Use the ‘ice-cream scoop’ technique to conquer fried-egg lies. Here’s how

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

There’s nothing worse than walking up to a bunker and finding your ball in a bad lie. Among the trickiest lies? The dreaded fried egg.

The fried-egg lie occurs when your ball plugs in the sand upon landing in the bunker. And while a plugged lie in the general area calls for free relief, there are no such provisions for balls in a hazard.

Most recreational players have little idea how to go about escaping these tricky situations. However, if you use the correct technique, these shots can become a breeze.

How to escape fried-egg lies

When faced with a typical bunker shot, it’s important to open the face of the club and skim through the sand underneath the ball to blast it out. When you’ve got a fried-egg lie, though, the technique is just the opposite.

Short Game

“The No. 1 way I think to [approach] this shot is to actually turn the toe over the clubface toward the target,” says GOLF Teacher to Watch Derek Swoboda. “It’s going to very literally look like you’re going to hit your shin.”

Swoboda likens the look of the clubface with this technique to an ice-cream scoop. And much like an ice-cream scoop, you should try to dig the edge of it into the sand as you hit the shot.

“Normal swing, normal setup,” Swoboda says. “And then all I’m going to have you do is make sure the club is moving down and through the sand.”

With the ice-cream scoop technique you use at setup, the clubhead will dig into the sand and dislodge the ball from its embedded position.