Great recovery shot.

[Eracer]

I made a shot last week that I thought some of you may like to hear about. I don't remember where I heard about this technique, but it popped into my head on the course, and I gave it a try.

The situation:

My ball landed in a greenside bunker and buried itself in soft sand six inches from the lip closest to the hole (about fifteen feet from the hole). The lip was a vertical ten inch face. There was no way a normal sand shot, even with a lob wedge, could have gotten the ball up and over the lip.

The shot:

I turned my sand wedge 90-deg. counter-clockwise in my hands, so that the face was parallel to the target line and the toe was pointing straight at the ball. I took my stance square to the target, put the ball forward in my stance, swung up steeply and hit down HARD about three inches behind the ball.

The result:

The ball, along with a huge amount of sand, popped up and onto the green. The ball ended up four feet from the cup.

I seem to recall that someone (Chi-Chi?) perfected this shot by pointing the toe of a blade-type putter, but my mallet was not suited to the task. Maybe a choked-down 5-iron would be a better choice?

Anyway, give it a try during your next practice session. Like the "next to a tree, left-handed, facing backwards" shot, it's a good one to have as part of your arsenal.

 

[flomarilius]

I don't think I could pull this off let alone get out of the bunker "correctly". My sand game has gone to **** and I am having to literally chip the ball out of bunkers because I can't hit a good open face shot without keeping the ball in the bunker.

 

[Pa Jayhawk]

I still don't understand the shot. It sounds like you are you saying the toe was pointed at the hole and the face straight down at the ball???? Is this right. Do you take a normal swing very steep, or straight up and down?