Many novice golfers spend endless hours on the driving range and spend far too little time on the practice ground working on their short game, putting and bunker shots and this is a mistake.

Practicing bunker shots is not perhaps a barrel of laughs but unless you want to spend a lot of time hacking your way out of bunkers on the course and turning in high scores then you really need to learn to master the bunker shot.

The ability to work with a sand wedge will also do wonders for your confidence and will spill over into other aspects of your short game. For example, mastery of the sand wedge will also help you when it comes to popping your ball over a bunker and onto the green or out of the thick rough and back onto the fairway.

So how should you go about practicing bunker shots?

The secret to a successful bunker shot is to pick up just the right amount of sand under your ball to pop it out onto the grass. Too little or too much sand and your ball will either stay in the bunker or end up well short of the green. What you need therefore is something to help you gauge just how deeply you are digging your club head into the sand.

Enter the bunker board!

The next time you are in your local hardware store buy yourself a piece of 4 inch by 2 inch timber about 2 feet long and then take it along with you to your next bunker practice session.

Start by dropping your ball into the sand and then take up your normal stance ready to make your shot. Then remove your ball and place your board where the ball was lying with the length of the board laying along the line to your target and also parallel to the line of your feet. Now bury the board in the sand so that the center of the board is covered with not less than 2 inches and not more than 3 inches of sand, leaving the ends of the board sticking out of the sand to mark its position. Finally, replace your ball over the center of the board.

You are now ready to start practicing your bunker shots and your objective is to hit the ball so that the head of your sand wedge takes just enough sand with it to expose the top of the board without actually hitting it. If the board remains buried in sand then your shot is too shallow and if your club hits the board then you are 'digging' too deep.

As with most things it will take you a while to get the hang of working with the board but, once you do get the hang of it, you will see some excellent results.