In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by tour coach Liam James to offer some simple guidance on how to escape bunkers and chip it closer!
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00:00One of the fastest ways to improve your game this year might well be to concentrate on the
00:10short game. Now we've teamed up with Ping and we're here at the London Club to offer you some
00:14really helpful pointers about how to improve starting, Liam, with bunker play. Now I guess
00:20the issue that a lot of people will have is that they either are in danger of thinning the ball
00:24into the face or fatting it and leaving it in the bunker so how do you get more consistent with the
00:28amount of sand you take? Yes so the most inconsistent thing that you see in the bunker really is
00:32obviously where the club is striking the ground so as you've just mentioned there some players
00:37trying to help the golf ball out of the bunker hitting the hitting the sand in the wrong place
00:41and then obviously that fearful thin that goes through the back of the green but we've got a
00:45simple drill for you here basically that just enables you to obviously make sure that when
00:50you're practicing back home and you're practicing in the bunker you are entering the sand in the
00:54right place every time so it's just a simple line here in the sand and there's a couple of basic
00:59things that we're going to do in your setup just to enable you to ensure that we're going to hit
01:03that ground in the right place. Okay so tell us about that setup then what do you need to do
01:08to make sure that you're in the right place? So again just a little common thing that we start to
01:12see quite a bit of is that you know when a player's set up here obviously the first thing that we
01:18generally see is the golf ball gets a little bit too far back in their stance so this line that I've got here on
01:22the ground I'm just going to make sure that that's just inside my left heel in the setup and then
01:28obviously when I've got now into my address position I'm just going to place a little bit more of my
01:32weight onto my left side so I've got about 70 to 80 percent of my weight on this left side now and as
01:38I'm just having a few practice swings all I'm going to ensure is that I'm just going to strike that line
01:43in the same place every single time. I guess the temptation Liam for people when they're hitting a
01:51bunker shot but any sort of chip shot is to kind of lean back on it a bit feel like you're helping
01:55the ball up in the air it can feel like the most natural thing to do but actually that can hurt you
01:59absolutely and that's where you've just got to trust the fact that you've got plenty of loft in
02:03your hands in the first place I mean we've got 56 degrees of loft here so there's no need for me to
02:08try and add any more loft at any given point but there's just a little bit of a trust thing in
02:11there to make sure that you you set up in the right place first of all but 80 percent of this really is
02:16an easy setup if we get that right the rest of it is a lot more straightforward. Okay Liam so talk
02:21us to the drill. Okay so basic drill obviously I've drawn the line in the sand here so all that
02:26we're going to do really when we set ourselves up in the practice now two or three practice swings
02:30before we go ahead and hit the ball and I'm just going to make sure that this golf ball is just
02:34positioned inside of my left foot here okay and now I'm going to place around 70 percent of my weight
02:39onto that front side as I mentioned and I'm just going to have a few practice swings making sure
02:44that I'm hitting the sand in the right place okay the big thing to watch out for when you're doing
02:50this is obviously making sure we're not seeing the club enter the sand too far behind that line
02:55because that will refer to what we spoke about so shall I give it a go give it a go yeah let's see
03:01okay so plenty of loft on the golf in a dress there ball's just inside my left foot
03:05I've got a little bit of weight on that left side
03:09perfect and then off we go lovely and if you can do that then you should be able
03:13to kind of eradicate some of those really poor shots that might be costing you in the bunker
03:18okay so we're moving on to chipping now and Liam I guess for whatever level of golfer you are
03:24getting consistently the distance right is the key isn't it so how do you how do you go about
03:30training that how can you practice for that absolutely so I mean there's there's first of
03:34all a couple of things that you can do just generally basics in your setup that offer you a
03:38little bit more control kind of when you're hitting a chip shot so often we see a lot of
03:43amateurs hitting golf shots with their hands right at the top of the grip here now the clubs actually
03:48it's heaviest when you're holding all the way up here so to gain yourself a little bit more control
03:53and again help you gauge the distance a little bit better the first thing to do is just grip down the
03:58golf club a little bit so you can see my hands are almost covering the golf pride there on that grip so
04:02right now the second thing that I've got set out here for when you're practicing is there's
04:08just a towel on the green there so that's my ideal landing area for this shot so to refer that to your
04:14distance control all that we're going to do now is just have a few different practice swings and the
04:19only thing that I'm trying to do here is is just have a relevant practice swing of how hard I'm trying
04:24to hit that often we see a lot of golfers have very irrelevant practice swings where they might be
04:29swinging back too far or they're not even have a practice swing at all yes so you're really trying
04:33to gain a feel for distance just by looking at the towel and then feeling the left side swing so just
04:39eyes on the towel a few different practice swings there just keeping my eyes on there and just trying
04:44to gauge if I'm taking that golf club far enough back in order to land it where I want and when
04:49you're out of golf course then are you trying to how much attention are you paying to your landing
04:53spot when you're on the golf course is that just as important there 100 identifying that landing
04:58area first of all is a really important part and often some think a lot of golfers don't do so
05:02it's worth just taking a little look having a little walk around before you hit the chip shot
05:06and just trying to identify yourself an area where you'd like to land the golf ball in order for it to
05:11release back down to the pin okay let's give it a go okay so I'm going to make sure that as I mentioned
05:17my I'm just covering that the logo on the bottom of my grip there I'm going to have two or three
05:21practice swings just keeping my eye on that landing area just trying to replicate the swing that I need
05:28I'm going to get in there and give it a hit
05:34very good it's these sorts of drills that if you can use them it stops you getting too technical
05:39stops you thinking too much but should help improve your feel and that could make a big difference to
05:44your scores
05:52you