Sand play gets a whole lot easier when you set up correctly

Before we get into the details of how to get out of a greenside bunker—for the record, I wrote a book on it—watch me address and hit this shot in slow motion and see what your eyes pick up on.

Did anything stand out? If you watched carefully, you might note a couple of key things about my setup. The first is ball position: The ball is not way up in my stance. The second is where the buttons on my shirt are in relation to the ball: I am not leaning behind it.

The club's entry point in the sand should be behind the ball, but you should set up to make sure the bottom of your swing's arc is actually in front of the ball. That's what many amateurs don't understand. To help the ball out, they set up with their weight even between their feet or even favoring their back foot. That sets the bottom of the swing arc under the ball or behind it. You end up dumping the shot because you take too much sand.

Here are two clips of me back to back. The first shows the most common "not that" setup. The second is the "do this" setup I want you in.

A couple more things to remember. First, open the clubface before you take your grip (below), not the other way around. If you don't, you won't be able to use the bounce feature on the bottom of the clubhead, which allows the club to skim through the sand and splash the ball out.

Second, set up relatively square to your target line with your feet, hips and shoulders. The old-school way of opening your stance considerably and cutting across the ball is not what I recommend. I do swing a little to the left, but the more open you get, the more off-line the shot direction gets. Plus, you have to make a much bigger swing to get the ball on the green.

Your focus should be on letting the club skim through the sand under the ball with the bottom of the swing arc on the target side of the ball.

After I open the clubface, I'm thinking about how much sand I want to take, which is dependent on how much green I have to work with. If I've got a lot of green between me and the hole, I make a slower, bigger swing and take a little bit more sand, and the ball is going to release. If I've got less green to work with, I have to be a little bit more precise in where the club enters the sand, and I need good speed to get the ball up quickly. So it's more of an abrupt follow-through after contact with the sand.

Final thoughts on quality greenside-bunker play: If you keep your weight forward, sternum ahead of the ball, and feel like you're maintaining a squatty stance as you swing, you'll enter the sand first and get the club continuing through it after you've launched the ball upward. Commit to that action without fear of hitting the shot too far.

Here's one more look at it.