It's the Son of a Book podcast. You guys know the drill come to you every Wednesday. This week. This week, I wanted to follow up on something that I touched on in the pod last week, this concept of this domino effect that I talked about when I give golf lessons, when I'm looking at golf swings and I'm looking at how players swing the golf club, I'm looking at a lot of different things, right, There's a lot of different body parts. And I think one of the things that confuses a lot of people that play golf is there's a lot of things going on in a very very short period of time. You know, you're making a dynamic movement pattern, but the movement pattern that you're making is really only taking about second and a half to two seconds. So even though there's a lot of things going on, there tends to be a one main cause. My dad used to always tell me, find the cancer in the golf swing. Find the answer that is killing this person's golf swing. And I thought about that, and I thought, Okay, how can I kind of take that concept and kind of make it my own? And I thought, okay, Well, when I look at golf swings, and I look at what players do. There's this series of events, this chain reaction, and when you hit a bad shot, and I'll be in golf lessons and all last players what they're working on, and then they'll tell me what they're working on, and then they'll hit a really really bad shot. So all the stuff that they said that they were working on, they do the exact opposite, and they they'll look at me and they'll say, I'm not trying to do any of that. But as I said on last week's pod, there tends to be one main thing that starts to cause all these other things, and there's a domino effect. So if we can kind of reverse the domino, so I thought, all right, maybe start doing some of these pods and call it, you know, the Domino Series to where we're going to look at real world situations that I encounter and kind of talk about these things and how the dominoes affect what's going on. So I was working with one of the players I work with and their bunker game has not been great this year, stats below fifty percent, and that to me, that's really low hanging fruit, right, That's where you can really make a lot of gains by taking something like short game. I think a lot of short game for players is concept everyone. Yes, I think there are some technique issues, but I think a lot of what happens is there's concept issues, and the concept issues bleed into the technique issues. So in looking at this player, we're watching them hit bunker shots. And one of the characteristics of players that I see struggle with bunker is the golf ball was fairly neutral in the stance borderline almost back. I think you can maybe get away with it being neutral, but if it starts to creep back, and that's where I see a lot of players get into some problems. And so the ball position was pretty neutral, and to me, the big domino in this scenario was the setup. The ball position's kind of in the middle, the hands are a little bit ahead, so very similar to if you were going to be set up to try and hit kind of a long bump and run chip shot. And that is a setup that I see over and over again with players when they do struggle out of the bunker. Is they get in there, that ball position gets really really neutral to almost back, The weight gets forward, the stance gets open, the face gets wide open, and then they lean the shaft forward. And that is just a recipe for a disaster. Why is that a recipe for a disaster? So the domino effect there is if you think about what you're doing in the bunker, imagine that in the golf ball. So the golf ball when it's in the bunker is resting on the sand. So my dad and my run you used to always say that the bunker shot should be the easiest shot in golf because it's the only shot in golf. Well, we're not going to ask you to hit the ball. We're going to ask you to hit the sand. And it's you hitting the sand that the golf ball is resting on that is going to pop the golf ball up and get it out of the bunker. So this idea of the domino effect and what causes it, well, if you think about it, think about the way that your wedge is designed. So most people in the bunker are going to use probably their fifty eight or their sixty, and on the bottom of the wedge there's going to be what they call bounce. Your bounce can be anywhere between four six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, whatever that number is right, and then you have the leading edge of your your wedge, and then you have the club face. So if you hold the club face, okay, hold the club face up, hold your sand wedge up, hold it in your right hand, and go ahead and have the face pointing to you. And if someone said, okay, show me more of the club face and more of the leading edge, you would lean the handle forward and you would see more of the leading edge. If somebody said, okay, show me more of the bounce, you would lean the shaft back and expose more of the bounce. So when the golf club in the bunker, and I think this is really really important. When you're in a bunker, the single biggest effect that the sand is going to have on the golf club as it it's the golf club hits the sand, is it's going to slow the golf club down because the sand has so many particles you're coming in. So there's two issues. When you're trying to hit a bunker shot. You need to have a lot of speed because you're not hitting the golf ball right, you're hitting the sand. So you need to have speed to pop that golf ball up. You've got to imagine that the golf ball is resting on a bed of sand, like a dollar bill or a square. And one of the things that I do with players is We'll get them in the bunker and then I'll go down and I'll just go ahead and draw a square around the ball and say, Okay, the golf ball is resting on that square of sand, and you have to get the sand out of this bunker. So if the ball position gets neutral and the handle gets forward, as the golf club comes into impact, that handle is going to be very much ahead of the golf ball. That leading edge is going to be exposed more. We're going to expose more club face. We're not going to be exposing the bounce, and the golf club is going to dig, and as it digs into the sand, it's also going to be slowed down by the sand. So I think it gets very very hard to get the sand out of the bunker. And if you're getting the sand out of the bunker, you're going to be getting the golf ball out of the bunker. So ball position neutral, shaft forward, club comes in steep, it digs, doesn't bounce, there's no splash, and it makes it hard. So one of the ways that you can change that sequence of events is to move that golf ball more forward in your stance, so almost like imagine if you were hitting a driver, you would want to move that golf ball more forward and make sure that the shaft that the shaft of the club, the grip of the golf club isn't pointing in front of the golf ball. If anything, you would almost want to imagine that that it was almost resting behind it. But a good rule of thumb is the back end of your grip right the top of your grip in the bunker. If you could have the back end of your grip pointing to where the zipper on your pants or shorts are, or where your belt is, that's going to get that shaft a little bit more neutral and have a little bit more of the bounce being exposed at a dress. Then as you come into impact, trying to have the feeling that there isn't a lot of shaftlee when the ball is on the ground and we're hitting chip shots, or when the ball is on the ground and we're hitting full swings. Shaft lien is really really important because we want that good constant contact, we want that good angle of attack all of those things. And one of the characteristics of really good ball strikers is to have a lot of forward shaft lien. That doesn't necessarily work in a bunker because the handle gets too forward, the club starts to dig, and it just makes it hard for you to get the ball out. So I think one of the easiest ways to kind of shift these dominoes is to move the golf ball one, two, three, maybe four balls more forward of center. When you set up, make sure that that shaft is not leaning too far forward. If anything, you've want to feel like it's leaning back just a little bit. And then in the full swing in your swing, you've got to make sure that you're making a swing that is long enough to get the sand out of the bunker. So if you remember, when you are in a bunker, you are not hitting the golf ball. You're hitting the golf ball if you're hitting a bad shot. But when you are in the bunker and you're hitting your bunker shot, you are not hitting the golf ball. You're hitting the sand. So you need a swing that has enough force to get the sand out of the bunker. So one of the drills that I do with players is I just go ahead and get him in a bunker. I go ahead and draw a little circle in the sand or a little square in the sand. I don't even use a ball, and I say, okay, make me a swing that can get the sand out of the bunker. Because if the sand doesn't get out of the bunker, then the golf ball is probably not going to get out of the bunker. So you need to make a swing that has enough force to get the ball out of the bunker. Now, one of the reasons why I think a lot of players don't do this is because because of the setup. Because that handle can get forward, because the ball can be a little bit further back, you're going to be coming in and instead of having loft on your lob wedge, your fifty eight, you're sixty, whatever club you're using, when that handle starts to get forward, you're delofting the club. And a lot of players hit the golf ball way too far. They hit the golf ball, they hit that the kind of low screamer, They hit that over the green. They hit that low screamer that goes straight into the top lip. So as a result of that, I think they get scared to make a swing. So the domino effect of when you don't make enough force in your golf swing, when you don't have enough length in your back swing and enough length in your follow through and enough speed in your golf swing, is the domino effect of that is the golf ball struggles to get out of the bunker because the golf club is being slowed down by the sand. So if we want to do this at a dress you would want to feel like you're moving the golf ball a little bit more forward. Move that golf ball more, maybe more towards the logo on your shirt, if you've got a logo, more like a driver swing. I think most players could benefit from being a little bit more on the open. There are some players at play bunker shots from very very square positions, but I think most people to get that body out of the way and to start to get some rotation, I think having the stance just a little bit on the open side. How much you open the face, I think if I would be critical of what I see in the majority of my golf life, since I think if you're going to open the face, you need to make sure that you've got that golf ball forward in your stance, and you're going to have to have that stance a little bit on the open side to offset that. And again I see a lot of players set up very very neutral. I see a lot of players with that handle forward, and then I see them with the face wide open. So now the face is pointing, you know, sometimes ten twenty thirty yards right of where their intended target line is. Then the handle gets super far forward. Then the angle of attack gets super super steep. They're de lofting the golf club. The face is wide open, and those are the ones where you'll see players sometimes just pull straight across it. So in working with this player and working on it, the majority of the changes we made were set up related. I kept saying, get the ball more forward, get the ball more forward, get the ball more forward. I was using a lot of video and the player said, to listen, I feel like that ball's outside my left toe. And I took some video of the setup, and they couldn't believe that the golf ball was still almost kind of borderline back. So once we got the golf ball very much forward, we were able to then feel like that shaft wasn't leaning so far forward, So we were able in a setup to get the golf club in a really good position to be able to do its job, to get the lob wedge in a position with the bounce to be able to do the job that we need it to do. And then one of the other generalizations that I see a lot in bunker play, and yes, generalizations they work, but sometimes I think players can do this too much, this idea that we're going to take the golf club very much out to in and cut across the golf ball. And that's what this player that I was working on was doing. The golf ball was very very neutral in the stance, The hands were a little bit forward, the face was wide open. The golf club wasn't going back steep. And that's another thing that you need to think about in your bunker game. Imagine that instead of the golf ball resting on sand, imagine if you were in a pool and there is a beach ball resting on the water, right, how do you make the beach ball go up in the air. Well, if you try and do it the conventional way and swing your arm up, your arc is going to bottom out and your arm is going to hit the water. First, the water is going to slow it down. So the easiest way to make a beach ball go straight up in the air is to push downward on the sand. As you push or on the water. As you push downward on the water, the force and the pressure of that pops the beach ball up. So we need to do a little bit of the same thing in the bunker. We need the club to work up, and we need the club to work down. And I think a lot of times when I see players take the golf club very much on the outside, the golf club is going back outside. It's going back in a very very shallow position. So I always think in terms of if I can try and shift the dominoes, maybe I work the opposite. So this player ball neutral, hands forward, face wide open. We moved the golf ball more forward. We got the hands to feel like they were almost back a little and then as opposed to the golf club going outside and cutting across it, I wanted this player to feel like they were taking the golf club steep and almost a feeling of inside. And as a result of that, I've kind of neutraled out what their path was doing. They were no longer taking that club excessively on the outside. They were taking it inside, but the feeling of Okay, I'm gonna take the golf club a little bit more on the inside, and then the path got a little bit too neutral. What I see a lot of times when players start to struggle, if you look at you, sometimes I think it's really good to where wherever your golf ball is right in front of your golf ball in the sand, go ahead with your with your wedge and draw an arrow. So point the arrow to where your target is right, so that's your intended target line. And this is a good way to see if you are excessively swinging across your target line, if you're swinging across your body. When that tends to happen, the divots tend to get really really steep. The divots tend to get really really deep. And anytime we get super super deep divots in in a bunker, in a green side bunker, that's going to slow the golf club down because the golf club's coming in too steep. So in working with this player, the domino effect was ball position change, set up change, and then from a technique standpoint, a little bit more feeling like the golf club was going almost a little bit more on the in, a little bit steeper, and then a much longer golf swing with more force and more power. And that's where we were able to make some big gains starting to get that sound up instead of the golf club digging, that sound of the golf club thumping the sand. And if you start to do this properly, you should look at your divots and in the bunker, and one of the things that should happen is the divots should be a lot shallower. They shouldn't be as deep. We shouldn't see such a deep divot that we're going to see a lot of wet sand. And if you do this properly and you're utilizing the bounce and the club's coming in in the right way, you should start to see your divots more shallow. But you should also see them kind of have an oval football type shape, a rugby ball type shape to what the divot is. And that's always a good example of the club coming in, the bounce being utilized and that kind of oval shape divit is the sand being pushed out and then the club is you're utilizing more of that. Anytime the divot gets a little bit more shallow in the bunker, and we're hitting a really really good kind of bunker shot that has some spin on it. That's showing us that we're utilizing the bounce, that we're using the bounce of the wedge. Anytime the divot starts to get dig diggy, deep steep, we see a lot of that wet, wet sand because the club is digging very very deeply. That's going to show us that we're using too much leading edge, that that handle is getting forward. Another really good way to get this sensation and this feeling is to make some practice swings in a bunker one handed with your if you're a right handed golfer, with your right arm only, and that's going to give you the feeling of how the club head should work. So if you make some practice swings and do it with just your right arm only, what you're trying to do with that is you're trying to feel a lot of the clubhead. You want to try and feel that club head working back and through impact, and I think you can start to also with one handed shots, feel the bount My grandfather was famously on the cover of Golf digest. I think it's in the mid seventies and the title of the article was get out of the Bunker with one arm, and my dad did a little bit of the same thing. He kind of did a reboot of that in the nineties. But I think it's a great way to try and teach yourself how to get out of a bunker. Is if you're a right handed golfer, use that trail arm your right arm, your dominant arm, and that's going to give you the feeling of being able to use the golf club properly. If you have too much forward shaft lean with your with just your right arm or one arm only, I think you're going to feel it a lot more than if you have too So you can choke down kind of to the maybe choke down just to the end of the grip right so that right arm is choked down to the end of the grip, and that's going to give you some of your grip. The shaft that the grip is a hatch to. That's going to give that grip some exposure to you. And what you want to try and do is feel as you're coming into impact instead of the grip leaning towards the target. You would want it to feel like as you're coming in with that just that one arm, only that right arm only, you would want to feel like that grip would be pointing back, that that would be backing up, because that's what we want to try and do in the bunker is we don't want that shaft to be leaning too far forward. But again, going back to this idea of the domino effect, is if that setup gets off, the hands are going to get forward just on their own. Because at that ball position gets neutral and you've got it in the middle of your stance or a little bit back, and then you try and open the face and then you try and get the handle back. That setup is just got disaster written all over it because now the club face is going to be pointing miles to the right, and it's going to be very hard for you to get that club back into that really good position. I do think that short game is probably one of the easiest ways that we can see and shift these dominoes in a very very short period of time. And I think a lot of the dominoes that you can start to shift in short game start with setup. The way you're set up to hit a golf ball. So when I'm talking about ball position, right, So if you think about your ball position, there are three ball positions. There's one that would be kind of your neutral or middle of your stance ball position. If you wanted to hit the golf ball lower, you would move the golf ball back in your stance. And if you wanted to hit the golf ball higher, you would move the golf ball more forward in your stands. So the domino effect of what happens in golf swings is sometimes happens just in the setup and then based off of the setup. So in short game and in what we're talking about today, in the bunker, if the golf ball gets back in your stance, that is the recipe to try and hit something low that is more of a bump and run back of your stance with an eight or a nine iron, the ball is not going to get into the air there. The golf ball is going to get very low to the ground and run. So when you're in a bunker, the first thing that you want to do from a setup standpoint to help change these dominoes is move that golf ball more forward. The other thing is your arc when you do that, is going to bottom out way more towards the front of your stance. Because one of the things that happens in the bunker that I see on a regular basis is because you're trying to get the golf ball up and you're trying to get the golf ball out of the bunker. In an effort to do that, I've seen players at times shift their weight back to that trail leg. So if you're right handed an effort to get the ball out of the bunker, you're shifting and you're trying to help that golf ball in the air, then that arc is going to bottom out way too early. And then again that handle is going to go forward, that shaft is going to dig, and it's not going to be a super solid method to get that ball out. So short game in a bunker, this domino effect idea. Always start with your setup. Ask yourself, if you're in a bunker and you're trying to hit the golf ball high, the last thing you want to do is have the golf ball be back in your stance. If you're in the bunker and you're trying to hit the golf ball high out of the bunker, the last thing you would want would be to have your handle forward, to have a lot of forward shaft liing. And then again, if you're trying to hit the golf ball high and soft out of a bunker, the last thing you would want to do at impact would be to have a lot of forward shaft liing, because that's not going to have the golf ball come out. You're not going to be able to utilize the ounce, and then the golf ball is just going to struggle to get out of the bunker. And then because of that, it's going to be very hard for you to have a golf swing that is long enough, that has enough speed, that has enough force through impact to get the golf ball out of the bunker. So I think some of those things set up ball position. The way you're setting up with the shaft, that's to me some low hanging fruit that if you're struggling out of a bunker, go ahead and take a look at that, but start to think about the effect of what you're doing at setup. Ask yourself in your setup, specifically in short game and in a bunker, what the setup is designed to do from a ball flight. And I think if you can start to think about that on a consistent basis. It's going to make it easier. And then the last thing I'll say, you have to make a swing that has enough force to get the golf ball out of the bunker. So don't be afraid to make that swing. Do it without a golf ball, because obviously when the golf ball's there, there's a lot of anxiety for players. Just go ahead, and you can just go ahead and draw a line, a straight line, and then just go ahead and hit five swings and say, Okay, I'm going to try and hit the line, and I'm going to try and take the sand that is in this bunker and get it onto the green. If the sand doesn't get onto the green, the ball isn't going to get onto the green. Because this is the only shot in golf where we're going to ask you to not hit the ball. We're asking you to hit the sand underneath the ball. You need to throw the sand out of the bunker. So I think I'm gonna think I'll do some more of these to where we talk about just real life situations and what those domino effects are. And I think it's a really good way for everyone to try and start to think about how all of this stuff, all of this stuff is interconnected in your golf swing. I want to thank everybody for listening some of it which comes to you every Wednesday. See you next week.

It's the Son of a Book podcast. You guys know the drill come to you every Wednesday. This week. This week, I wanted to follow up on something that I touched on in the pod last week, this concept of this domino effect that I talked about when I give golf lessons, when I'm looking at golf swings and I'm looking at how players swing the golf club, I'm looking at a lot of different things, right, There's a lot of different body parts. And I think one of the things that confuses a lot of people that play golf is there's a lot of things going on in a very very short period of time. You know, you're making a dynamic movement pattern, but the movement pattern that you're making is really only taking about second and a half to two seconds. So even though there's a lot of things going on, there tends to be a one main cause. My dad used to always tell me, find the cancer in the golf swing. Find the answer that is killing this person's golf swing. And I thought about that, and I thought, Okay, how can I kind of take that concept and kind of make it my own? And I thought, okay, Well, when I look at golf swings, and I look at what players do. There's this series of events, this chain reaction, and when you hit a bad shot, and I'll be in golf lessons and all last players what they're working on, and then they'll tell me what they're working on, and then they'll hit a really really bad shot. So all the stuff that they said that they were working on, they do the exact opposite, and they they'll look at me and they'll say, I'm not trying to do any of that. But as I said on last week's pod, there tends to be one main thing that starts to cause all these other things, and there's a domino effect. So if we can kind of reverse the domino, so I thought, all right, maybe start doing some of these pods and call it, you know, the Domino Series to where we're going to look at real world situations that I encounter and kind of talk about these things and how the dominoes affect what's going on. So I was working with one of the players I work with and their bunker game has not been great this year, stats below fifty percent, and that to me, that's really low hanging fruit, right, That's where you can really make a lot of gains by taking something like short game. I think a lot of short game for players is concept everyone. Yes, I think there are some technique issues, but I think a lot of what happens is there's concept issues, and the concept issues bleed into the technique issues. So in looking at this player, we're watching them hit bunker shots. And one of the characteristics of players that I see struggle with bunker is the golf ball was fairly neutral in the stance borderline almost back. I think you can maybe get away with it being neutral, but if it starts to creep back, and that's where I see a lot of players get into some problems. And so the ball position was pretty neutral, and to me, the big domino in this scenario was the setup. The ball position's kind of in the middle, the hands are a little bit ahead, so very similar to if you were going to be set up to try and hit kind of a long bump and run chip shot. And that is a setup that I see over and over again with players when they do struggle out of the bunker. Is they get in there, that ball position gets really really neutral to almost back, The weight gets forward, the stance gets open, the face gets wide open, and then they lean the shaft forward. And that is just a recipe for a disaster. Why is that a recipe for a disaster? So the domino effect there is if you think about what you're doing in the bunker, imagine that in the golf ball. So the golf ball when it's in the bunker is resting on the sand. So my dad and my run you used to always say that the bunker shot should be the easiest shot in golf because it's the only shot in golf. Well, we're not going to ask you to hit the ball. We're going to ask you to hit the sand. And it's you hitting the sand that the golf ball is resting on that is going to pop the golf ball up and get it out of the bunker. So this idea of the domino effect and what causes it, well, if you think about it, think about the way that your wedge is designed. So most people in the bunker are going to use probably their fifty eight or their sixty, and on the bottom of the wedge there's going to be what they call bounce. Your bounce can be anywhere between four six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, whatever that number is right, and then you have the leading edge of your your wedge, and then you have the club face. So if you hold the club face, okay, hold the club face up, hold your sand wedge up, hold it in your right hand, and go ahead and have the face pointing to you. And if someone said, okay, show me more of the club face and more of the leading edge, you would lean the handle forward and you would see more of the leading edge. If somebody said, okay, show me more of the bounce, you would lean the shaft back and expose more of the bounce. So when the golf club in the bunker, and I think this is really really important. When you're in a bunker, the single biggest effect that the sand is going to have on the golf club as it it's the golf club hits the sand, is it's going to slow the golf club down because the sand has so many particles you're coming in. So there's two issues. When you're trying to hit a bunker shot. You need to have a lot of speed because you're not hitting the golf ball right, you're hitting the sand. So you need to have speed to pop that golf ball up. You've got to imagine that the golf ball is resting on a bed of sand, like a dollar bill or a square. And one of the things that I do with players is We'll get them in the bunker and then I'll go down and I'll just go ahead and draw a square around the ball and say, Okay, the golf ball is resting on that square of sand, and you have to get the sand out of this bunker. So if the ball position gets neutral and the handle gets forward, as the golf club comes into impact, that handle is going to be very much ahead of the golf ball. That leading edge is going to be exposed more. We're going to expose more club face. We're not going to be exposing the bounce, and the golf club is going to dig, and as it digs into the sand, it's also going to be slowed down by the sand. So I think it gets very very hard to get the sand out of the bunker. And if you're getting the sand out of the bunker, you're going to be getting the golf ball out of the bunker. So ball position neutral, shaft forward, club comes in steep, it digs, doesn't bounce, there's no splash, and it makes it hard. So one of the ways that you can change that sequence of events is to move that golf ball more forward in your stance, so almost like imagine if you were hitting a driver, you would want to move that golf ball more forward and make sure that the shaft that the shaft of the club, the grip of the golf club isn't pointing in front of the golf ball. If anything, you would almost want to imagine that that it was almost resting behind it. But a good rule of thumb is the back end of your grip right the top of your grip in the bunker. If you could have the back end of your grip pointing to where the zipper on your pants or shorts are, or where your belt is, that's going to get that shaft a little bit more neutral and have a little bit more of the bounce being exposed at a dress. Then as you come into impact, trying to have the feeling that there isn't a lot of shaftlee when the ball is on the ground and we're hitting chip shots, or when the ball is on the ground and we're hitting full swings. Shaft lien is really really important because we want that good constant contact, we want that good angle of attack all of those things. And one of the characteristics of really good ball strikers is to have a lot of forward shaft lien. That doesn't necessarily work in a bunker because the handle gets too forward, the club starts to dig, and it just makes it hard for you to get the ball out. So I think one of the easiest ways to kind of shift these dominoes is to move the golf ball one, two, three, maybe four balls more forward of center. When you set up, make sure that that shaft is not leaning too far forward. If anything, you've want to feel like it's leaning back just a little bit. And then in the full swing in your swing, you've got to make sure that you're making a swing that is long enough to get the sand out of the bunker. So if you remember, when you are in a bunker, you are not hitting the golf ball. You're hitting the golf ball if you're hitting a bad shot. But when you are in the bunker and you're hitting your bunker shot, you are not hitting the golf ball. You're hitting the sand. So you need a swing that has enough force to get the sand out of the bunker. So one of the drills that I do with players is I just go ahead and get him in a bunker. I go ahead and draw a little circle in the sand or a little square in the sand. I don't even use a ball, and I say, okay, make me a swing that can get the sand out of the bunker. Because if the sand doesn't get out of the bunker, then the golf ball is probably not going to get out of the bunker. So you need to make a swing that has enough force to get the ball out of the bunker. Now, one of the reasons why I think a lot of players don't do this is because because of the setup. Because that handle can get forward, because the ball can be a little bit further back, you're going to be coming in and instead of having loft on your lob wedge, your fifty eight, you're sixty, whatever club you're using, when that handle starts to get forward, you're delofting the club. And a lot of players hit the golf ball way too far. They hit the golf ball, they hit that the kind of low screamer, They hit that over the green. They hit that low screamer that goes straight into the top lip. So as a result of that, I think they get scared to make a swing. So the domino effect of when you don't make enough force in your golf swing, when you don't have enough length in your back swing and enough length in your follow through and enough speed in your golf swing, is the domino effect of that is the golf ball struggles to get out of the bunker because the golf club is being slowed down by the sand. So if we want to do this at a dress you would want to feel like you're moving the golf ball a little bit more forward. Move that golf ball more, maybe more towards the logo on your shirt, if you've got a logo, more like a driver swing. I think most players could benefit from being a little bit more on the open. There are some players at play bunker shots from very very square positions, but I think most people to get that body out of the way and to start to get some rotation, I think having the stance just a little bit on the open side. How much you open the face, I think if I would be critical of what I see in the majority of my golf life, since I think if you're going to open the face, you need to make sure that you've got that golf ball forward in your stance, and you're going to have to have that stance a little bit on the open side to offset that. And again I see a lot of players set up very very neutral. I see a lot of players with that handle forward, and then I see them with the face wide open. So now the face is pointing, you know, sometimes ten twenty thirty yards right of where their intended target line is. Then the handle gets super far forward. Then the angle of attack gets super super steep. They're de lofting the golf club. The face is wide open, and those are the ones where you'll see players sometimes just pull straight across it. So in working with this player and working on it, the majority of the changes we made were set up related. I kept saying, get the ball more forward, get the ball more forward, get the ball more forward. I was using a lot of video and the player said, to listen, I feel like that ball's outside my left toe. And I took some video of the setup, and they couldn't believe that the golf ball was still almost kind of borderline back. So once we got the golf ball very much forward, we were able to then feel like that shaft wasn't leaning so far forward, So we were able in a setup to get the golf club in a really good position to be able to do its job, to get the lob wedge in a position with the bounce to be able to do the job that we need it to do. And then one of the other generalizations that I see a lot in bunker play, and yes, generalizations they work, but sometimes I think players can do this too much, this idea that we're going to take the golf club very much out to in and cut across the golf ball. And that's what this player that I was working on was doing. The golf ball was very very neutral in the stance, The hands were a little bit forward, the face was wide open. The golf club wasn't going back steep. And that's another thing that you need to think about in your bunker game. Imagine that instead of the golf ball resting on sand, imagine if you were in a pool and there is a beach ball resting on the water, right, how do you make the beach ball go up in the air. Well, if you try and do it the conventional way and swing your arm up, your arc is going to bottom out and your arm is going to hit the water. First, the water is going to slow it down. So the easiest way to make a beach ball go straight up in the air is to push downward on the sand. As you push or on the water. As you push downward on the water, the force and the pressure of that pops the beach ball up. So we need to do a little bit of the same thing in the bunker. We need the club to work up, and we need the club to work down. And I think a lot of times when I see players take the golf club very much on the outside, the golf club is going back outside. It's going back in a very very shallow position. So I always think in terms of if I can try and shift the dominoes, maybe I work the opposite. So this player ball neutral, hands forward, face wide open. We moved the golf ball more forward. We got the hands to feel like they were almost back a little and then as opposed to the golf club going outside and cutting across it, I wanted this player to feel like they were taking the golf club steep and almost a feeling of inside. And as a result of that, I've kind of neutraled out what their path was doing. They were no longer taking that club excessively on the outside. They were taking it inside, but the feeling of Okay, I'm gonna take the golf club a little bit more on the inside, and then the path got a little bit too neutral. What I see a lot of times when players start to struggle, if you look at you, sometimes I think it's really good to where wherever your golf ball is right in front of your golf ball in the sand, go ahead with your with your wedge and draw an arrow. So point the arrow to where your target is right, so that's your intended target line. And this is a good way to see if you are excessively swinging across your target line, if you're swinging across your body. When that tends to happen, the divots tend to get really really steep. The divots tend to get really really deep. And anytime we get super super deep divots in in a bunker, in a green side bunker, that's going to slow the golf club down because the golf club's coming in too steep. So in working with this player, the domino effect was ball position change, set up change, and then from a technique standpoint, a little bit more feeling like the golf club was going almost a little bit more on the in, a little bit steeper, and then a much longer golf swing with more force and more power. And that's where we were able to make some big gains starting to get that sound up instead of the golf club digging, that sound of the golf club thumping the sand. And if you start to do this properly, you should look at your divots and in the bunker, and one of the things that should happen is the divots should be a lot shallower. They shouldn't be as deep. We shouldn't see such a deep divot that we're going to see a lot of wet sand. And if you do this properly and you're utilizing the bounce and the club's coming in in the right way, you should start to see your divots more shallow. But you should also see them kind of have an oval football type shape, a rugby ball type shape to what the divot is. And that's always a good example of the club coming in, the bounce being utilized and that kind of oval shape divit is the sand being pushed out and then the club is you're utilizing more of that. Anytime the divot gets a little bit more shallow in the bunker, and we're hitting a really really good kind of bunker shot that has some spin on it. That's showing us that we're utilizing the bounce, that we're using the bounce of the wedge. Anytime the divot starts to get dig diggy, deep steep, we see a lot of that wet, wet sand because the club is digging very very deeply. That's going to show us that we're using too much leading edge, that that handle is getting forward. Another really good way to get this sensation and this feeling is to make some practice swings in a bunker one handed with your if you're a right handed golfer, with your right arm only, and that's going to give you the feeling of how the club head should work. So if you make some practice swings and do it with just your right arm only, what you're trying to do with that is you're trying to feel a lot of the clubhead. You want to try and feel that club head working back and through impact, and I think you can start to also with one handed shots, feel the bount My grandfather was famously on the cover of Golf digest. I think it's in the mid seventies and the title of the article was get out of the Bunker with one arm, and my dad did a little bit of the same thing. He kind of did a reboot of that in the nineties. But I think it's a great way to try and teach yourself how to get out of a bunker. Is if you're a right handed golfer, use that trail arm your right arm, your dominant arm, and that's going to give you the feeling of being able to use the golf club properly. If you have too much forward shaft lean with your with just your right arm or one arm only, I think you're going to feel it a lot more than if you have too So you can choke down kind of to the maybe choke down just to the end of the grip right so that right arm is choked down to the end of the grip, and that's going to give you some of your grip. The shaft that the grip is a hatch to. That's going to give that grip some exposure to you. And what you want to try and do is feel as you're coming into impact instead of the grip leaning towards the target. You would want it to feel like as you're coming in with that just that one arm, only that right arm only, you would want to feel like that grip would be pointing back, that that would be backing up, because that's what we want to try and do in the bunker is we don't want that shaft to be leaning too far forward. But again, going back to this idea of the domino effect, is if that setup gets off, the hands are going to get forward just on their own. Because at that ball position gets neutral and you've got it in the middle of your stance or a little bit back, and then you try and open the face and then you try and get the handle back. That setup is just got disaster written all over it because now the club face is going to be pointing miles to the right, and it's going to be very hard for you to get that club back into that really good position. I do think that short game is probably one of the easiest ways that we can see and shift these dominoes in a very very short period of time. And I think a lot of the dominoes that you can start to shift in short game start with setup. The way you're set up to hit a golf ball. So when I'm talking about ball position, right, So if you think about your ball position, there are three ball positions. There's one that would be kind of your neutral or middle of your stance ball position. If you wanted to hit the golf ball lower, you would move the golf ball back in your stance. And if you wanted to hit the golf ball higher, you would move the golf ball more forward in your stands. So the domino effect of what happens in golf swings is sometimes happens just in the setup and then based off of the setup. So in short game and in what we're talking about today, in the bunker, if the golf ball gets back in your stance, that is the recipe to try and hit something low that is more of a bump and run back of your stance with an eight or a nine iron, the ball is not going to get into the air there. The golf ball is going to get very low to the ground and run. So when you're in a bunker, the first thing that you want to do from a setup standpoint to help change these dominoes is move that golf ball more forward. The other thing is your arc when you do that, is going to bottom out way more towards the front of your stance. Because one of the things that happens in the bunker that I see on a regular basis is because you're trying to get the golf ball up and you're trying to get the golf ball out of the bunker. In an effort to do that, I've seen players at times shift their weight back to that trail leg. So if you're right handed an effort to get the ball out of the bunker, you're shifting and you're trying to help that golf ball in the air, then that arc is going to bottom out way too early. And then again that handle is going to go forward, that shaft is going to dig, and it's not going to be a super solid method to get that ball out. So short game in a bunker, this domino effect idea. Always start with your setup. Ask yourself, if you're in a bunker and you're trying to hit the golf ball high, the last thing you want to do is have the golf ball be back in your stance. If you're in the bunker and you're trying to hit the golf ball high out of the bunker, the last thing you would want would be to have your handle forward, to have a lot of forward shaft liing. And then again, if you're trying to hit the golf ball high and soft out of a bunker, the last thing you would want to do at impact would be to have a lot of forward shaft liing, because that's not going to have the golf ball come out. You're not going to be able to utilize the ounce, and then the golf ball is just going to struggle to get out of the bunker. And then because of that, it's going to be very hard for you to have a golf swing that is long enough, that has enough speed, that has enough force through impact to get the golf ball out of the bunker. So I think some of those things set up ball position. The way you're setting up with the shaft, that's to me some low hanging fruit that if you're struggling out of a bunker, go ahead and take a look at that, but start to think about the effect of what you're doing at setup. Ask yourself in your setup, specifically in short game and in a bunker, what the setup is designed to do from a ball flight. And I think if you can start to think about that on a consistent basis. It's going to make it easier. And then the last thing I'll say, you have to make a swing that has enough force to get the golf ball out of the bunker. So don't be afraid to make that swing. Do it without a golf ball, because obviously when the golf ball's there, there's a lot of anxiety for players. Just go ahead, and you can just go ahead and draw a line, a straight line, and then just go ahead and hit five swings and say, Okay, I'm going to try and hit the line, and I'm going to try and take the sand that is in this bunker and get it onto the green. If the sand doesn't get onto the green, the ball isn't going to get onto the green. Because this is the only shot in golf where we're going to ask you to not hit the ball. We're asking you to hit the sand underneath the ball. You need to throw the sand out of the bunker. So I think I'm gonna think I'll do some more of these to where we talk about just real life situations and what those domino effects are. And I think it's a really good way for everyone to try and start to think about how all of this stuff, all of this stuff is interconnected in your golf swing. I want to thank everybody for listening some of it which comes to you every Wednesday. See you next week.