Dealing with hard/minimal sand in bunkers

My bunker stats are probably deceiving. I don’t believe I am a particularly good bunker player…but I do a pretty good job of controlling my misses. In other words, the bunker, pin position have a ton to do with my bunker shots because it is rare that I am short sided or have to hit a long bunker shot. If I am in a bunker it’s typically because the shot I was trying to hit could leave me in a bunker, but the up and down won’t be that difficult. Example, bunker across front of green with pin close front. I will be hitting a club that has me past the bunker without being short sided. Pin closer to middle, I may hit a shot that could come up short in bunker, but with plenty of room to hit the sandy. When playing well, it’s also possible that I have to hit a shot that can’t easily get to green. So, hitting out of trouble instead of just laying up short and having a pitch over a bunker, I may purposely hit a shot with goal of running into bunker…because up and down from bunker would be easier than the pitch chip over bunker from the rough. Definitely, not the best person to tell you how to hit bunker shots, but can say, learning a stick shot and knowing the pace and distance you hit makes playing bunkers pretty easy. I tend to have one bunker shot I hit and it will always pop out and be on the green. Well, if it’s a geeenside bunker with a pin that is 10-15 yards as an example, my bunker shot should always give me a reasonable chance to save par. My theory is that if I have a stock shot I can avoid compounding a bad situation and have an opportunity to save par.

@Russell Hogue, PhD I was going to pin your post t draw more attention to it, but I couldn't because it was part of an existing thread. If you care to repost it as a new one I'll pin it. Otherwise I'm sure it'll get some views here.

I have experimented with and used both. My short game is my strength so I do tend to use the blast technique, but I've practiced the shot a lot. It requires a very precise strike and way more clubhead speed. I really depends on your confidence and how quickly the ball needs to stop. For some reason, people really tend to hit down excessively in bunker shots, which never really works.