Titleist Instruction Video Tips Our Instructors

Heel Cut Bunker Shot for Plugged Lies

From Justin Parsons On November 17, 2021

You have a perfect lie in the fairway with your favorite club in your hand. You take dead aim at the flag but watch in horror as your shot sails weakly off-target into a greenside bunker. Is there anything... more deflating? The answer is YES! – walking up to that bunker to find your ball sunken in its own crater.

Conventional golf wisdom says that to escape a plugged lie in a bunker you have to close the face of your sand wedge, turning the toe in so that the wedges digs deeply beneath the ball and the sand surrounding it. This approach requires a violent swing in order to displace a large volume of sand. If you are able to extract the ball with this method, the ball usually comes out low and hot, with zero backspin. It's a win if the ball stays anywhere on the putting surface.

Rather than wave the white flag when you have a poor lie in the sand, Titleist staff member Justin Parsons has a solution. In this video, he shows how opening the clubface while using the heel portion of the wedge to dig under the ball will produce a higher, more controlled shot that can save you strokes when you get those bad breaks in the bunker.

You have a perfect lie in the fairway with your favorite club in your hand. You take ... dead aim at the flag but watch in horror as your shot sails weakly off-target into a greenside bunker. Is there anything more deflating? The answer is YES! – walking up to that bunker to find your ball sunken in its own crater.

Conventional golf wisdom says that to escape a plugged lie in a bunker you have to close the face of your sand wedge, turning the toe in so that the wedges digs deeply beneath the ball and the sand surrounding it. This approach requires a violent swing in order to displace a large volume of sand. If you are able to extract the ball with this method, the ball usually comes out low and hot, with zero backspin. It's a win if the ball stays anywhere on the putting surface.

Rather than wave the white flag when you have a poor lie in the sand, Titleist staff member Justin Parsons has a solution. In this video, he shows how opening the clubface while using the heel portion of the wedge to dig under the ball will produce a higher, more controlled shot that can save you strokes when you get those bad breaks in the bunker.