The Internet Invitational has been a bunker massacre. It's been carnage out of bunkers for most of the participants this year, especially the mid-and-higher handicaps.
Sadly, this is true for most golfers. Every stat you can find about bunkers proves it. Like this one, from Lou Stagner, showing the up-and-down percentage for different handicaps from different distances.
As you can see, it's 30 percent or below across the board for golfers over scratch—and usually under 20 percent.
And there's a very simple explanation why. It's too late for them to fix it—but you can learn from it and avoid the same trap.
The mistake
Here's a group of players who hit bunker shots that either in a chunk that stayed in the bunker, or a thinned shot over the green.
Look at their clubfaces.
All of them are setting up with clubfaces that I'd classify as square, or very close to it.
On short range bunker shots, this is a disaster waiting to happen.
When you set up with the clubface this square, you're not using the bounce of the club—the bottom part of the clubhead designed for these situations.
Instead you're using the leading edge—the part that's designed to dig.
So that's exactly what happens. If your club hits the sand even a fraction too far behind the ball, it digs and results in a chunk. If you try to avoid that an overcorrect, you catch the sand too close to the ball—or no sand at all—and it results in a skull.
The fix
The truth is that bunker shots require and entirely different technique (more on that here) but an open clubface is key to that.
An open clubface at setup allows you to use more of the bounce on the underside of the club, which means you can swing aggresively into the sand with fear of the club digging too easily.
It's why you see the lower handicap's in the tournament doing exctly this. Their clubface is more open, pointing up towards the sky. It's one reason why these shots ended up close.
Learn from it. And dive deeper into the specifics of bunker technique here.