6 Lessons to Help You Escape Fairway Bunkers With Ease

By
, GolfLink Editor
Updated November 6, 2023
Man plays a golf shot from a fairway bunker
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    Man plays a golf shot from a fairway bunker
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Playing from fairway bunkers requires just a few adjustments. Check out these drills to improve your game from fairway bunkers. 

2 Easy Ways to Hit Out of Fairway Bunkers

You can't hit the sand behind the ball because if you do you are going to come out fat with your shot and it probably won't go more than 20 or 30 yards. There are a couple of adjustments that you want to make in order to hit a fairway bunker shot.

  • First dig your feet into the sand to keep from slipping too much when you are swinging because the sand does not offer the footing that the grass does. When you dig your feet in you have to choke down on the club the same amount you dug in because digging your feet in will cause you to hit underneath the ball if you do not choke down a little bit.
  • Next, put the ball a little bit further back in your stance and your weight a little forward on your left side. When you swing you are going to try to concentrate on using a little less body motion but making sure you turn your body through.
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How to Get Out of a Fairway Bunker with a High Lip

I am 160 yards away from the pin so the shot for me calls for an 8-iron, but I can not get an 8-iron over this lip realistically. I have to figure out what club I can get over this lip when I am faced with this shot. 

In a round of golf it is just not worth it to risk that much on one shot so I am going to take a pitching wedge, I am going to make sure I make solid contact and I just want to get it over this lip and get it into play so I can have a chance to get it up and down for par.

For a fairway bunker shot, I put the ball back in my stance, I have to make sure I make solid contact so I am going to focus on following all the way through with my body and with the club, and try to hit the golf ball first and then the sand.

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Simple Advice for Hitting Out of Fairway Bunkers

I have to be very careful because just a few ounces of sand behind the ball can get trapped between the clubface and the ball and cause the shot to shoot into the face of the bunker. So the two lies I have in front of me give me totally different outlooks.

From the clean lie I can hit a 7-iron and pick it right off the sand. But from this dirty lie where the ball is just sitting down a little bit I have to hit a 9-iron and hit it slightly fat to make sure that I get the loft of the club on the ball. There is not much chance that I can get on the green with this dirty lie but there is a pretty good chance of making the green with the good lie.

3 Pointers for Fairway Bunker Shots

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This is a question that I get asked fairly often, what is the technique for hitting out of a fairway bunker? It is different than a greenside bunker, I am not going to hit the sand behind the ball, I am trying to hit all ball.

  1. You have to have confidence that you can swing along the sand not into the sand.
  2. Two things that I think about that help me do that, and I do this every time that I am in a fairway bunker, is choke down slightly and make a three-quarter swing.
  3. I am not going to make a great big swing. I am taking enough club that I can really make a well-balanced move back and through, thereby having better control about how deep I go with the clubhead.

Proper Stance for a Downhill Fairway Bunker Shot

Well, you come out on the golf course and sometimes it all does not go according to plan. You can get lucky, but sometimes you get very unlucky, and this is an example of some really bad luck. Not only are we in the fairway bunker that in itself is not ideal—but we are in a down-slope in the fairway bunker, the target is quite a long way away.

So how to go about it? I am going to have to get my weight over here on the left side and try to get my body line so that I am parallel to the angle of the slope. The ball is on this down-slope and I am going to want to sort of cut it out of this lie so I am going to aim left.

So my weight is on my left side, I am aiming to the left and am going to have to cut it out. Now as I swing through, as I pick the ball off of the sand and I drive it through, I am going to have to drive down the slope and walkthrough. It is not a very pretty shot but it can be pretty effective.

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6 Tips to Hit from Fairway Bunkers

  1. First, pick a club that is going to clear the lip. I am not going to hit a full shot out of a fairway bunker, I would like to back down one club, maybe even two, and swing easier with not too much leg action. 
  2. Grip down about one inch on the club because when I stand in here I get my feet secured I get a little bit lower than I would in the fairway.
  3. Look more at the top of the ball. If you hit a little bit thin you are OK, a little bit fat you are going to go nowhere. In order to do that I try to set up where I am going to catch that ball first.
  4. Most people do a lot better by having the ball back just a little bit in their stance, about to the center for a 7-iron. Grip down slightly and then concentrate on hitting higher on the golf ball.
  5. We do not want to set up with our weight back or under or by any chance touch the sand on the way back. I saw this happen recently at a big tournament where a person touched a leaf on the backswing, that is a two-stroke penalty, we don't want that to happen. You have to hover the club above the golf ball.
  6. From there the thing that I think about and teach that has been successful is keeping my chin up. I try to keep my chin high when I go to hit the golf shot. Not drop down.