Bunkers

Symptoms in this group

Each one starts from something you can see for yourself. Open it to find what that shot can come from.

• The ball won't come out of the bunker

  It takes two or three swings to escape: the ball moves a few feet in a spray of sand, or comes out low, hits the face and rolls back to your feet.

• Can't make clean contact from a fairway bunker

  From a decent lie in a fairway bunker the club finds sand before the ball and the shot dies well short, or it catches the ball thin and sends it low into the lip.

• Taking too much sand in the bunker

  The club goes into the sand well behind the ball and throws up a big pile of it, and the ball pops up weakly and often stays in the bunker.

• The sand is rock hard, or soft and fluffy

  In wet or firm sand the club skips off the surface and blades the ball, and in deep powdery sand it digs, loses its speed and leaves the ball in the bunker. The shot that works in normal sand fails both ways.

• The long bunker shot, 30 to 80 yards from the sand

  From a bunker well short of the green, the normal splash can never reach the flag, and trying to pick the ball clean sends it over the green or into the lip.

• Plugged lie or fried egg in the bunker

  The ball has buried itself where it landed, sitting in its own crater with part or all of it below the sand, and your normal bunker shot either leaves it there or sends it out low and hot.

• Short-sided in a bunker and the ball won't stop near the flag

  The flag sits just over the lip with little green to land on. Trying to hit it softly leaves the ball in the sand or blades it, and a clean escape comes out with no spin and runs well past.

• Blading the ball out of the bunker

  The club catches the ball instead of the sand, sending it out low and fast across the green, into the face, or into trouble beyond.

• Bunker shots finish short or run way past

  Getting out is no longer the problem: the ball leaves the bunker every time but finishes nowhere near the hole, dying on the fringe or racing off the back of the green.

• Bunker shots come out right or left of where I aimed

  The ball gets out cleanly but starts well right of the flag after opening the face, or pulls left along an open stance, so good escapes still finish on the wrong side of the green.

• Sloping lies in a bunker

  The ball sits on an upslope, a downslope, or above or below your feet in the sand, and the shot that works from a flat bunker lie comes out fat, thin or well off line.

• Freezing up and quitting on bunker shots

  The moment you step into a bunker the tension builds and the swing slows or quits in the sand, so every bunker shot is a lottery and you have started aiming away from flags just to keep out of the sand.