impact. That's also going to limit how far the club club is going to dig

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underneath the golf ball and it's going to allow us to use the bounce of the

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club

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so that the club slides underneath the golf ball. Here's an extreme close-up of

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what we're trying to get the club to do through impact. So you'll see that the

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club will enter the sand an inch or so behind the golf ball. The club will

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slide underneath the golf ball and the golf ball will be popped up because of

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the speed that we're putting into the sand. The only way that we're going to be

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able to do this is if we get a fairly vertical shaft and the way that we're

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best going to get this fairly vertical shaft is going to be by having the arms

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power the swing. Specifically, we're talking about the trail arm powering the

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swing. So let's look at a few more examples from the face on view so that we

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can see this how they power their swing. So as Zach Johnson approaches impact,

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you'll see that he's fairly narrow but we will assume that he's coming from a

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pretty shallow path and you'll see during the bottom of the swing a good

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emphasis on getting that right arm to fully straight. And you'll see that if

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we go back and forth from the top of the swing down, you'll see that there's

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not

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a lot of rotation in the lower body. There's not a lot of rotation from the

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trunk. This is primarily a shoulder and arm movement hitting the ball. And what

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you'll see is on the way through, we know that there was not a ton of power

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from the lower body because we didn't see any real post-up of that lead leg.

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The lower body is acting more as a stabilizer and acting more for position

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than it is for power. Over here on the right, we have Ricky Fowler and we can

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see a similar pattern with not a whole lot of movement from below the belly

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button. It's mostly just kind of positioning and then a big emphasis on

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that trail arm straightening to get that shaft pretty vertical when it's

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underneath the golf ball. And you'll see that because the shaft was vertical,

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the

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the club will tend to pass the body very very quickly, which gives that lead

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elbow

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bend look of the kind of classic bunker position where the arms have worked

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more

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around the body and finished very very close because they have actually passed

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the body compared to the full swing where they'll be very much wider. We'll

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look at a couple more examples and then we'll take a look at some amateurs to

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see where this can go wrong. So over on the right, we're gonna look at Gary

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Player. Again, you're not gonna see a huge lower body drive but you're really

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gonna see that right arm straighten the left wrist will have a fair amount of

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extension. That's what helps keep the club face open, which helps utilize the

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bounce. That trail arm straightening is more the engine and those arms will

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kind

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of pass during the follow through. Here we have Matt Kuchar and if it's a true

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face-on camera angle, what you'll be able to see is that the upper body, the

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head, will be more or less on top of the golf ball. That's part of the way that

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they're able to get the narrow and then because they're in a little bit more of

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this squat stance, that's how they get it to shallow back out. So here is the

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camera pans out. You can see that his upper body is more or less on top of the

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golf ball and you'll see a good emphasis on that trail arm straightening. So

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that

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trail wrist and that trail arm getting long to help get the bottom of the swing

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underneath the golf ball without having a ton of shaft lean. Because shaft lean

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is going to be one of our big nemesis when we look at these bunker shots. So

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here's two examples of that upper body being more on top of the golf ball.

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Again

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it's sometimes tricky to find pure face-on camera angles but you'll tend to see

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that upper body on top of the golf ball even though they've got a fairly wide

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stance that helps create some of this downward angle of attack to make sure

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that you don't blade the ball and then the squat position is gonna help make

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the

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path more around so that when your arms extend the club doesn't dig into the

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ground. Over here on the left we have great bunker player Charlie Wie and you

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'll

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see that similar pattern of that his upper body is actually looks like ahead

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of the golf ball as his arms work in a fairly shallow path but it's again being

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powered by that trail arm straightening. You'll see that as they both come

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through

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impact there's not a ton of axis tilt the upper body is still on top of the

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lower body there's a slight lead of the lower body but for more for all

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intent and purposes it's a little bit more stacked up and the shallowness is

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controlled more by the fact that they're more vertical in this squat position

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rather than having a huge amount of tilt or Jackson 5. So now we're gonna take

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a

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look at a higher handicap golfer showing us some of the common pitfalls that

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amateurs have. When we start with setup we can see that it's it's not a super

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wide stance he hasn't really dug his feet into the sand and we'll see that he's

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got a fairly strong grip. What I talked about in this section and if you were

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to look at a lot of face on camera angles you'll tend to see that golfers

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are going to have more of a weak hand position especially that trail hand

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being on top of the club helps keep the face open and utilizing the bounce now

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we'll see a big body movement big full coil and then on the way down you'll see

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kind of an early release of those arms and then a big body move on the way

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through. If you if you remember how quiet their lower body was check out this

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amateurs lead leg and you'll see that he's controlling a lot of that bracing

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and a lot of that pivot by using his body. You'll also see that the the left

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rib

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cage is really rotating through the shot. So he's doing this as a much more of

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a

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body hit. Now part of the reason I believe that he's doing this as a body

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hit is because his upper body or his head is too far behind the golf ball so he

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has to use that body turn in order to steepen them the path of the club back

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out but that combination tends to lead itself to more of a shallow or wide

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path so he gets the club very low to the sand here and then what's going to

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happen is he's either going to hit slightly behind it or more likely he's

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going to actually blade it because he does not have enough of a downward angle

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of attack because he doesn't have enough of the upper body on top or that wrist

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hinge and that combination is one of the ones that you'll frequently see with

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the

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higher handicappers who tend to struggle with either chunking it or

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blading it but primarily the ones who err more on the side of blading. So now

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as we look over here on the left he doesn't have a ton of knee flex so his

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posture is more bent over so that by itself is going to create more of a steep

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angle of attack we'll see what he does to adjust it. We know that he created

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some of the shallowness by having his upper body tilt away from the golf ball

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on the way down. So now even though he takes it away nice and shallow you'll

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see

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that this golfer tends to come down on a very steep path. This is the old

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school

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method of swing way left and across the ball which does tend to work but the

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more

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modern bunker technique is to come on more of a shallow or more neutral path so

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as we saw those golfers when we took a look at their exit path we saw that the

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club was tending to work more a little bit in doubt. You see that this golfer

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is

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working very much out to in. Pretty much only gives him the option of hitting

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super

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super high but gives him the high risk of either hitting the chunk or the bl

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aded

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shot. He tends to err on more of the bladed shot. So from this down the line

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you can also see a fair amount of that body spinning. That body spinning is

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going

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to make it very difficult for him to have his hands even with the golf ball

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winning its contact. You can see that he's still got a fairly straight line

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between the club head and the left shoulder that takes away bounce and makes

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contacting behind the ball precarious. So he'll err on kind of bending those

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arms and picking it or trying to bladed. This gives you a very small margin of

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error and the golfer has a very low chance of hitting a very successful

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bunker shot. So now we'll take a look at one more amateur and this golfer doesn

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't

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quite have the same path problem as the higher handicap golfer but he still has

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a lot of contact issues because he uses more of a body pivot strategy instead

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of

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an arm as the engine strategy. So it's actually very very subtle but if you're

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to look at his right foot you can see that as he starts down that right foot

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during the downswing is actually sliding a good bit away. So that's a clear

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indication that he's using he's trying to use his lower body to push

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against the ground as opposed to just using his lower body to get into good

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position and then using the arm to engine or be the power source for the

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swing. Now one of the common times that I'll see this is when the golfer does

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not

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have a wide enough stance so that by itself would cause kind of a steep angle

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of attack and so what he ends up doing is he will as he shifts his body he

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tries

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to shallow it out by moving back away with a very open club base that really

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gives him the option of hitting the high spinner or blading it and chunking it

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and he tends to err on more of the chunk shot he leaves a lot of shots in the

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bunker. Now part of that is because as he approaches impact you'll see that his

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hands wipe kind of across his body which is good for the full swing he's a very

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good yeah there's a high single digit handicap golfer so he's a good ball

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striker but you'll see that compared to what the pros do for these shots that's

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way too much of the wipe or drag of the handle across there should be more of

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that trail arm straightening which would be balanced by a little bit more

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stacked

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body position. You can see when when he gets pretty close to impact his upper

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body is a good bit behind his lower body that's a good recipe for driving the

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wall but a poor recipe for good bunker play so even though the overall shape

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and

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path of the club isn't that problematic he still has a lot of contact issues

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because of how he pivots or how he powers his swing and that affects where

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he ultimately controls his low point. So now that you've had a look at some

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amateurs let's just quickly flashback and look at what power is the swing so

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we'll see that the lower body the core through the shot is going to be fairly

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quiet but you can see that his upper body is pretty much on top of his lower

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body

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and they're both pointed just ahead of the golf ball if you try to get if you

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try to power your swing with more of your body and get your body pointed way

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out in front of the golf ball you're going to produce way too much shaft lean

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you'll see that as he approaches impact his right hand has already started to

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really pass the left and his the shaft is leaning straight up and down not in a

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straight line with his lead arm so you'll see that the club passes very very

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quickly from the down the line here here we have Justin Rose and we'll be able

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to

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see again a quieter movement from the lower body especially through the ball

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so during that release you'll primarily see a trail arm and arm movement you're

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not going to see a really big body pivot you don't see his body trying to

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really

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get out of the way and you'll see that from the down the line the overall path

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is going to be slightly shallow or slightly from the inside or more of

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almost a draw bias path where the club is exiting just outside the hands so if

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you can power the swing with your trail arm and get a really shallow path you

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too

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can be a very consistent bunker player to the point where you'll probably

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prefer

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being in a green side bunker than being in some really gnarly rough if you have

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any questions about your bunker game feel free to videotape it and submit a

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swing and we'll help you get on track