Why is one of the easiest shots for the golf professional so freakin’ hard for me? I am talking, of course, about the bunker shot. Just seeing those monsters at St. Andrews on TV made my palms sweat. I remember watching Seve Ballesteros years ago entertaining the Open gallery at the Royal St. George’s practice green, hitting bunker shot after bunker shot to within two feet of the holes: high, low, long, short, downhill lie, radical spin, no spin — the mesmerized gallery would call out the shot, and the short game maestro would execute “to order” while flashing that famous Seve grin. It was just amazing to witness the artistry of his bunker play. Just Seve being Seve.
We all know the tour most pros are so confident of a successful up and down they purposely aim for greenside bunkers when they have to bail-out. So what’s my problem? I’ve read the magazines, watched the videos, spent the money on lessons exclusively devoted to improving my bunker play — and my inconsistent, inept, and tragicomic antics in sand still cost me two or three shots a round. Then I come home to recover with a cold beer or two, and watch Luke Donald (sand save percentage = 74) or Corey Pavin (80%) splash out to within 20 inches nearly every time.
One wise teacher told me that the best way to avoid sand trouble is to avoid bunkers. Gee, thanks for that $50 piece of advice. If I was good enough to avoid sand hell, I would probably be skilled enough not to blade 40% of my escape attempts into the forest, and dump another 50% in the very same trap.
Of course, every once in a great while a tour pro will remind me of me. Recall the name Tommy Nakajima? In 1978, the 48-event-winner on the Japan Tour was in contention at the Open Championship at St. Andrews. During the third round, poor Tommy found the 17th green in regulation, and then proceeded to putt into the notorious Road Hole Bunker. It took him four shots to get out, and he recorded a quintuple bogey. The British press has ever since referred to the bunker as “the Sands of Nakajima”. Then there was David Duval’s nightmarish quad after thrashing around in the same sandpit in the 2000 Open. Last week, it was Anders Hansen who recorded the snowman after 4 blows in the sand.
I have been very lucky to play at Pine Valley. I have been very unlucky to hit into a vast Sahara known as “Hell’s half acre” on the par five 7th, which is sometimes referenced to as the largest non-seaside bunker in the world. During the same round, my tee shot on number 10 ended up in “the devil’s asshole”, a small bunker protecting the green entrance. The pit is so deep the US Department of Labor’s Mine Safety Administration should regulate it. I would still be in there had I not eventually employed my “go to” sand shot: the soft underhanded toss.
And just when I’ve read all the tips and techniques ever written in the English language, every last one demanding that you open your stance and play the ball well-forward, along comes the respected teacher-to-the-stars Stan Utley who insists that the open stance is all wrong – just set-up normally and swing away. Uh, sorry, Stan. I’ll now lying five, still laboring with my S wedge.
The classic, The Nine Bad Shots of Golf (New York: McGraw Hill, 1947), is only half correct: “Playing from the sand, especially from bunkers around the green is perhaps the most feared phase of golf. The knowledge that it is absolutely necessary to get the ball out of the sand, yet not hit it hard enough to knock it over the green, is terrifying to the duffer. Yet it shouldn’t be, for the technique of playing from the sand (here comes the lie) is no harder to learn and probably easier than playing from the tee or fairway.”
The greatest golf writer of them all, Bernard Darwin, once described bunkers as “greedy, lurking enemies”. I couldn’t agree more.