Hi guys it's Aimee. Today I have prepared a bunker shot lesson for beginners. Okay, so when you step into the bunker you have to be careful not to touch the sand, because according to the SJ rule 13 – 4, you get penalized for testing the sand. So, what that means is, if you come in here, and before you hit, if you take practice swings making divots, or if you touch the sand with your club like this, or when you set up, if you ground your club, then, you get a two-stroke penalty for that. So, just be careful when you come in, make sure you hover the club face off the sand or don't touch the sand either. All right so let's start with the setup first. I drew a couple of lines here. The first line next to the golf ball indicates the direction from the golf ball to the target. So, it's called the target line. And the second line, near my toes, indicates how open my body should be.
You have to be about 20 to 30 degrees or so open to the target, So, this is the toe line here. And then the third line, that's perpendicular to the target line just indicates the ball position. All right so when you take your setup, you have to make sure the ball position is left to the middle. It could be, it depends on the lie, but it could be anywhere from inside the left heel to a ball or two inside of it. As long as it's on the left hand side it's fine. Okay so when you take your setup, your stance should be a little bit wide, maybe two or three inches wider than your, maybe I'll say, eight or 7-iron. And your posture should be quite low. And the weight should be on the left hand side, 60% on the left foot 40% on the right. And the club face, club face should be opened. If you look at this face, right here, imagine this is a clock and the toe is pointing at 12 o'clock and the heel is pointing at 6 o'clock. When you open the face, I do not want you to open the face by pressing forward your hands like this,
This is not correct.
What I want you to do is, I want you to twist the club head open, so it points anywhere between 1:30 and two o'clock. And then grip it from there. So when you set up to the ball, the face is open and your hands are not pressed forward, it's somewhere in the middle like this. Okay, so if you understand the setup, let's go ahead and draw different lines and show you how to hit the ball properly. Out of the greenside bunker, you do not want to hit the golf ball first. You want to hit the sand first, maybe one or two inches behind the golf ball. A lot of beginners don't quite know exactly where they enter the sand. So I drew two lines here so you can self-test. So basically these two lines are parallel to each
other. It's about like a dollar bill width kind of thing. And I put the golf balls right in the middle of it. And let me just hit a few and then show you.
Okay so the first one I hit it quite thin. My divot actually started right at the golf ball. And the second, it started right at the line which is what we want, maybe two inches behind the golf ball. The third one I hit it way fat and I was like way behind the line. So if you try to hit a couple of shots with the lines down, you will know exactly where you're entering the sand. And if yours divot looks like this and it's very inconsistent on every single shot, you probably need to practice a little bit. But usually when I hit I would probably be right on the line more consistent, because more advanced players wouldn't have much trouble with the consistency.
All right so there's a couple of different reasons why you're being inconsistent going into the bunker, going into the sand I mean, but there's one common mistake I see in a lot
of beginners. What they do is when they swing back, they can't maintain the 60% of the weight in the left foot. They transfer their weight and therefore they've moved off the ball and then you can hit it fat or thin and so on and so forth. So to fix that I have a very simple drill. I prepare a tennis ball right here. And what you're going to do is when you set up, you're going to stick this ball under your right heel.
And you're going to do your best not to step on it so hard. So you're going to feel like you're tippy toeing on your right foot, so the weight is going to be maybe a little more than 60%. Let's go ahead and hit just like this. You see how very steady my lower body was on that one. And the weight maintained on the left foot for sure in the top of the backswing. So this kind of exaggerates the feeling. Because the right heel is off the ground, you will for sure feel that tension in the left leg. So if you practice like this a couple of times, and then hit without the tennis ball under your right heel, and if you happen to shift your weight into the right, you'll be able to notice a lot more because now you'll know what the correct feeling feels like to stay on the left leg. So I showed you quite a few things in the setup.
Make sure you practice it over and over to get familiar with it. And draw two lines to practice and notice what your divot pattern is like. And if you happen to have inconsistent pattern, stick a tennis ball under your right heel and do that practice a lot as well. I hope you're able to follow along. If you have any questions, come visit me on my Facebook or Instagram, golf with Aimee. And come visit me on my website as well golfwithaimee.com. Thank you and see you in the next lesson!