The fried egg

We all know the feeling, you are on a good score, you hit a nice drive up the last then miss hit your second shot and the last thing you see is your ball disappear into a greenside bunker.

Please don’t be plugged, please don’t be plugged, this is the only thought going through your head until you peer into the bunker and all you can see is the top of the ball sticking out of the sand like a fried egg. The next word spoken normally has four letters and is not printable! – But after today you need not worry any more.

When playing a bunker shot from a plugged lie, there are some changed to set up and technique that need to be made compared to a standard splash shot.

Firstly, you must position the ball more towards the middle of your stance and then you should CLOSE the clubface a little, making the leading edge sharper so that you can dig under the ball.

Now make a steep and fairly full back swing, followed by a hard and powerful hit down into the sand 5 or 6 cm behind the ball. There is no need to be delicate on this shot and as a result of the steep swing angle, you will find that your through swing is restricted but even still, you should find that the ball will just pop up and out of the bunker and roll towards the pin.

There’s no need for any finesse on this one!