Buried Bunker Shot: Concussion

Video Transcript

Here we are in the bunker and I want to show you a principle for a buried ball, and the principle is concussion. Now when we have the ball sitting on top of the sand we simply use almost a regular golf swing with some minor changes and we allow the club to skip or splash through the sand. But when the ball is buried we can’t do that, we have to be able to make it into a digger, get the sand wedge to be a digger. Now I am going to show you the principle of concussion, to show you that you don’t have to lift the ball out of the bunker with the loft that is in the face. I am going to take these two buried balls here, and the first one is buried closer to the lip of the green, and I am going to get out by knocking it on to the bank just a ways with a putter. Now how can I do that? The putter does not even have any loft. I am going to take extra loft out of it by tilting the shaft forward, but watch what happens and you will understand the principle. I lean into it right here, I provide concussion, and that blows the ball up out of the bunker and on to the bank. The reason that it did was that as the ball was sitting there I provided a force, concussion, which blew it up in the air to come over the lip and on to the bank. That is the same thing we do when we have the shot back here. You provide concussion. You get the leading edge down, you take the club and get a steeper angle of approach, and the force blows it out, not the loft, you come down and on to the green. And that is the principle of concussion. Try it, I guarantee you it will work.

Gary Wiren
Trump International Golf Club
3505 Summit Blvd.
West Palm Beach, FL. 33406
Tel: 800-FOR-GARY
Tel: 800-367-4267

Dr. Gary Wiren was the PGA Teacher of the Year in 1987 and is also author of the PGA Teaching Manual. He is listed as one of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Teachers and Golf Digest's #12 instructor in the world.

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