The ability to get the ball close from sand elevates top players to an almost legendary status. Here, we count down golf’s top ten…
10 Best Bunker Players Of All Time
To the average amateur, the bunker can be a thing of golfing nightmare; a place where potential disaster lurks.
But, for the top professionals, the bunker provides an opportunity to showcase their skill and imagination.
Related: How to play bunker shots
Most elite players are undaunted by bunker shots and many would rather find their ball lying on sand instead of grass if they miss a green.
Some players over the years have risen above their peers to become legends of the sand.
Related: Rules of Golf: Unplayable ball in bunker
These are men who have achieved a sublime mastery of the trap shot, from long range or close proximity.
Here, we count down the ten very best exponents of bunker play from golf’s modern era:
10. Lee Trevino
1984: Lee Trevino plays out of a bunker during the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club. (Credit: David Cannon/Allsport)
The American was a wizard around the greens and a supremely skilled bunker player. He utilised his own technique and, although he credits Gary Player with helping him to become better from the sand, his creativity and imagination from bunkers was instinctive and he relied on a variety of unorthodox methods. One he would later teach Tom Watson was to play an open-faced blast shot from a plugged lie, when conventional wisdom was to hood the club. ‘Super Mex’ did it his own way, but it was effective. Well into his playing career, he remained one of the best exponents from sand. He led the Champions Tour’s Sand Saves stat in 1994.
9. David Frost
David Frost of South Africa plays from the bunker on the 17th at St Andrews. (IAN STEWART/AFP/Getty Images)
David Frost of South Africa has always been a natural when it comes to bunker play. In his book The Unstoppable Golfer, Dr Bob Rotella recalls asking Frost how he managed to be so consistently accurate from the sand. “I just kind of look where I want it to go, hit it and it goes there,” he said matter-of-factly.
Between 1985 and 2004, Frost ranked in the top ten for Sand Saves nine times on the PGA…
..
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Golf Monthly RSS Feed…