Are you having trouble hitting a flop shot?
This is Sean McTernan and you're watching another episode of My Golf Tutor, the number
one place on the internet for you to play your best golf now.
Welcome back, today's question comes from Bradley, and Bradley wrote, "hi Sean, I have
been having some issues with my flop shots, especially when I have to go to a tight pin
over a bunker.
I find I often catch shots thin or heavy.
Do you have any techniques or suggestions to help my consistency?"
Bradley, thanks very much for your question.
To play this shot it's very similar to the video we did on hitting a high bunker shot.
It is going to employ the same techniques and the same philosophies pretty much.
We are going to have our weight fifty fifty, we're going to open up just a slight little
bit to the target, maybe two-three yards.
We're going to play this shot with a very open club face, I want almost the back of
the club to be resting on the ground.
What this is going to promote it's going to allow the bounce to enter the turf first and
go right through the ball.
The only time I want you to be careful when using this shot is if your off some hard pan.
If you use the bounce on hardpan you're liable to have the club bounce.
But, pretty much golf courses now a days you will very rarely see hard pan and you can
pretty much use this shot all the time.
One of the big issues I find with my students when I have them open up the face is they
feel it is pointing fifteen yards right.
Now, this is a little tool I was introduced to maybe twenty years ago when I was on the
Irish National Panel our coach at the time brought it out and it really helped me understand
where the club head is pointing and where the loft of the face is pointing.
As you can see it is a magnet, I'm going to simply place it on the club like so, you can
see I'm going to assume it is pretty much going at the flag with a square face.
Now, when I open up the face you can see it hasn't gone much further right, maybe a slight
little bit.
But, with these shots because our stance is a little wider and our hands are a little
lower you can see as the handle lowers you can see the loft of the face points a little
more left.
This is just to illustrate to give you confidence to open up the face, but understand that the
loft of the face will still be pointing at the target.
Now that we have clarified that we are going to take our setup like I said, ball a little
forward in our stance, weight fifty fifty and opening up a couple of yards to the target.
What I want you to focus on as well is opening up the face a little bit more, we are going
to roll it open.
At impact I just want you to feel that the club head and the handle are lining up.
I don't want you to feel you are scooping the golf ball.
This might be one reason why you're struggling with the consistency of the shot.
You might be helping it up in the air or sometimes you have your wrists leading too much.
Just allow them to align up at impact like so.
Let's hit one and see what happens.
If you take care of those steps and practice what I just said, I definitely think you're
going to get a lot more consistent and get that ball closer to the pin every time.
If you or any one else has any questions about your golf game, please leave a comment in
the comment section below.
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