Conquer the fried egg with these bunker tips you can use on the course every time

By Sabrina Naccarato

We all know that stinging gut feeling when your ball finds the sand instead of the wide-open green. But what’s even worse is when you walk up and see your ball dug into the sand resembling a breakfast item, the horrid fried egg.

If you’ve ever experienced this, you know all of the thoughts that come rushing into your brain after seeing your ball- ‘well there goes my shot at par,’ ‘I hope I can manage a bogey out of this,’ ‘please only take one try to get out.’

However, discovering your ball plugged in the sand isn’t an automatic death sentence to your round. There are ways to successfully escape the bunker and still have a shot at par. Director of Teaching Quality, Patrick Nuber is sharing those tips with us.

Fried eggs are only good at breakfast

Obviously, the last thing you’re going to want to do is to walk up to your ball and just start whacking at it. That’s how the big numbers start. Instead, you’ll need to observe the area just like you would on any other shot. In the example Nuber shows in the video above, the landing area towards the pin is limited. So rather than going for the flag, aiming for the middle of the green is the smartest choice.

Now that we have an exit strategy, executing the shot is next. Since a plugged lie deals with much more sand than a traditional bunker shot, you’ll have to dig a little bit.

Take your normal bunker address position and then open up the clubface of your wedge quite a bit. This is going to give you the best chance at getting a hold of the entire ball and hopefully gives the ball a shot at stopping quickly once it’s out of the sand and on the green.

The final part of the execution of a plugged lie comes from the swing itself. This shot requires a steep angle of attack and a pretty big swing. Even if you have a short distance to carry, you want to take a big backswing and then on the downswing, imagine digging the leading edge of your wedge into the sand behind the ball. You’ll want to continue with the same speed and power as you follow through, that’ll help pop the ball up and out.

No one likes discovering their ball buried in the sand but with the help of these tips, you should be able to easily escape any plugged lie with confidence.

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