Golf guidance is always developing, but the best advice lies in the test of time. In the new Golf.com series, eternal tips, we are emphasizing some of the biggest tips that teachers and players have shared on the Golf Magazine pages. Today we have a Bunker Fairway type from Gary Player from our June 1971 edition.
Fairway bunkers are scary risks. With deep valleys and high lips, green achievement feels everything, but impossible. Heck, sometimes just taking OUTSIDE Feels like a victory.
When you are in the Fairway bunker, you have to be extremely accurate. If your contact is something but close to perfection, the ball will not react as you need. It is a shot that most recreation players have little ideas on how to hit. They just swing and hope.
However, there is no reason to be so. With some technical adjustments, you can Hit bunker shots This will make your partners playing.
In the text below, we have drawn an article from the June 1971 edition of Golf in which Gary Player Shares his best tips to hit by a street bunker. Follow it and your battles from sand traps off the road will be a thing of the past.
Tips for Gary Player’s Fairway bunker
I have seen people enter the Fairway bunker as if they were entering a snake pit, swinging so fast the club looks like a helical in the full magazine, then, after taking the ball outside, running after it was saved from a forest fire. There is no need to have such a catch.
The purpose Theller is the word “fairway”. When you face a medium or long iron from a bunker, the goal should be played almost exactly as it would be from the grass caught. The ball should be hit first, the Divot later. Repeat: The ball must be hit first!
In aid of this, I make a compensation in my mental approach to the hit that can be useful. I look at the front of the ball instead of your back, realizing that if I make a mistake it is better to hit it thin than catching sand before contacting the ball.
Now let’s go down to the specifics of the stroke.
address
As with any stroke, placement is very important. However, extra care is called here because the base is different than you normally have in the grass. Since you deal with loose materials, you must dig rigidly to avoid shaking the body. This can be done by rotating the legs after you have determined their placement. I like to favor the inner part of the right foot in arranging the entire right side tightly. Since you will get a full activity you will do from the right path, the ball should be played a little by the center, with the hands in front of the club. The weight should be mainly on the left side. However, you do not need to overdo any of these. The phrase to keep in mind is, “Be natural”.
Leakage
Backswing should be on the conventional plane, but you should avoid any excess weight transfer on the right side. Be sure to extend the club completely on the way back. The curve should be mostly with the hips, but do not allow too much the body to pull your feet from their implanted position. At the top the club is in the right horizontal position.
You do not have to overload this blow if you make the right contacts with the ball will go as much as it would be from the street grass. To ensure that I have wrapped my back and prevent the intention of fear, I feel my heads completely on top of the shake.
drop
Going back to the ball is the same attractive action that you hire for all the shooting, with the remaining hands of the head and the club that remains behind. There was a certain movement on the left side, developed by pushing the right knee significantly on the left.
The ball is hit first, and then the “Divot” sand is taken. Note that the head is fixed to the place where the ball was rested, and that my weight is too much on the left side. However, there has been no shakes of the body because my left foot is still firmly embedded in the sand. Because the ball is played by a conventional position with respect to the feet, the club is able to pass easily to the target. Only after the ball is on his way to green, the right hand begins to turn. My head will go out to follow the ball flight only after the tracking is ready.
How to practice
Shortly before British Open in 1959, I had serious doubts about my ability to compete even. It seemed that I hit every other “heavy” stroke in the rounds of practice, and it could not seem to be going somewhere from the treacherous fairway bunkers in Muirfield, Scotland. I spent an evening striking the practice shots from the sand to a beach nearby and I quickly learned myself to grab the ball first, not only outside the sand, but also on the right road.
What I did was draw a line in the sand, place the back of the ball in the line and then hit the blow. If the contact were made properly, the line would still be there after the ball was sailing on the beach. This little advice enabled me to recover my faith, and I continued not only complete, but to win the event.
