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Bunker Line Drill for Low Point Control

There’s nothing more frustrating than skulling or flubbing an easy chip shot. Fat shots and thin shots can pop up at the worst times possible, but as Titleist staff member Layne Savoie shares in this video, making clean contact consistently on finesse shots is a skill that you can easily develop.

All you need is a bunker (or similar – soft sandy soil, wood chips, pine needles, etc.) a straight line and a few practice balls. As Layne shows, with this bunker line drill, the sand provides immediate feedback on where your wedge first makes contact with the ground.

This is the key to clipping the ball first on chips and pitches, and then the turf. Give Layne’s creative drill a try and let us know if it helps your low point control and the consistency of your finesse shots around the green.

Transcript: I wanted to take this opportunity right now to get into the bunker and do some great wedge play work. Getting some feedback out of the sand. I’ve always thought that this is a great medium to work on technique and work on outcome and so in this case what we’ve done is we’ve smooth the bunker out with the rounded side of the rake. That’s really important. You don’t want the big fluffy sand with big rake Marks and I’ve drawn a line in the sand. I’ve just used one of the basic fiberglass rods you can.  Easily, just take the to the club and do it as well, but this is just a nice illustration.  And what we’re trying to do here is get the feedback of what the sand really provides in the ball. Contact what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to feel is how much turn of the body, how much rotation of the torso is needed? To really move the club in perfect sequence of the arms and hands, and really the timing of the fold and the delivery. And so this highlights the attack angle tremendously. Schaflein contact point and all the control variables we constantly talk.  About so let me get started. This is how you use the lead edge of this line. I’m going to put my lead edge on the forward side and when I do this I want to just kind of feel how much I have to turn. It forces to keep your center of mass real still and you could see that’s a perfect delivery I.  Entered the sand on the lead edge and I took my divot. I’m going to try to do it again a little bit forward there. Little bit shallow there, but that was good low point. I missed the sand there. That was perfect. So you get that immediate feedback. That last one was about an inch fat. This is a really challenging drill.  I love it because it really forces the body to turn the connection of the arms and a very stillness of your center of mass.  It highlights the importance.  Of.  The lowenergy shot in the precision needed for wedge play, so now I’m going to introduce the golf ball. Same concept, put my lead edge down on the back of the ball and I’m trying to pick this shot trying to catch it clean and ultimately it’s not about the outcome, but it’s about the feedback you’re getting as you build your way towards.  Good outcomes in the end. In the beginning of the drill is challenging. You’re going to get a lot of feedback.  Some of it has to do with the over acceleration of your arms and hands. Some of it has to do with the way your body’s moving, but ultimately, when all that cleans up, you’ll be able to hit really consistent, high quality golf shots. Ball 1st. I’m going to try to do that now and talk your way through it here.  Obviously 4 inches fat. Let’s try that again.  Very solid, you could see the lead edge started right on the back of the line. Caught ball first.  Little bit heavy again, that’s a good illustration of strike margin. As we mentioned before, as long as you’re shallow you can. You don’t have to be perfect on your low point and you still hit a decent golf shot. There will be some things that change sometimes when you hit it fat, but you still hit.  Pretty respectable outcomes and then Lastly.  A little bit heavy again, but I get the ball out of the bunker up on the green. Decent results. I think that this is the one most important drills, specially for advanced players to do to help clean up their technique and again build towards those good outcomes.