Golfing is Fun

The Situation: Your ball is hung up on the downside of a hill in the rough.

Why It’s Difficult: The slope moves the bottom of your swing arc back, making it easy to catch the ball fat or thin, and the rough exacerbates any errors.

The solution: Set your body level with the lie by tilting your torso to the left until your left shoulder sits lower than your right. Get that correct and all you need to do is swing down hill. Don’t hang back to fight the pull of gravity as this moves the bottom of your swing arc even farther back and makes whiffing the ball a real possibility.

PGA Tour Player John Mallinger

The Situation: Your ball has come to rest in the depression it made in the sand.

Why It’s difficult: With sand behind as well as under the ball, it takes extra muscle to get the ball up and out.

The Solution: Open your stance , set the club-face square and favor your left side with your weight. Take the club up and back down to impact on a steeper, vertical angle than usual, and enter the sand only an inch behind the ball. The key is to imagine that you’re trying to bury the club in the sand and then leave it there.

Top 100 Teacher Mitchell Spearman

The Situation: You’re in the fairway but the distance to the pin is just beyond what you normally hit your3-wood, and you really want to go for the green.

Why It’s Difficult: Your driver has the least amount of loft , so it’s hard to get the ball in the air with it when it’s not teed up. Plus ,if you do on the tee box, you’ll top it.

The Solution: The only way to get the ball into the air is to hit a cut. Play the ball off your left heel and aim 15 yards left of your target ,and think-about “picking” the ball clean off the carpet. Swing across the ball instead of down on it-feel like you’re pulling your right hand toward your left hip on the way down. That willl give you your cut and guard against taking to much turf.

PGA Tour Player John Senden

The Situation: On a long hole you want the extra run you get from right-to-left spin on the ball. Or you want to curve the ball around a dogleg.

Why It’s Difficult: The swing path needed to produce a draw is the exact opposite of the one most golfers use.

The Solution: First think small draw (about 5 to 10 yards). Aim your toe line about 5 to 10 yards to the right of where you want the ball to land and swing along it. It’ll feel like your pushing the ball out to the right ,but it’s that inside -out swing path that gets the ball to curve in the direction you want. Make a slower -than-normal downswing to give your hands time to turn the club over through impact and draw the ball back to your target.

PGA Tour Player Sergio Garcia