- I would never think that I could do that with a 52.
- You could have missed.
- I agree.
That's a ridiculous shot, that is.
- Everybody wants to play that sexy, spinning, wet shot.
And we thought we'd bring in a very special guest
to show us how it's done. Ricky Fowler.
Ricky. Great to see you again.
- Yeah. Good to see you guys back here in Florida.
- Yes, It's always good to be back
and how's things with you?
- Good. Just working on the game, grinding through
swing changes and trying to get everything back on track.
So good play is hopefully right around the corner.
Everything's been heading the right way.
- Putting video. We did last year, we were saying
early did really well. Everyone enjoyed that, which is good.
Hopefully you got some useful value from that
but this time, this is a tricky shot here.
- So we're pretty much so we've got 50, 40, 30
some different scenarios.
This is pretty much where amateurs and maybe myself
and Andy would for want of better word crap ourselves.
I guess this is not that a pleasant of shot
with the pin locations that we've got here.
So we're going to mix it up.
Let's start off with a basic pitch.
People are just going to fast forward to the backspin one
on here, aren't they Andy? but no, we'll go over the basic
pitch to the 50 yard.
What sort of things are you looking?
- So, yeah, for me downwind to that back pin, you know
I can play some release and probably trying to fly this
about 40 yards and I'd pick 56.
I'm not trying to stop at anything crazy.
And so in my head, I'm, I'm kind of feeling more
of what I would make swing wise with Lockwood for 30 yards.
They should fly 40 and kind of then release on.
- So basing, so basing your log wedged swings
and then obviously there'll be
yardage fitting the Cubs around.
It's like a little matrix almost, isn't it?
- Little bit yeah, just trying to keep things simple.
I mean, you're not always going to end
up with perfect round numbers.
So you got to have some feel in there
but that's just a starting point.
And then I can add or subtract a little bit from there.
And then like we mentioned wind, or what the grain
on the greens doing, all that can play a factor.
- Course.
- All right, lets play a shot.
- We dropped this, so its not, it wasn't
like we gave ourselves a perfect lie.
- I'd be placed at it if it was meant to be fair.
- So yeah, I'm kind of visualizing
or feeling like what I would, the swing I'd make
for a 30 yard or with lob wedge.
It probably sounds more complicated than it is.
- No no, its good I like it.
- So it should land on release
and go to the right a little bit.
- [Piers] Looks like it's going to do
something like that. Nice.
- [Andy] And just a quick one on that then Ricky
obviously this grass Bermuda.
Are you thinking on this sort of shot that you're
trying to create a little bit more sort
of steepness in this as opposed to more brushing?
- Yes I mean, there's
there's I guess two different ways that people
have always talked about short game it's
whether it's getting back
to like 90 or a very neutral impact to where
you're effectively using the balance. I've always made,
I've always thought that was really hard to do.
If I chip cross handed
I can get it back to 90 pretty easily.
But for me, if I get tight lies into the grain
sometimes I'm just better kind of go steep
and try and get ball first.
Just bet that you're going to make good contact
because I feel
like you're going to make better contact a majority
of the time versus if you're just like, well
let me just try and deliver the club this way.
I just feel like there's more that can go wrong that way.
- Last thing you want to do is hit the Bermuda early.
I know that.
- Exactly.
- No.
- That's it.
- Hit one more, one more to that flag because this is
really good.
- Cut. Like I said, well, I don't want them.
- We don't want in the divot though.
- I mean it's possible.
Hopefully I can pull off the same thing.
- You see that leading edge is open Andy.
- Definitely more drive, like say more of a drive down.
That was nice. I had a bit of check on it. That one.
- Yeah, it was, I would, that was a groove low.
Came out a little lower, flew a little shorter.
I don't know how far it is from the hole but.
- [Piers] Eight feet maybe.
- Yeah, we'll just, we'll cut the others,
from here it looks good.
- Sorry. Yeah. Eight inches.
- Okay. So let's, a lot of people want to
whether it's good for them or not.
A lot of amateurs say, how do we spin the ball?
How do we put backspin on? A lot of people
necessarily shouldn't try and do that.
And it's obviously a lot to do with contact
but if you want to hit it to a, to a flag
let's say maybe this tight one here at the front.
How would you create some more spin so you can
really get it to grab on that first sort of second bounce.
- Well, for one, it wouldn't be dropping it because if I
if I dropped the ball, like we talked about earlier,
your lie dictates what you're capable of hitting.
Now you can hit a spinner from a bad lie
but the chances of you pulling it off is slim to none.
- Yeah.
- So now we'll place it because
the times that you would try the shot is
when you have the capability
of doing it.
- And this is the thing, is that even though, even as good
as Ricky is, when you see Ricky play this shot on TV
it's probably because you either hit a good shot
or he's leading or in contention in a tournament.
There's going to be times when you look at the line
and go, I can't play that shot.
So I'm just going to allow it to run 15 foot.
- Yeah and this, this, since we don't have a force carry
that's another time is if there is a force carry
like that was your only option is to play the ball
in the air.
But here you have so many options.
And I mean, for someone that's, you know, maybe
not very good short game wise, I mean seven iron,
four iron, putter, just something that's going to
get it up there.
I mean, there's no reason to hit it here or blade one
over the green.
So yeah, no, here we got a lie that is going to
hopefully allow me to do something fun.
- Okay.
- Laying the face open, trying to get the club to
kind of slide onto the ball, the drier that conditions
the better once you, obviously, you guys know
if the ground's wet balls wet, you know, water takes a lot
of spin off the ball.
So dry conditions, we like that.
I'm gonna, I open up a bit just so it allows me to get
through the ball. Being square, it's hard to let the
club release and feel like I'm always going to hit it over
there.
- And he's laying that face wide open.
That's literally the back edge of the probe is
on the ground.
- And to do that, I mean, say here is where it sits flat.
When you lay it open, your hands have to drop
for it to sit properly.
I guess it's something I never necessarily like worry about.
It's just, when I open it up, it's like, okay
we're going down here.
And it'll be very similar to what you're
going to do in the bunker.
For me, I'm feeling the face kind of roll open a little bit.
- Cool.
- And then I want to hold that angle all the way through.
So very, very similar to what I would do
in a bunker is trying to keep that face
from closing down or that leading edge coming in.
So getting that little roll open helps
with exposing the balance
and not letting that kind of close down.
- So this is more of a, sort of closer to
returning it to 90 than the shot that you've just hit,
would you say?
- Yeah, definitely trying to, I mean, it's
it's probably still going to have a little bit
of hands leading
but having that face stay open facing back and then
I always think of it's going to be kind of
you're facing the target
and the club's going to be pointing back at you.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. It's not a high percentage shot
but it's a fun one when it comes out right.
- That's why these guys want to do it.
- Okay. Well that's, I mean, it's a tricky flag but.
- Downwind was making it harder.
- 56 rookie. This shot. Yeah.
- I'm going 60, 60.
We can, we can hit 56 with it 200 a sec.
Okay. Now the last thing you do is you pray.
- Here we go.
Pitched of inch on the green and stops dead straight after.
- So if you could have that come out every time,
it'd be perfect.
So I would say going back
to kind of that similar pitch, we hit, you know
this is probably more of a standard law you would get here
and looking probably to land it a little short
of those balls.
- Yeah.
- Just hit the normal pitch in there.
- [Piers] Yeah that's it.
- [Ricky] Very safe, you know, standard motion.
You're not trying to get crazy.
And you know, for amateur, we talked about earlier
like if you could always get it up
and down and no less or no more than three from here.
- Yeah. It's avoiding that disaster.
Quick question on that grip pressure.
What are you feeling?
What are you thinking?
Does it differ from the longer shots as well?
- Yeah, it definitely a little lighter because I mean
you want the club, like I think I was telling someone
yesterday, but however tight you would grip it
with one hand to make a swing and have control
of the golf club, but to let the club head swing
I think that's a good kind of, I would say it's kind
of middle ground, like five out of 10.
- Yeah.
- Similar thing I tell people
putting enough pressure to be able to
hold the club where someone can't pull it out of your arms.
- Yeah.
- But your arms aren't locked.
So if someone tries to pull this, your arms should go
you're not tensed up.
So to be able to have that kind of freedom
your arms are able to move.
The club can swing, but you still have control.
- I like that, I like that, should we have a go
at this other one here? by the way, hit the like button
if you did enjoy that shove cause that was pretty cool.
- A lot of spin on those.
- And actually comment down below as well.
What shot do you struggle with in your short game?
I'm going to be putting this spinner down for me.
- I'll let Ricky choose his life for this next high suffer.
- 40 yards, flag on the right.
We've got to go over a bunker.
- Yep.
- It doesn't feed it as much left to right.
Maybe as we thought when we were hitting the putt earlier
but yeah. I mean, what will you do here?
- Again? Why dependent?
So if it was a bit of a kind
of so-so lie and I needed to get it
up and over the bunker, get some decent contact.
I may actually just stay with 56.
Got a little wider soul, more bounce.
Just makes it a little easier to hit the shot
and get clean contact.
Very, I mean, in a way, similar to the kind of
spinner shot, we're just not trying to get as cute
but the 56 will allow me to kind of take advantage
of the soul a bit more.
- Yeah, okay.
- So the reason, so instead of going for 60
and having maybe the leading edge exposed a bit more open
and out of timing.
- Yeah well, you know, if we got to place our lie,
I mean 60 makes a lot of pit shots easier
when you have a good lie but you know, with some
some tough lies every once in a while, you know
you don't need to go all the way to 60 degrees.
You can get away with it and shots with, you know
other stuff, especially in a, in a tough spot, you know
hitting something to eight feet is still not bad.
And we talked about amateurs, you know, even just getting it
on the greener 2015, 20 feet, that's, that's fine.
You don't need to try and get heroic and then you hit it
in the bunker and then, you know,
there's a lot that can go on.
- That's exactly what they want to do watching, they
want to get heroic.
- Maybe they shouldn't.
- Let's go ahead and try it.
There we go.
I mean, anytime that I feel like you're going up
the ball's going to be up in your stance.
I think that's a pretty, should be a common thing
but you could, you could try it from the back.
You're probably not gonna have much success back there.
- It makes sense.
- And I would say so, I mean, weights, you know
anytime you're really hitting shots around the greens
I feel like your weight's always lean towards that front.
You know, you don't want to have the transition
for swaying it's you know
that lower body stays pretty solid.
- Yeah. I like it.
- Okay. After all that pray for another good one.
- That's good.
Zip that one.
- [Piers] Oh, that was really good.
Yeah. Just the back of the hole there.
Very nice. You said you have 52, maybe like this?
That'd be an interesting one.
Cause that's the shot that me and you wouldn't
probably look at here and go 52.
- Definitely not, no, I'd be going putter to be fair.
- Let's see.
- It is different though.
In these lives, the mood is just so specifically to hip.
- Yeah. We were talking about, I mean, it kind of
there's so many different lies where you don't
get a great one here and then you're kind of
looking just to get away with, you know whatever.
- So I suppose a big play for someone who was
playing golf and they, if they were 50 yards short
they wouldn't be saying, well
let's just, let's be 80 yards or 100 yards short
- Yeah, knowing certain areas.
If it's going to be a tough pitch to, you know, a tight pen
and you're pitching off of, into the grain, full wedge shot
in or something like that might be you start thinking
about different stuff and kind of the course management.
- Yeah, yeah.
- All right. So we'll try and, actually try
and get it to move a little right on the green.
- Perfect.
- This is the 52.
- [Piers] A little cut in off the side there.
- [Andy] Oh nice. Look at that one.
- I would never think that I could do that with a 52.
- You could of missed.
- I agree.
- That's ridiculous shot. That is.
- I mean, that was, that was perfect.
- That's the best one.
- That one there, is one to try.
- That's right, that's right.
Ricky, thank you so much for your time.
I mean, I think the good thing looking at these shots here
this is how you play it but I think you give
them some real good nuggets there to anyone watching this
on maybe some ways that they can play as well.
So really love that contrast there.
- Yeah. You don't always want to try and I mean, when you're
out having fun or if you're at the chipping green
you can try some stuff, have some fun with it.
That's where, you know, growing up, learning
how to hit different shots. That's what you do.
But when it's time to score
Yeah. It's not about how it looks like
let's try and get it.
What's the easiest way to get it as close as possible
and keep moving forward, choose your moments.
- That's exactly what you need to do.
Guys. Hope you enjoyed that. Massive thank you
to TaylorMade and Ricky for setting this up
and have a great year Ricky as well.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, appreciate it.