Phil Mickelson shares one key tip to help amateurs get out of bunkers more often

“To prevent that, set your weight forward and tilt your spine towards the target.

“From there, you’ll automatically hit closer to the ball. You’re playing this shot with an open clubface, so you won’t have any trouble getting the ball up.

“I can’t emphasise enough that your weight has to stay forward on bunker shots from firm sand.”

It’s straightforward advice from Mickelson, but if amateurs take it on board and put in some practice, it could make a real difference in their game.

Phil Mickelson explains what holds amateur golfers back from better bunker play

Mickelson ranked second in sand save percentage on LIV Golf in 2025, successfully getting up and down from bunkers 62.7% of the time.

Back in 2023, he broke down where he believes most amateurs struggle when it comes to playing out of the sand.

“Bunker play is critical, and it all starts with the setup because if you don’t set up properly, you are destined to fail,” Mickelson explained. “What I feel you have to do is get your ball position and your weight forward, which helps drive the club down into the ground.

“Also, we need to use the bounce of the club, and to do that, we need to lay the club flat so that the bounce interacts with the sand. This is important because when we have our weight and ball position forward and lay the club flat, we don’t have to do a lot of work in the swing. All we’re going to do is drive the club down into the sand right behind the ball, and the bounce kicks it through, and you can see the divot shallows out.

“Where people make mistakes is that they don’t use enough loft, they don’t lay the club flat, which is getting leading edge to go into sand and dig. That’s not what you want.

“Also people put ball in middle of stance which forces their weight be level. And what happens then is bounce hits sand doesn’t have enough downward direction get underneath ball fully hard hit behind ball when ball middle your stance. Because now entry into sand almost off back foot.

“Now if firm sand all our forward If fluffy about 60% It’s going be based texture of Because never making direct contact with ball club are actually interacting underneath always between I need speed swing fairly fast get out There’s no slowdown only acceleration.”