Open Championship bunkers are tough. Here’s how to conquer them

Bunkers across the pond aren’t just bunkers — they’re hazards. Outgoing R&A chief Martin Slumbers reminded golf fans of that fact just this week.

“They’re hazards,” he said. “They’re deep. They’ve got big faces, and they’re designed to stay out of.”

When you play courses here in the U.S., bunkers often dot the landscape, but rarely are they as penal as those on the links courses in the UK. And when the best in the world tee it up in the Open Championship, we’re reminded of that fact.

Bunkers on links courses — such as those found at Royal Troon — are deep and nasty. This is partially by design, and partially out of necessity. With these courses built on the wind-swept coasts of Scotland and Ireland, they’re exposed to the elements like few other clubs in the world. To keep the sand in the bunkers, these sand traps are like trenches dug deep into the earth, with thick and heavy sand inside them.

“These pots [bunkers] are unlike any bunkers we see at home,” said three-time Open winner Tiger Woods. “They’re penalty areas. You go in them, you’re probably going sideways or backwards or somewhere not very far. So it’s imperative to stay out of them.”

No matter how much players try to avoid these hazards, though, they’re sure to find at least a few traps throughout the week. And when they do, they’ll need to use a slightly different technique to escape them.

How to escape links bunkers

The sand in links-style bunkers is a bit different than the sand you’ll find on other courses. Instead of fine, small grains, these bunkers have sand that’s much more coarse.

“Because it’s coarse, you’ve got to change [your] technique slightly,” says GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jonathan Yarwood. “Rather than it being a skid, it’s more of a dig.”

While more typical bunker shots need you to use the bounce and slide the clubface underneath the ball, when hitting from a link-style bunker you need to use the leading edge a little bit more to dig through the coarse sand.

“You start to use the front edge of the club to dig down and gouge the ball out,” Yarwood says. “It’s a little bit more the old-fashioned type of technique.”

Take your normal stance in the bunker with the ball forward in your stance and your feet slightly open, but instead of leaving the face wide open, you’ll want to leave it only slightly open. Take the club on an outside path during the takeaway and get very steep during the backswing. Then when you come into impact, try to dig the leading edge into the sand and open the face on the way through.

“Quite a choppy kind of action,” Yarwood says. “If you get that choppy action, the club is going to bury itself in the sand, then you use your right hand to kind of open it.”