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Page 18, RURAL-URBAN RECORD, April 24, 2017
How to Play Fairway
Buncker Shots Perfectly
To be pro?cient with
fairway bunker shots you
have to consider your club
selection carefully, and
fully commit to where you
want to strike the ball on
the clubface. Here is some
information sure to help
you hit better fairway bun-
ker shots.
Club Selection for
Fairway Bunker Shots
The biggest factor in
club selection is how high
you have to hit the ball to
get it over grass mounds or
lips that surround the bun-
ker. Getting too greedy can
easily lead to undesirable
outcomes. The question
you want to ask yourself
is, “What is the least lofted
club I know I can hit high
enough to get over these
obstacles?” If there’s any
hesitation in your answer
to that question, you hav-
en’t chosen enough loft.
Make sure that beyond a
shadow of a doubt, if you
make decent contact with
the ball, it’s soaring out of if you can borrow a bottle
the bunker and back into a
good position to minimize
damage to your score.
Technique
It may be hard to be-
lieve, but I assure you
fairway bunker shots can
become easy with a lit-
tle practice and appropri-
ate in-swing intentions.
There’s nothing fancy
about the technique of the
fairway bunker swing. It’s
a full swing. Don’t let it be ing the ball thin. As you hit
anything more complicated
than that.
Most average golfers
struggle with balance in
their swing, especially
when faced with shots that
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Golfer’s
make them uncomfortable.
I recommend digging in
with your feet while get-
ting set in your address
position to avoid the sand
breaking free beneath your
feet during your swing.
The key to the fairway
bunker shot swing is your
in-swing intention, also
referred to as your swing
thought. Your in-swing in-
tention should be to hit
the ball without touching
one single grain of sand.
If you chose the correct
club, catching it a little thin
will still yield a very nice re- (many of them withheld it
sult. Being this precise with
your contact takes a bit of
practice, so keep reading
so you know how to devel-
op this valuable skill.
Practice
How in the world am I
supposed to practice fair-
way bunker shots? Driving
ranges don’t have fairway
bunkers!
Well they don’t need to.
All you need is a grass
range and some sand or
divot ?ller. Ask the proshop
of their divot ?ll, and if they
don’t have any, buy a cup
of coffee, dispose of coffee
as you see ?t, and go to
the nearest bunker and ?ll
the coffee cup full of sand.
Now head to the range and
warm up.
Find the biggest divot
near you after your warm
up and ?ll it full of sand.
Gently place a ball in the
sand-?lled divot and swing
with the intention of strik-
balls with different clubs
out of your homemade mini
fairway bunker, experiment
with choking down on the
grip and see if it helps you
achieve that thin strike.
When you start feeling
successful graduate to try-
ing to pick it clean without
touching the sand. When
executed correctly the ball
should ?y a little higher.
On Course
Expectations
I’ve found that when I
strike an iron solid from a
fairway bunker it goes the
same distance as when I
strike it off the fairway. The
biggest difference is the
way it feels and sounds.
You don’t get that same
lovely sound from a fairway
bunker as you do from the
fairway, so don’t expect it.
As long as you can get the
club on the ball and get the
ball to clear any obstacles,
you should be well on your
way to fairway bunker pro-
?ciency and you’ll be the
envy of the other members
of your foursome.
Guide
Some GPS Golf Apps to Try else that no other app out presented with a feed sim-
on your Phone there is offering. ilar to Facebook, and you
can create social groups
The golf GPS app mar- plays important yardage 18 Birdies amongst your friends and
information, and boasts 18 Birdies is another meet fellow golfers who
ket is enormous, Some more features for free noteworthy free golf GPS are sharing their experi-
than any of their compe- app that golfers should be ences on the course.
Keys factors to consider: tition. aware of.
It performed nicely on 18 Birdies also allows
Ease of use – did the You are displayed key the course with crisp sat- you to create and manage
information like the front, ellite images. It displayed live tournaments, which
golf app work quickly and center, and back distanc- yardages to the front, is another nice feature.
es to greens. Additionally, middle, and back of ev- Overall, it’s a great app
not waste precious time in layup distances and yard- ery green and allowed that obviously had a lot of
ages to hazards are in- you to adjust your target work put into it as it has
between shots? cluded (which most of the while maintaining dis- more robust features than
other apps charge for). tance information. The almost every other golf-
Key yardages – which app is nicely designed, ing app out there. There
Players can easily ad- and works cleanly while are no premium upgrades
apps gave you the most just distances to ?gure out you’re out on the course. available, so you’re not
layup distances and yard- You also can enter scor- being sold anything which
yardage information ages to hazards. You can ing and statistical informa- is nice.
also keep track of your tion after each hole quite
stats, play games like Sta- easily. Also Worth Down-
bleford against your play- If you’re looking to play
for premium upcharges) ing partners, and enter some games like Nas- loading – Golf Logix
your group scores easily sau or Skins against your Golf Logix has been
Overall features – during the round. group it can handle that
as well. around for a long time,
which app gave you the Personally I think their 18 Birdies is a bit more and has been a leading
strongest feature is that than just a GPS app. free golf GPS app for
best mixture of features they offer a USGA com- They’ve tried to create years. As you would ex-
pliant handicap for free. a gol?ng social network. pect, it’s a solid app, but
for no charge, and which To my knowledge no oth- When you log in you’re I think it fell short of The
er app out there is do- Grint and 18 Birdies on a
ones were holding back to ing that, and I think it’s a few fronts.
nice additional bonus that
get you to open up your many companies charge
money for.
wallet
There is also a social
I tried most of the free element to the Grint and
their online interface is
golf GPS apps out there, nicely designed. Their
pro membership upgrade
and only included the costs $19.99 a year, and
allows you to track your
ones that I thought were stats, take a picture of
your scorecard, and have
worthy of your time. Many your scores automatical-
ly updated – something
of them performed poor-
ly and did not make the
list. The last thing I want
any of you to do is get
stuck on the course with a
buggy app that does any CONTINUED TO PAGE 27
harm to your round!
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