Most of the students I see have a lot of trouble getting out of bunkers. Every day I see players trying many different techniques including those players that try and putt out of bunkers. Bunker play is not that hard and hopefully by giving you a few pointers it should help you get up and Michael DeJordy, Head Golf Professional at Island Country Club, offers some advice on getting out of bunkersdown out of bunkers more often and also allow you to get out of those infamous fairway bunkers that trouble players of all levels. Playing out of bunkers is one of those shots that baffl es all golfers. The reason that it is not easy to get out of them is that you have to alter your swing slightly in order to get the results that you want. First we are going to start with the fairway bunker. More often than not most players will hit their tee shot and end up in a fairway bunker. Course designers always seem to place these bunkers right where we hit our tee shots. When you get yourself into this situation, the fi rst thing that you have to remember is take one more club. If you are 150 yards from the hole and you usually hit 6-iron, you need to forget about the 6-iron and grab the 5-iron. Once you have chosen your club, address the ball and make sure that your feet are level with the golf ball. Obviously, there are situations where you can't do anything about getting your feet level, but the key swing points are still the same. Once you have addressed the ball, you want to dig your feet in slightly to create a sense of balance. The key to this shot is to try and keep your body as still as possible. We want to limit our weight shift and remember to swing through the ball, do not try and lift the ball out, there is a reason we spend so much money on golf clubs. We want to take our backswing, which should be a little shorter than our standard back swing, keep your weight centered in your stance throughout the backswing and then swing through the ball. Ultimately, you should pick the ball off the top of the sand and get better results.In regards to the green side bunker, the shot is basically the same as the fairway bunker with a few changes. First off, most amateurs are not at the level of tour professionals, therefore, don't try and swing like the tour pros. If you follow these simple fundamentals you will get out of the bunker more consistently. First off, you want to put the ball in the center of your stance. Dig yourself into the sand a little bit to try and create a sense of balance. Now, here are the keys to this shot. You should be using a sand wedge or a lob wedge to hit this shot. One thing I don't want you to do is open the club face or open your stance. We want to leave our club face square and our feet and shoulders square to the target. With the ball in the middle of our stance we want to make an upward swing with our arms, and arms only, do not let your weight shift at any time during the backswing. Our body weight is equally distributed over both legs, try and keep your weight there the whole time. Once we have taken a more upright backswing with our arms, or steeper backswing, we want to make a descending blow into the sand approximately 1 inch behind the ball. The key is to be aggressive, you never want to decelerate your downswing in a bunker. If you accelerate down into the sand the ball should jump up in the air and get out of that bunker. As anything in life, practice makes perfect, so try these fundamentals next time you get into a sand trap and see what happens. I'm pretty sure you will like what happens.