Improve fairway bunker shots

We recently have had a great deal of questions both from students and listeners regarding fairway bunker shots.

Lets start with the primary rule and that is whenever you hit a tee shot out of play make sure you analyze the lie and shot to see what is the maximum club you can hit but still with 100 percent certainty get the ball back into play. A fairway bunker with a high lip or a poor lie may dictate that you use a more lofted club to get out and lay back well short of the green.

Now assuming that you have a good lie and the ball is positioned in the middle of the bunker where the lip is not an issue we need to try and play the ball the following way.

First as you want to have occur from the fairway make sure you are trying to hit the ground or sand in front of the ball.
Second choke down on the club slightly. This will promote the club being less likely to hit sand early.
Third quiet your lower body. If you have a golf swing with a great deal of leg movement we want to quiet down that lower body movement here in the bunker. Leg movement has the ability to move our low point around and increases the chances we will hit the shot fat.

Don’t try and hit a shot 100 percent. Take more club and hit the shot 60 or 70 percent of full. This will make it easier to keep your lower body quiet and hit the ball more solidly. Keep your top button on your golf shirt tall during the swing. Up and down movement reduces your ability to rotate and increases your chances of hitting the fat shot out of the bunker.

One of the real problems with fairway bunkers is that few practice facilities give us a chance to practice these shots and we encounter very few of them. Next time you are out in the evening playing a few leisurely practice holes drop a few in the fairway bunker and try and get more comfortable and confident from the fairway bunker.

Try these suggestions next time you are in a fairway bunker and see if you don’t improve your chance at advancing the ball on to the putting surface.

Stop Drop Kicking Your Driver!

This weeks tip of the week came in from the Dewsweepers mailbag.
A dewsweeper writes in and asks for some help to stop dropkicking their driver. Can I give him anything he can do on the course?
Normally when you dropkick your driver (or your driver bounces into the ball by hitting the grund behind the ball.your trunk has gotten to tilted away from the target because your are trying to lift the ball or help it into the air.

Next time you play wear a striped shirt and practice making swings and keeping your stripes as level as you can during your forward swing. Keeping your stripes level will help keep you from drop kicking your driver and help you make more solid contact.

Another drill to revisit that we have done before on the dewsweepers is practice swinging down the hill. Any tilt in your trunk will result in you hitting the ground way to early. If you and learn to not hit the hill early you are already swinging better.
Something I will have my student do on the course is have them tee the ball lower and make sure that they knock the tee out of the ground. This will help reduce the tilt back and help you stay more level in your downward swing resulting in less dropkicks.

Also note that over active hands or the pushing of the club head to the ball will also make the club head reach the ground to soon. Make sure you have the grip of the club go past the ball first.

Of course you do this in conjunction with a level pivot as i discussed earlier.

Improve your timing

A dewsweeper writes in and wants to know some tips to improve timing in a golf swing.
Im going to start by saying that if you have a golf swing that is dependent on timing you most likely have a golf swing in which there is something not matched up.

If your pivot moves your club and your arms swing the club on plane and stay in front of your pivot and your club face is square than no matter how your timing is you would hit the ball straight.

So there is apparently something not matched up in your golf swing. Now rhythm is a huge issue in a golf swing and different players swing better at different rhythms. A players personality dictates this to a great extent.

To improve your rhythm try to focus on a pre shot routine which gets you slowed down to the proper rhythm. This will help you with staying in rhythm on the course.

When practicing find a speed such as swinging at 60 percent which produces solid contact. Try and learn what 60 percent feels like and go to the course hitting all shots at no more than 60 percent.

Another drill I use frequently is to have student put 3 balls down in a line and hit the first ball 1/3 speed
The 2nd ball 2/3 speed and the third one at your full speed.

Concentrating on holding your finish can also help you with your balance and help you learn to swing more in rhythm and improve your balls triking.

Struggle with partial wedge shots

A dewsweeper writes in and asks for help with the short pitches of 40 50 60 and 70 yards that he leaves himself frequently on par 5’s as his 3rd shot.

These partial shots can be very difficult.

I would start by suggesting that you game plan better on these holes and go by the rule that if you are not at a yardage you can fly the ball into the green and hold it that you lay yourself back to a full wedge distance . You will find that your scoring will improve.

However, to hit those in betweeners it is important to learn to control your distance by learning to control the distance the ball is hit with the size of your pivot.

The problem here is that you are tryin to hit the ball with too much speed in your arms and pivot.
Try learning to hit shots with a big full motion pivot that goes at different speeds.
Hit a few pitches at full motion and 30 percent speed then 50 percent speed.
See if you don’t start hitting nice soft pitches that go the exact distance you need.

A great practice drill for this is to pitch the ball with a towel under your arms and make these full motions very slow.

Another tool I use is the Perfect Connexxion. it is wonderful for helping you connect your arms to your pivot and in helping control distances with pivot rather than arms and hand speed.
Check out the Perfect Connexxion in the new dewsweepers store online.

For more information on help with your game call us at 1800.203.4885