Square Club Face For Bunker Shots

T will never lose his sass. Ha ha!

How are you doing with the Doc driver you got a while back (edit: Tina)?

We all are!!! Ha ha!! LOL!

The way Disqus does these columns it's hard to keep track of who said what to whom and even harder to know at what point in the conversation it was said. Then about the time you think you have it figured out you find another part of the same chat somewhere else because they ran out of reply boxes in the original one.
Some of those look like somebody is off of their rocker as a stand alone comment.

Yeah, it remains to be seen if he actually quits because golf has been a big part of his life and he "was" really good at it. He can still murder the ball with a driver and is a really good putter but that's it. He's even shanking most of his chip shots.

The shanks are a weird thing.

If you don't have them you can do everything in the book wrong and never shank the ball.

The club arcs to the inside on ALL golf shots, AFTER impact. The point is to swing through the impact zone on line with the club face.

No mark was missed here. I do it that way all the time. I used to open the club face and the toe line and swing through the ball parallel to my foot line, as in any "normal" shot but found I had more directional control this way.

P.S. There are limits on when that technique is plausible. When swinging very fast on VERY high flop shots or on certain VERY long green side bunker shots or over a very high lip the swing will naturally be more parallel to the toe line because it's basically a full swing. On those I just have to resort back to taking an educated guess how far right the ball will land and how much spin it will have (when I'm crazy enough to try those shots). The "success rate" on those shots is not great anyway and just getting them close enough to 2 putt is about all we can expect.

On the shorter chips and bunker shots where the technique can be used with control I am expecting to have a good chance of holing the shot or at worst get close enough for a one putt.

I would much rather know which way the ball is going to go and how it is going to spin by knowing which way my club is facing and swinging through the ball in that direction than to swing parallel to the toe line and take a guess how much right of that the open face angling across the ball is going to make the ball go and how much side spin it may have.

 Yeah I hate to see that happen to anybody.

Lexi was a more concerning because all of the basic fundamentals of putting were not there. She has work to do or it will happen again.

Of course many good young players are really good putters (or so they think) until the kid luck wears off and they realize they better work on better fundamentals, and they do.

The difference is that usually happens in high school or college and the whole world doesn't see it.

We were watching a Jr. Championship on TV one day and those 12 year olds were rolling in almost every putt they had and they couldn't care less about fundamentals. My wife mentioned how well they were putting and I told her "just give them about 8 years when they figure out it's not that easy and they get some demons in their head from missing more of them".

I don't know for sure what Surge would tell you about the buried lie in the bunker but all I do is take more of a standard stance and  still swing along the target line, which in this case is also parallel to the foot line. Makes the club face more closed in relation to the swing path but always facing the target.

That is an interesting observation Tim. I never really thought about whether my shoulders are square to the aiming line when I open my stance for those shots. I just open my stance until the club face is perfectly facing my intermediate target.

After reading your observation of what it appears Surge is doing as he is explaining the set up I had to get a club and see what actually happens with my "shoulder line" with the open stance. Turns out that my shoulder line is also open to match the lower body. If I properly open the lower body so the club face is pointing directly at the target, and then I "close" my shoulders to match the aiming line it automatically opens the club face in relation to the aiming line (which I don't want).

Pretty sure Surge would do it as I do because I can see no alternative and maintain the club face at the target, and I think what it appears we are seeing in this video in regards to the shoulders is not entirely accurate.

Everyone can get a wedge, put the ball on a line, and set up for a normal shot. Then open the club face, which will increase loft but put the club face pointing right of target. Then open the stance until the club face is once again pointing down the target line. Then while maintaining the open lower body turn the shoulders back to square with the target line. For me (and I would assume everybody else) the club face re-opens to right of target (where we don't want it).

I have no problem at all swinging up and down the target line with my shoulders open to that line, much as I can stand almost facing a target and toss a ball at the target underhanded. Or I can stand with my left shoulder facing a target and toss a ball at the target underhanded. Or any degree of stance in between.
The one constant in any stance I take is that the follow through is toward the target and the right palm (or club face) is facing the target.

 That question really can't be answered, for any age. Too many variables. The right equipment, a better and more efficient swing, and strength and speed training can help give any of us closer to what we are capable of doing but some guy with none of that but more genetic speed may still have more distance. All we can do is make consistent impact on the sweet spot through a better swing and/or better equipment, keep ourselves in shape, and play with the distance we have.

Another reason it's hard to answer a general question on distance is that there is a huge difference in roll out from course to course. On the course I play most often a carry of 270 yards will give an overall distance of 280 yards or less on most holes on most days. On another course nearby the same carry will almost always end up over 300 yards.

Just as a personal observation strictly from the people that age that play in our game most of them hit about 210 to 240 yards most of the time with a driver with the limited roll out on our course. The one exception out there is one very good player that is 64 years old, was never a long hitter, but consistently gets 250 to 260 yards of carry just from the consistent ball striking.
Sometimes for fun we play the women's green on one hole that has two greens because the second shot at the men's green is a long carry over water. He always wants us to play at the women's green, which is VERY small (probably a 15 feet circle) and turtle shaped and right next to the lake. A very risky target to even try to hit but at only 255 yards it's right in his wheelhouse with a driver and it's the one hole where he has a huge advantage over everybody else because of his accuracy.

A lot of this stuff is pretty simple and about half of the time we are all talking about the same thing and using different terms and we all misunderstand each other a lot. You may well be saying the same thing I am saying because opening the club face is a correction for the open alignment, or actually to be more accurate the open alignment is a correction to make the open club face point at the target.

The big discrepancy in teaching is that some are taught to swing parallel to the open toe line and making an educated guess how far right the ball will start and how much side spin it will have, whereas I believe it's more accurate and easier if we swing along the same line as the club face and that eliminates the side spin that is hard to predict and is almost like a baby cut and it's also easier to predict starting direction, which will always be directly over the intermediate target.

P.S. I am only talking about shots around the green and might use the technique out to around 30 yards. Beyond that I would see no reason to swing along anything other than parallel to the toe line and wouldn't trust my ability to do that accurately at higher speed even if I wanted too.

Very true!!!

Wow!! That's a trip. I knew you had mentioned playing in the Spring Tourney. But that long a trip is easy to reconsider on. LOL
Why Columbia? Are you getting clubs from Doc?

 I didn't watch any of it. Was working on my flat bed trailer and Deb had the women's game on and when I would come in for some breaks I watched a good bit of that.

Sounds like our course. There is never any roll. Even when the ground is not wet the grass is just too thick. It's a good thing on that course because there are too many short holes and if there was much roll out too many people would drive the greens. As it is only the legitimate long hitters can do it. I think that is why most of the young guys that grew up playing on that course can really hit the long ball, with carry. They started out having a good reason to bomb it and it's their thing.

Well I can't decide whether to go play in the Masters this week or not.
I'm sure it would be fun but I would have to go to the trouble of driving down there and getting a motel room. Plus I would end up missing the Saturday game at Lil Mole. Then there's the hassle of winning something like that and having to deal with the press and figuring out how to spend the money.

If they hadn't waited until this late to call me and invite me down I could have planned it out but I only got the call this morning.

I told the guy that next year if they wanted me in the field along with the audience I would bring to the tournament he should let me know sooner so I could make plans, and practice a little more.

APRIL FOOLS!!!!!

 Even though Surge was answering a question on bunker shots I use the same set up principles on chips, pitches, and flops where I need the shot to be a little higher and softer than usual. I have found over time that finding and being aware of an intermediate target within vision of the ball is more important than ever on those shots. With that "target" I can keep track of where the aim line that I am trying to swing down really is. Without it there is a tendency to swing along the foot line as we are used to doing on normal shots and we will often pull the chip left.

 Hey Phil,
Are you there now?