Seri’s Blasphemous Bunker Tip

The common wisdom is that bunker shots are an explosion. You’re supposed to aim for the sand an inch or two behind the ball, swing hard, and blast the sand, and your ball, out of the bunker. The problem with that, for me anyway, is that any obstacle in front of my weak arms will slow down my swing speed considerably. I lack so much upper body strength that I might lose 10 yards for each grain of sand in the way of my ball.

I told Seri about this. She is even more petite than me, but she handles bunkers with ease. She said, "I'm going to tell you my secret." And then she advised me to think of bunker shots just like chip shots off a tight lie. Swing gently, and hit the ball first, not the sand. And follow through as you would with a chip shot. If you’re in a “fried egg” situation, where the ball is embedded, this is a bit more difficult, but you can still try and hit the ball first, but let the club head stop in the sand, as if you’re hitting out of thick rough.

Next time I found myself in a bunker, I tried it. Sure enough, it worked. But like anything, it takes practice. I still try and hit bunker shots the "normal" way when I can, but for those times when I have already taken two or three swings and can't get myself out of the sand the normal way, I relax and try Seri's method and it usually works. Nice to have a secret weapon when the going gets rough out there.

The 16-Dollar Tree Wedge

I finally bought a sand wedge. It's made by a company called Lynx and the retail price was $25 but I had a coupon so I got it for about $16 including tax. I took it out for a spin the other day, during Sunday twilight. As soon as I landed in a bunker, I tried it out. Unfortunately, this is what happened:

The red dashed lines represent how many swipes I took at the ball, only to have it shoot back and roll down into the sand. So much for cheap sand wedges. Hubby said I needed to open the club face. I told him he needed to close his mouth.

I did discover that the 56-degree loft on the club is useful for lobbing balls over trees, which is something not even my 50-degree U wedge could do:

In all fairness, though, I realize I need to work on my bunker technique. Either that, or keep the ball off the beach.
  

Fried Eggs, Bunkers, and Body Shots

Last Tuesday, Seri and I met up for our second game together. We had a tee time at one of the more expensive municipal courses, which was offering a reduced winter rate. The yardage from the forward tees is 4762, about a thousand yards shorter than the course where Seri and I first played. But, as I would soon learn, a shorter course does not mean an easier one.

It was the first full round I had played in a week. My weekend round with hubby was cut short due to rain. I had been looking forward to showing off my new monster drive, but it never reared its head, leading me to nickname it the Loch Ness Monster Drive, since it was acting like a mythical creature hiding in a lake.

Even though the course where Seri and I were playing was short, riding a cart is advised, due to lots of hills and some long distances between holes. “It is walkable,” said the pro shop cashier. “But I only know three people who have walked it.”

So Seri and I shared a cart, and it was my turn to party because, as it turns out, Seri is really fun. This time she wore a navy blue puffy vest over a bright blue windbreaker, embroidered with the name of some designer I would surely recognize if I were into designer labels. I wore a pink fleece pullover with an orange vest, so we were a pretty colorful pair. I also wore golf shoes, an old pair of Foot Joys that I don’t wear often because they lack decent arch support.

But having rubber spikes do make a difference, and I parred the first two holes. This seemed to impress the young man who was playing with us. I’ll call him Lefty, for the usual reasons one would call someone that name. He said he played on the state’s professional lacrosse team. “Lacrosse is too easy, so you decided to take up golf, huh?” I said, and he laughed.

Truth is, we all had trouble with this course. Short as it was, it was full of blind fairways, rolling hills, intricate bunkerage, and putting greens wavier than a potato chip. Seri and I kept it fun with our exuberant exclamations after every shot and dramatic outpourings of “Ohh nooo!” each time our ball landed in a bad lie.

Whoever designed this course must have had some military training, for all the psy-ops at play. The hills and slopes played tricks on the mind till you didn’t know which way was up. It reminded me of a tourist attraction in California called the Mystery Spot, where you step into what looks like a normal house, only to find that the floors are not horizontal and the walls are not vertical, so gravity seems to be pulling at you in odd ways.

To psych us out even more, this course also had some diabolical tee placements that had us teeing off directly over hazards. And those tree shadows didn't help.

After nine holes of torture, Seri brought out some coffee and tiramisu cake for all of us to snack on. I think the real reason she always rides in a cart is because she brings lunch.

Seri speaks English with a Korean accent, and I can usually understand her, since I was raised by immigrants and I have a lifetime of experience interpreting Asian accents.

But when we were on a putting green and she asked Lefty about a “body shot,” I was stumped.

“Body shot?” I said. “You mean if he makes this putt, we should all do body shots?”

“No, no!” she said. “Body shot, body shot. I am asking, this is his body shot?”

“Oh, you mean birdie shot!” I said.

Seri also likes to abbreviate the word “bunker.”

“I hate landing in the bunk,” she would say with disdain.

But she’s right. Bunkers are bunk.

Whenever I land in a bunker, I try to make light of the situation by saying something like, “Looks like I’m going to the beach,” or “Guess I could use a little sand practice.”

But on one hole, I landed in a “fried egg,” which is when the ball embeds itself in a bunker so the surrounding sand makes it look like a fried egg. I was playing with a yellow ball, so this situation really looked like a fried egg.

But it wasn’t just a fried egg. It was a fried egg on an uphill slope. Notice the shadowy tufts of grass showing how close my ball was to the bunker’s edge.

I have read a lot about how to get out of bunkers, including tips specifically for women but I can’t possibly remember it all. I just try to keep it simple with these rules:

My Quick and Dirty Bunker Guide

1. Never ground the club (it’s against the rules).

2. Plant your feet and dig in a little by squiggling your ankles.

3. Sit down into your stance like you’re about to sit in a chair.

4. In a fairway bunker, take your normal club for the distance and try to pick it clean without hitting sand.

5. In a greenside bunker, lean into your front leg, choke down on your sand wedge, aim for the sand behind the ball, and hit as hard as you can.

Some people say you should open your clubface, but I don’t really know how to do that without being afraid I’ll miss the ball. Turns out that it was fine not to open the clubface, because on a fried egg lie, you’re actually supposed to close the clubface.

And on an uphill fried egg, the rule about leaning into your front leg doesn’t apply either. You’re supposed to lean back so the ball has a better chance of shooting straight up.

But I didn’t know any of that at the time, so I just dug my heels in, leaned forward, and whacked as hard as I could. The ball shot up the slope and backward, landing a few feet behind me, still in the bunker. But it was in a flat lie, so I got it out from there with no problem.

Yeah, bunkers are bunk. Maybe we should all do body shots after getting out of them.