Symptom
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.
Fat, thin and topped shots are one problem seen from different sides: the lowest point of the swing arc is not where the ball is. Where it sits instead, and why, is what separates the causes below.
Common ways golfers describe this
40 yard bunker shot
Long greenside bunker shots
Long sand shots
Splash shot doesn't reach from a long bunker
Bunker is 50 yards short of the green
- Swing arc
- Lowest point
Narrow it to one cause
Each question is here because golfers answer it differently, and that difference is what rules a cause out. Nothing is generated while you answer: every question, cause and fix was written and checked in advance.
A few questions · no account needed
What you will be asked
- On the long ones that go wrong, what does the ball do?
- What were you trying to do on the shot?
- Hold your finish. Which foot is carrying your weight?
- Where does the club finish on the long ones?
- How far is the flag from the bunker on the shots you are asking about?
- How high is the lip in front of you, and how soon do you have to clear it?
Where this can come from
These are the causes this symptom resolves to, in the order they turn up most often. That order is not a diagnosis and it is not your answer: two of them can produce a shot that looks identical from behind. Each has a fix you can read now, whether or not you answer anything.
Entering the sand too far behind the ball
On a greenside splash shot the club never touches the ball: the sand carries it out. Entering several inches too far behind means moving far more sand than the swing has the speed to move, so the ball travels a fraction of the intended distance.
Read the fix
Club never enters the sand
The low point arrives at or above the centre of the ball, so the club strikes the ball directly instead of the sand beneath it. The result is the low screamer that clears the green or buries itself in the face, and it comes from the same fear that produces the fat one.
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Deceleration into impact
The club slows down before it reaches the ball, almost always after a backswing longer than the shot required. Speed disappears at the only moment it matters, and the bottom of the arc becomes unpredictable, which is why decelerating produces both the chunk and the blade.
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Weight hanging on the trail foot
Pressure stays on the trail foot through impact instead of moving toward the target. The low point of the arc sits behind the ball, so the club either bottoms out early and takes turf first, or is travelling upward by the time it arrives. Both misses come from the same cause, which is why fat and thin so often alternate.
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Handle pressed too far forward at impact
Driving the grip end well ahead of the clubhead strips loft off the club and pushes the low point forward, presenting the leading edge to the ball. It is the opposite error to flipping and it is what turns a delicate chip into a skulled one.
Read the fix
Related symptoms
These are not here because they sound similar. Each one can come from a cause on the list above, which is why fixing one sometimes quietly fixes another. The closest matches are first.
- Plugged lie or fried egg in the bunkerThe 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.Shares entering the sand too far behind the ball
- Bunker shots finish short or run way pastGetting 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.Shares entering the sand too far behind the ball
- The ball won't come out of the bunkerIt 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.Shares entering the sand too far behind the ball
- Taking too much sand in the bunkerThe 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.Shares entering the sand too far behind the ball
- The sand is rock hard, or soft and fluffyIn 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.Shares club never enters the sand
- Short-sided in a bunker and the ball won't stop near the flagThe 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.Shares deceleration into impact
What this rests on
- 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
- The Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013
- Search for the Perfect Swing: The Proven Scientific Approach to Fundamentally Improving Your GameAlastair Cochran and John Stobbs, for the Golf Society of Great Britain, 2005 reissue, originally 1968
If something here contradicts what a launch monitor tells you, say so. Corrections change the page.
Discussion
Golfers who have had this shot, on what it turned out to be and what sorted it. Read it as experience rather than diagnosis: the questions above are what narrow it to a cause.
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