Patton Kizzire - High Bunker Shot

Patton Kizzire demonstrates how he hits his bunker shot high. This is more of an advanced shot as it requires speed and hitting the sand closer to the ball than a normal bunker shot.


Transcript

We're going to go with a high, soft one, if we had to carry a lot of sand. Yeah, I think speed.

Speed.

Speed is key for height out of the bunker.

And the difference between speed is that, we've got to make sure we hit it fat if we're going to speed, because this is where people get nervous, is because they've been told they got to have speed but they're afraid they're going to hit it clean.

To hit a high, long bunker shot, you have to have speed and you can't really hit way behind it. So it's an advance-level shot, you got to have-- match that speed and the sand just right. Some risk involved. But if you hit a lot of bunker shots and--

You were two inches prior, you might be right in that tight here.

I'm a little bit tighter. I'm--

In between those two.

Yeah, I'm an inch, inch and a half now, as opposed to two inches on a standard bunker shot.

Because if you hit it, if you had two inches, you couldn't hit it hard enough to get there.

Right. There would be too much sand involved and it wouldn't. So we're getting a little bit closer to the ball and the strike and more speed. For me, to hit it high, I look high.

Feel ball.

I'm just looking high, thinking high, I'm not really trying to do a whole lot to get it up there, I'm just--

And when you do that, your brain knows that you're going up.

Yeah.

What makes height on any shot is the angle of ascent. This is an airplane landing, descent. When it takes off, it's ascent. It's that high angle of the handle coming up out of the sand that gives any shot height.

Right.

If you're a low hitter, you have a low handle.

Right.

You're a high hitter, you have a high handle.

Exactly. Exactly. So we're looking high, finishing high, thinking high, and hitting a little bit closer to the ball with a little more speed.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyone would be happy with that one.