How to Hit a Golf Flop Shot

Marc: Welcome back to, golf is hard TV, the golf show for the rest of us. We are going to continue talking about some interesting and different types of shots. As we make our way back from the green, all the way back to the tee, the pull shots as we make our way back. I want to ask you about the flop shot, talk a little bit more about, how to hit that shot? How to get set up for the ball position and also just, it's a real steep, the steep shots are very hard. It's hard shot to hit. So may be talk about a little bit about how you hit that shot, maybe give us a demonstration. Male Speaker: Okay, know this shot takes a lot of practice so we are talking about the concept, we know when to hit it. And we are going to hit it when we need to. Now, let's take a look at two clubs, that we are typically going to use for the flop shot. We have the lob wedge -- in this case, my lob wedge is 60 degrees, way back when, the most lofted club was a sand wedge and that was typically 56 degrees. So then I don't know when Phil or some of the player started hitting this high flop shot. They sat that, how about making a sand wedge with a lot more loft, so they went to a 60 and now we even have a 64. I don't have a 64 in my bag. I use to hit almost every shot I need it with my 56 simply by opening the face a little bit more. Marc: Just create more loft by opening it. Male Speaker: Exactly. If you open the face, like you do in a bunker, then theoretically adding a lot more loft to the club. So you can see, here is the sand wedge, that's pretty much squared up at the target. It's aiming at that, that's the loft right there that this club has. Now when I open the face, you can see how it's pointing almost straight up, in the air at this point, and it's aiming a little right. So if you are going to use your sand wedge to hit the flop shot, you got to aim that a little bit more left, if you are going to open the face and heres why, so let's take a look. Can you see that right there? Okay, so that's the loft at which the 56 degrees sand wedge is aiming. And when I open that face, you can see now it's aiming a lot higher, and it's pointing a little more right. So if I am going to open face to hit a flop shot, this is why they say, aim left, I want to aim that a little bit left and get it back on track, or another option, simply is use a 60 degree. If you don't have one, open the face of the sand wedge, if you have one, well, then now I can just take my 60 degree, keep the face square and I have that much more loft. And you can see that's similar to opening the face in the sand wedge. Now they even make 64, which is incredible to me. I am not sure, why we would need a 64, may be for some severe cases, you are on a course with elevated greens, whatever it is. Alright there is certainly some very steep bunkers. But if you start to open up the face up about 60, you have more than enough. They say, you can always hit yourself in a forehead with that, so that's so much loft there is. So you are looking that 64, it's basically pointing right up at your face. Some concepts around what to do or which club to use. Now let's talk about how to hit the shot, how to get set up. Okay, now the one thing that never changes, we just talked about concept, hit the little ball before the big ball very important and it's very important here, as well. So I just want to explain where the bottom of the swing occurs and we cover this in earlier episodes, around chipping. The bottom of the swing pretty much anyones golf swing all the time, occurs at the sternum. Wherever your sternum is during the down swing, that's pretty much where the bottom of the swing is going to be. So what that means is because a flop shot typically or any pitch shot, typically does not require enough swing to create body pivot and I want to try to keep this very simple. A full swing is going to create the body pivoting and rotating to the right side. We get back to the ball you can see our sternum is out here, in front of the ball for a full swing shot and then we finish through, that's a full swing. A partial shot just doesn't have enough swing, that creates pivot in the body. So what that means is, you want to set up left, get your sternum in front of the ball meaning, get the bottom of the swing in front of the ball, where it needs to be and because I simply have a short swing, you can see my weight never gets back to my right side. So what I am saying is keep the weight, keep the bottom of the swing in front of the ball, because with this little pitch shot or flop shot whatever you want to call it. There is just isn't enough swing to bring the weight back behind a ball, which you don't want anyway. That's why, we set up a little way weight towards the hole. Okay. So here we go and what we could do is put the ball in the middle of our stance to start the shot-off. And what if I have my weight in the 50-50 between my left and right foot. Then I know the sternum is right under the ball, the bottom swing is under the ball. So I want to lean forward. So I am leaning forward at the face slightly open, the bottom of the swing is in front of the ball which is what we want and now, we are just going to take a little 9 O'clock type of swing, and that's a very high shot for a sand wedge, that went about 35-40 yards . And you can see the divot, you can zoom in on this mark. It's a little bit of a divot there taking with the flop shot and that came out in front of the ball which what you want. So there you go. Good to go. Ball in the middle, weight left and take a 9 O'clock swing at practice that, and then what you can do? Is you can work the ball a little bit forward and open the face. And that's going to create an even higher shot, it takes a lot of practice, work on it and you will see some nice results. Marc: So a 9 O'clock swing, play the ball in the middle, Right? Male Speaker: Play, the ball in the middle. Marc: Open it up a little bit. Male Speaker: Get that weight left and lower down the arms length. Not bad. See the thing is we are hitting the off, a tight lie which is also very, very difficult. Marc: Yeah. Why is that more difficult than say, with some rough? Male Speaker: There is a less room for error. If you have a little bit of rough, the ball is sitting up a little more. You got room, just get that club under the ball, it makes it much easier. And you can see right there Marc hit a little behind it, behind the club bounce into the ball and it shot up, that's why. The other thing is, you really have to take what the lie gives you. If you need it at a high flop shot and you have a bunker you are on a tight lie. It's just simply very, very difficult. Marc: Yeah. Male Speaker: You are going to play the ball more back in your stance, you have to make sure, you have ball first or that can be the result. And sometimes you just going to say, okay, this is high as I could possibly hit it, and sometimes you just got to play it long, go for the back of the green, rather than trying to get two cute ways, because you are getting more trouble. Marc: Alright. -- Male Speaker: Golf flop shot, there it is. Marc: You are right.