- Welcome, Adam Bazalgette back here
in beautiful Naples, Florida.
Two-time PGA Teacher of the Year award winner down here.
Founder of Scratch Golf Academy.
Today's golf tip, how do you deal with uphill lies.
Let's check it out.
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so uphill lies, you probably seen
these sort of videos before
and I may cover some ground you're familiar with
but let's go over it
and then I'm gonna show you a second situation
where we on a severe uphill lie
and some of the secondary adjustments you make in that case.
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Check it out.
So here's a fairly moderate up-slope.
I'm on a decent lie, what are the adjustments I would make?
Well as you've probably heard, you're tryna match
the bottom of your swing with the surface you're on,
typically you want a level lie
so we want a very, very slightly downward hit.
Now we're assuming the swing is generically reasonably sound
and isn't really a part of this conversation.
What would you do on this slope,
well again, you've probably heard this,
you'd pitch a little bit with the hill
until such time as you feel
that you've matched the slope up a little bit.
Bear in mind though, when you start tilting on side slopes
you gotta swing a little smoother
because your balance is challenged.
You lose a little bit of club hit speed.
And of course, even though it's a modest hill,
you gonna add a little bit of loft on to your club,
three degrees is about a full club length,
say between 6 on and 7 on.
So it doesn't take much to add one or two clubs of loft
on these up slopes so club accordingly.
Now ball position wise,
I would play the ball a little bit forward
of what would be normal.
Just because it's one extra little bit of insurance
of not hitting down too much on the ball,
of catching it a little bit more with the slope
but if you're on something like this,
if you're on a tight lie with no cushion under the ball,
I wouldn't do that,
you might thin it that way,
so play it a little more back in the middle.
So now I have a really severe up-slope.
Fortunately I have a fairly good lie there.
Similar to the previous one, your balance is challenged,
don't try to swing too hard but that's gonna apply
even more in this situation.
And also you've got a slope that's adding loft
and again it's only gonna do that more.
So you might find, for instance that your 5-iron
only goes about 9-iron length.
You have to play around with it.
That would not be unusual, you have to play for that,
but here's two little things you might do differently
on this slope from what we did on the other one.
Of course we gonna set up with the heel, that's number one,
but firstly because your lower body movement
is so restricted now, not only being off balance,
but the amount of slope you're facing
it's almost a certainty,
you're gonna release the club early.
When you can't use this, wrists are gonna release earlier,
so don't play the ball forward.
Experiment a little bit to find what's right for you,
but I would suggest something back in the middle
would probably be correct.
Second thing you can do,
and you can play around with this idea,
you've lost a lot of speed due to immobility of your middle,
where might you be able to find
a little bit of speed elsewhere?
I would say you could soften up your wrists a bit
and maybe let your arms be a little softer
and swing a little bit more,
let them ride a little bit along your body.
So let me make a practice swing here,
nice soft arms so I complete my arm swing
without as much turn
and again, nice loose wrists there,
and at least to a small extent
I might be able to get back some of the speed I've lost.
So let's give it a try here.
I'm with the slope, ball's about in the middle.
And yeah I felt like a had a decent amount of speed there.
As they say, the ball went high,
but that was a reasonable shot.
Well I hope you found that helpful,
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I appreciate your time.
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