Use your levers to escape sand

Golf Monthly Top 25 Coach Kevin Craggs shows you the art of escaping the bunker.

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escape sand

Golf Monthly Top 25 Coach Kevin Craggs shows you how to use your levers to escape sand with this superb practice drill.

- You don't get height on your bunker shots - Your wedge digs into the sand, killing momentum

Fix: Esacpe Sand

Successful bunker play requires you to use your wrists as levers. The key move is the ‘setting' of the wrists in the backswing. This is the angle that when released through impact will allow the club to slide under the ball, using the bounce in the perfect way. To help you visualise the right move, push a tee peg into the butt end of the club. Once you've set your wrists correctly, that tee will be pointing at the ground. From here complete your backswing and then drive the club through the sand.

Keep the loft

Unlike a full golf swing, your hands shouldn't release in the normal way through impact. Instead, you are trying to keep the loft on the face for longer. To visualise this, draw a face on your wedge. Just after impact, this face should still be pointing up at the sky and not to the left of the target as it would be for ?a normal shot.

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