We have a question here from Michael. He says, “After 30 years of fiddling my way around the golf course listening to every professional I played with I converted to your swing. Everything is almost great. I do find problems with bunker shots doing the stiff wrist technique. What am I doing wrong?”
O.K. I'm going to assume that since you're having problems you're probably doing everything from chunking them to thinning them in keeping the wrists firm. I'm going to suspect your swing might be getting too wide and too flat, which is going to mean that you're hitting more skulls than ever but every now and then you're making an effort to get into the sand and chunk it.
So I think the first problem is, using visualizations that, keeping the wrists firm, which I think is critical. If you're cocking the wrist too much understand, there is no power in wrist cock, it's forearm rotation. So if you're cocking the wrist too much you get too steep and, if you did kind of cock them, what's going to happen? It's going to basically flip the club straight down and stick it in the ground more than anything into the sand. Conversely, when you kept the wrists stiff your swing is getting too flat and too long and, again, visualizing, you're swinging in a soup bowl rather than a wine glass or drinking glass where the club is coming up. It's much more “U” shaped rather than very wide, like the soup bowl.
You need to keep the wrists stiff, but you need to get the club up. So how do we get the club up if we don't cock the wrists? Well, that's when I believe in the bunker, I believe that we break the elbows a little bit. Remember, I believe bunker shots are not power shots, they are still technique, still fenese shots. We're just exploding the sand out, hitting the sand. The ball comes out with the sand we're throwing out of the bunker.
Keep the wrists firm. We still have to get that very vertical “U” shaped swing, like hitting in an hour glass or wine glass. So I think that with the wrists staying firm, with a slight breaking of the elbows, the arms stay in front of the body. WE open the club face as much as we need to get the ball out. But hte clubface always has to be square to the aiming line because we swing straight back down the aiming line and, at impact up the aiming line. WE do not swing outside in. So, whatever you need to do to open up the face, you need to turn the body to make sure the face is square to the aiming line to keep the clubface square all the way through.
Just think about a little bending or breaking at the elbows and keeping the wrists frim.
But the key is, when you're approach down to impact, it's just snapping that club into the sand and up quickly. It's really fast and really vertical in terms of swinging in that water glass. Keep the writs firm. I like that thought but make sure you're making your swing much more up, down and back up, like swinging in that water glass.
The Surge!