I write every week on my latest tips for your golf psychology. This week I’m tackling the one nemesis in many readers’ games – the bunker.

The pros make bunkers look ridiculously easy, yet most amateurs just make them look ridiculous! You may have received a number of golf tips on bunker play – yet are you as confident as you’d like to be about getting up and down from every one? Do you find your normal calm attitude disappearing in a cloud of sand? Using the right golf psychology in bunkers is just as important as using the right technique.

So how is the bunker shot different to other short game shots like lob or pitch shots?

Technically not much. Like a lob shot, many pros suggest addressing the shot with the ball at the centre of wide, open stance. The only difference is having your knees slightly more flexed at address to ensure you take sand before the ball. That’s it! So it’s a lob shot with flexed knees.

So if the difference in technique is minimal, how come many of us struggle so much? The difference lies in the mindset.

For regular lob or pitch shots, what happens? You go through your routine:

1. See the shot from behind the ball
2. Take a preview swing to know how it will feel
3. Address the ball by grounding the club
4. Connect the ball to the target
5. Holding this connection, trust your swing

So what happens for bunker shots?

1. You jump straight into the bunker without seeing the shot from behind
2. You have no preview swing as you cannot ground the club so you spend some time waggling the club trying to work out what to do!
3. You address the ball without grounding the club
4. You forget about the target as you go into tunnel vision, desperate to strike the sand 2 inches (or whatever you’ve been advised) behind the ball
5. Swing and hope!

Same number of steps, but somewhat different!! If you play every other shot with one routine that develops clear golf psychology, but try to use a different routine for bunkers, it doesn’t take a genius to work out the result!

So your task is to make your routine as similar to any other short game shot as possible. So imagine you have played a shot into the trickiest greenside bunker on your course.

1. Before you step into the bunker, stand behind the line to see the shot coming out of bunker, landing and rolling into the hole.
2. Take a practice swing here with a wide open stance with flexed knees to get a feel for your shot.
3. Step into the bunker and address the ball centre stance, wiggling your feet to get them flat and stable.
4. Connect the ball to the target as you continue to see the WHOLE shot.
5. Holding this connection trust your swing.

Did you notice the difference? Did you find yourself focusing more on the target, not the point of sand behind the ball? Consistent shots require a consistent routine so make bunker shots just like any other, and get up and down from EVERY bunker.

If you would like more help in using golf psychology to score less and enjoy the game more, I’m giving away golf psychology tips through a series of six free audio tipcasts for the toughest parts of the game - sign up for my newsletter now if you would like to receive these.

Love every shot!

Adam Sprackling

Mental Golf Coach