Stuck In The Sand? Why Your Bunker Play Is Failing (It’s Not What You Think!)

I played golf with a lovely woman recently who confessed that she’s spent over two hundred hours in golf lessons trying to master the bunker shot - and she’s still failing. Such is her fear of sand shots ruining her scorecard that she’s now deliberately aiming away from greens to avoid the scenario of missing the putting surface and ending instead in a greenside trap.

When she lands in a bunker she has to take a penalty drop to get out. It was the destruction of her scorecard that day and it brought her to tears. She’s a very capable player with a fabulous long game tee to green and a lovely putting stroke, but bunkers have become the bain of her life.

She’s not alone. I hear the complaints almost every week. “I can’t get out of bunkers because I don’t have enough clubhead speed,” and the other common one: “I’m just not strong enough.” Even more typically women tell me: “I can’t get out because there’s no sand/not enough sand/the sand is too firm.” I ran these viewpoints past Golf Monthly’s women’s editor Alison Root who confessed that she too shares the same sentiments. “My bunker play is very hit and miss, sometimes I get out, other times I catch the ball thin and hit the lip.”

I’ve lost track of the countless times I’ve had to go back to basics to show my very own mum how to play a bunker shot and I always try to pass on my knowledge to as many golfers as possible during the recreational fun games we play.

One of the common misconceptions that they all hold, particularly those over the age of sixty, is that a lack of strength and speed is the root cause. So do we have a genetic disadvantage over our male counterparts or is it just a fallacy?

“It’s true that many women will struggle in the sand due to our slower swing speed,” explains GM Top 50 coach Katie Dawkins, “but more than this the root cause of their problems is usually poor wrist hinge (our hands, wrists and forearms are on average weaker than the men).

"The bunker shot requires a steeper angle of attack and some serious force to hit through the sand and under the ball in a typical splash bunker shot. Many women attack the ball on a shallower angle so tend to get little height out of the trap because they hit up on the shot. All that energy is taken from their swing before the clubhead has got to the ball”

Dawkins has taught thousands of women from raw beginners to single figure handicappers and has seen issues across the board, no matter age, strength or ability. “So many women I teach are quite literally traumatised by bunkers due to their lack of success with the shot, or as some would say, nightmares. So mentally they’ve failed before they even step into the sand,” she adds.

Such was my frustration at watching my playing partner fail countless times to get out of a bunker and end up picking the ball up, that I threw a spare ball into the bunker after we’d finished our last hole to demonstrate.

I drew a long line in the sand, told her to shuffle her feet in, open the clubface and hit it. Over and over again. Then once I was happy that she now had the correct concept and feel for hitting the line in the sand (not the ball), I marked out a line a few inches behind the golf ball. “Now just do it again,” I said. Hey presto, her ball popped up and out. She changed nothing else except for her entry point into the sand.

Watching her torture of failing numerous times in our round I had identified that most of these fails were because she was hitting far too close to the golf ball and not taking any or enough sand, and then thinning shots into the bunker face.

Yes, speed does help, the more you have the easier it is and yes strength undoubtedly contributes to this. But it is absolutely not the be all and end all. I taught my son to get out of sand when he was five years old using this exact same method (I drew a big circle around the golf ball for him and called the ball the yoke, telling him to hit the egg) and he had the slowest swing speed imaginable.

In truth, most of our issues originate in our head. When we repeatedly fail to do something successfully we write off our ability to ever do it. We mentally quit! As soon as we start to believe that playing a bunker shot is impossible we become unable to think beyond failure.

My poor playing partner had certainly got to the stage of nearly giving up hope (and consequently golf) when I came to her rescue. But anyone can change their mindset. With the right guidance, encouragement and a small amount of time practising the correct move, bunker shots should be successful for all.

The final factor to bear in mind is your club of choice. Many of the women I play golf with don’t have appropriate sand or lob wedges with the correct bounce angle, many are simply using the sand wedge from a standard set.

Mine are bespoke custom fit wedges, perfect for me and the typical type of sand I play from (fine and compact) at my home course. Investing in a decent and more lofted weapon would be a recommendation I’d give. Then when you go for a bunker lesson you’ll be armed with the right tool for success, this will help you improve your technique and more importantly boost confidence.