Pitching Over A Bunker

To pitch a ball successfully over a bunker is ten per cent technique and 90 percent confidence. There are, however, two pitfalls that always trap the unwary beginners.

Being so worried about the shot that the player quits on it, decelerating into the hitting area. Wrists go rigid and the swing stutters. The result is that he or she hits behind the ball and it trickles into the very bunker they are trying to avoid, or, even more humiliatingly, stop short and they have then got the same shot to play over again.

The player is so worried about the shot that they are looking to see where it has finished even before they have completed the backswing. The result is that they thin it and the ball flies past the target at great speed, invariably leaving the player in a similar predicament over the other side of the green.

Practice for the real thing

Many of us simply throw a bag of balls on to the practice ground, hitting them with little real purpose. We probably set each ball on a nice, new piece of turf, making life easy for ourselves. But out on the course we may have to hit from bare lies or divot holes, long grass or scrub, even through the branches of trees.

Try to practice pitching from all these situations. Play one shot imagining that you have to clear a small tree. Play the next shot to the same target, this time imagining you have to keep below the branches of a tree.

Practicing Pitching

1. Take your sand wedge, swing back so that your hands reach hip height. Note how far you hit the ball

2. Now swing back to chest height and again note how far you hit the ball

3. Swing to shoulder height and not the distance. Repeat with pitching wedge and 9 iron and you have pitch shots for nine different ranges.