The last few times I’ve played a round of golf, my game felt more like a day at the beach than a day on the fairways! (Read this with a touch of sarcasm, please.) Do you find this happens to you? Hit into one sand bunker early in a round and you suddenly find yourself in every sand bunker on the course? I think the sand is magnetic! Or my golf balls are.

I can’t believe how often my golf ball ends up deep in the sand, under an overhanging lip, or buried like a fried egg. You name it— my golf ball has been there. I think it must be karma, or kismet, or something the golf gods wish on me from time to time.

But I am determined to learn my way out of the sand. With those last few “days at the beach” in mind, I am heading off to the driving range. Not to hit a bucket of balls, though that is always something I should do. This time I am heading for the sand trap and will spend an hour or so trying to loosen my grip and follow through with my swing. Open the face, dig down with your feet, turn towards the target… all these instructions are just running through my head when I get into the sand pit! The hardest thing for me to do is just relax. It’s supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be fun, splashing sand up and over the bunker edge, landing the ball softly near the pin. When it’s done right it can be very impressive!

I watch a lot of videos about golf on YouTube and some of them are pretty good. Here’s one I discovered that might help you the next time you start playing golf from the sand. It’s about 9 minutes long but PGA Pro Phil Mickelson is the host and he knows how to play the bunkers super well. It’s well worth a look. Enjoy.

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Do you have any special tricks for sand play? Or a great book or video you might want to share? Leave your comment below and let us know.