Uphill bunker shots strike fear in most amateur golfers.
I see so many players try to help the ball up by leaning back – that’s exactly what kills your consistency and leads to those thin shots that rocket over the green.
Here’s how to handle uphill bunker shots with confidence:
1. Match your shoulders to the slope while keeping your lower body stable. Your belt buckle should point more level than your shoulders.
2. Take your 50° or 52° wedge instead of your highest lofted club. The slope already adds loft – trust it. The less lofted club gives you more control.
3. Play the ball slightly forward of center and dig your feet in firmly. You need a stable base on the slope.
4. Strike down and through the sand about 2 inches behind the ball. The slope helps the ball up – your job is to accelerate through with confidence.
The uphill lie does half the work for you. Stop fighting it and start using it to your advantage.
Save this post for the next time you’re facing an uphill bunker shot
#golfinstruction #bunkerplay #golfcoaching
So, I’ve got a golf tip request from underscorewe chalky. So, thanks for that about how to play greenside bunker shots from an uphill lie. And that’s a great question because it’s quite a rare thing that people get asked. But you’re absolutely right. You might get occasions where you’re right up against the face on an uphill slope and you kind of almost fear, wow, this is not going to get far enough or am I going to hit it too heavy or am I going to thin it over the back of the green? Things like that. So, we don’t want to be thinking negatively. So, the reason I’ve got two clubs is traditionally, obviously, we play bunker shots from a flat lie with either a 58, a 56, or a 54, something like that. But, I’m going to leave this 58° and I’m going to be using my 50°. So, I’ve got a gap wedge here. You can either use a 48, a 52, something along those lines, or a gap wedge if you’ve got a set all the letters on the bottom. Gap wedge, G wedge, a wedge, approach wedge. Now, what that does is if it means we can still open the club face to create the slice under the sand without worrying that the ball is just going to come out straight up in the air and come back down the slope and roll further back into the bunker. So, very very simple way of changing it in terms of setting up with the shot. We want to try and follow the slope. So, we want to be in a position where we’re able to follow the slope with our body. So, you’ll probably dig in a little bit like I have done here with this to get the foundation. But from there, you want to follow everything with the slope. Follow your hips, shoulders especially, try and follow the slope because we’re trying to swing with the slope on the shot. We’re not trying to dig in to the slope because if we dig this way into the slope, even if we have the club face open, there’s a good chance we’re going to dig in and leave the ball in the sand. So, we don’t want to be doing that. We don’t want to take too much sand. We want to take the right amount of sand. So, we set ourselves nice and level with the slope. Get ourselves balanced. Keep that balance. So, there’s no real leaning into the slope. We’re just going to try and follow the slope. And that shot came out really nice and soft, nice and high. And it’s not too far away from the hole as
