Gary Player’s technique for escaping fairway bunkers with ease

Golf instruction is constantly evolving, but the best advice stands the test of time. In GOLF.com’s new series, Timeless Tips, we highlight some of the greatest advice from teachers and players in the pages of Golf magazine. Today we have fairway bunker tips from Gary Player from the June 1971 issue.

Fairway bunkers are terrible hazards. The valley is deep and the edges are high, making reaching the green nearly impossible. Heck, sometimes just get go out It felt like a win.

When you’re in a fairway bunker, you have to be very precise. If your contact is anything but perfect, the ball won’t react the way you need it to. Most amateur golfers don’t know how to hit the ball. They just swing and hope.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. With a few technical tweaks, you can hit fairway bunker shots that will wow your playing partners.

In the text below we have extracted an article from the June 1971 issue golf magazine In it, Gary Player shares his best tips for hitting shots from fairway bunkers. Follow it and your struggles in off-fairway bunkers will be a thing of the past.

Gary Player’s Fairway Bunker Tips

I’ve seen people get into fairway bunkers like they’re stepping into a snake pit, swing so fast the club looks like a propeller spinning at full speed, and then, once they get the ball out, chase the ball like it’s running from a forest fire. There is no need to have such worries.

The key to hitting the ball is the word “fairway.” When you’re facing a mid-iron or long iron in the bunker, you should hit the ball almost identically to how you hit it from the mowed grass. The ball must be struck first and then the divot taken. Repeat: Gotta hit the ball first!

To help with this, I do include one compensation for the lens in my mental approach that may be helpful. I looked in front of the ball instead of behind and figured if I did make a mistake it would be better to hit the ball very thin rather than catch the sand before contact.

Now let’s look at the specifics of stroke.

address

As with any shoot, setup is important. However, extra caution is required here as the footing here is different than what you would normally find on grass. Since you are working with loose material, you must dig firmly to avoid body sway. Once you have determined your foot position, you can do this by rotating your foot. I like to use the inside of my right foot to hold the entire right side firmly in place. Since you’re swinging full force down the fairway, hit the ball slightly to the left with your hands in front of the clubhead. The weight should be primarily on the left side. However, you don’t have to go overboard with these actions. One word to remember is “natural”.

takeout

The backswing should be on a traditional plane, but you should avoid any excessive weight transfer to the right side. Be sure to fully extend the club on your return. Turning should be done primarily with the hips, but not allowing too much body turning to pull the foot away from the implanted position. At the top, the club is in the correct horizontal position.

You don’t have to overswing at impact because if you make proper contact with the ball, it will travel as far as it does off the fairway grass. To make sure I complete my backswing and to prevent rushing the ball out of fear, I feel my hands fully cocked at the top of the swing.

downswing

The motion back to the ball is the same pulling motion you use on all shots, with your hands cocked and the clubhead trailing behind. A significant leftward movement occurred by pushing the right knee significantly to the left.

First hit the ball, then take out the sand “turf”. Notice that the head is fixed over where the ball is placed and my weight is very much to the left. But my body didn’t sway because my left foot was still firmly planted in the sand. Because the ball is struck from a traditional position relative to the feet, the club is able to move to the target easily. Only when the ball is fully on the green does the right hand begin to flip. Only once the follow-through is nearly complete does my head come up to follow the flight of the ball.

How to practice

Just before the 1959 British Open, I had serious doubts about my ability to compete. During practice rounds I seemed to hit “hard” every shot and couldn’t seem to get anything out of the treacherous fairway bunkers at Muirfield, Scotland. I spent an evening practicing my shots at a nearby beach and quickly learned how to catch the ball first, not just in the sand but in the fairway.

All I did was draw a line in the sand, put the back of the ball on the line, and hit the ball. If the contact is correct, the line will still be there after the ball slides along the beach. This little trick gave me my confidence back and I not only finished the race, I won it.