Fairway Bunkers

Some things are very difficult to explain in print, fairway bunkers being one of them. There are so many variables, how the ball sits, whether the lie is level, the sand texture, the size of the lip on the bunker, the distance to go, among others. Then the skill level of the player needs to come into account. However many people have requested this topic so here goes.

Fairway bunkers are meant to be a penalty and you should never gamble on hitting perfect shots from them. Your margin of error in a fairway bunker is miniscule. There is nothing worse than ‘leaving it in’ so be automatically conservative in your approach.

If the lie is less than perfect, which means the ball is not sitting right up on top of the sand, take a club with more loft than you think you need and hit a little behind the ball. Practice and experimentation will show you what comes out and what does not. Tip ‘4’ exploding from bunkers said ‘if the sand comes out so will the ball’ this applies to fairway bunkers as well. You will find you can play ‘explosion shots’ successfully with all sorts of clubs. Lofted woods work surprisingly well with enough practice to gain confidence. The old Cobra Baffler was a superb fairway bunker club and a lot of the modern 7 woods or 5 woods can do the same job.

Now for the ambitious: From a perfect lie, with whichever club you choose to clear the lip:

1. get your feet firmly planted. Most amateurs give this lip service, I want my spikes down into the firm base of the bunker. If I have to dig down 3 inches so be it, I also try to get the soles of my feet horizontal.
2. grip down the shaft to the point where you feel you cannot reach the sand surface because we want to take the ball cleanly, no sand!
3. grip more firmly than normal because we want to take the wrists out of the shot. The more wrist action the more chance of hitting the sand.
4. Play the ball forward in your stance so that you are reaching the ball on the upswing.
5. With the restricted wrist action goes a slightly restricted swing, more like a ¾ swing so hit more club than you need for the distance, but remember to use enough loft to get out.
6. If the equation of enough loft to get out times ¾ swing does not equal sufficient distance shrug your shoulders and make sure you get out.

Bunker play from greenside or fairway bunkers is 90% practice and 10% technique. The 10% technique is vitally important but without the 90% practice won’t do you much good! Bunker practice is probably the most productive practice you can do in terms of scoring.