Paul Eales: How to escape from a pot bunker

Your Game: Each day during the Open, the pros offer their advice

There are 112 bunkers on the Old Course and most of them are "wee beasties" that are far deeper than they are wide. The only thing you must do if you get in one is to get out of it.

Forget trying to hit down the fairway or attacking the pin as you might from shallow-lipped traps on parkland courses. All you are trying to do in a pot bunker is get it up and out, try anything else and you will find yourself stuck in the sand forever.

The most important thing is where the club enters the sand. The club must go underneath the ball to get it shooting upwards. You cannot hit the ball directly since then it will just smash into the face of the high-lipped bunker. Pick a spot in the sand just behind the ball and aim there.

Think about lifting the sand up and out of the bunker – the ball will be pushed up and out of the trap.

Paul Eales is a former European Tour winner, and is now a professional golf coach and broadcaster