In this video tip, Stuart Clark from the Steve Dresser Golf Academy at True Blue Golf Club shows you how to hit a high flop shot from a tight lie.
Stuart Clark:
Hi, guys, my name’s Stuart Clark, and I am one of the lead instructors here at the Steve Dresser Golf Academy at beautiful True Blue and Caledonia!
Today’s shot, we’re going to learn how to flop it. Most of the times, when we talk about working with individual golfers, we try to run it on the ground and get it on the ground. Well, I have a shot here today … I can putt it, I can play an eight iron, but really I want to go for style points today. I want to teach you guys how to loft this thing up and impress your buddies. That’s basically what this is.
I’ve got my 60-degree wedge here. And I am going to lay this thing wide open. The fun thing about this is, I always try to express to my clients or my students, I want them to try different things. The only way to get better is to push yourself, to try to develop your skills, and this is one that definitely will test you. I would definitely recommend nobody being on that other side, but anyhow … with that being said, you’re going to notice I’ve got the face open, wide open. And you’re going to notice it’s laying right down there.
What I see with a lot of guys, when they’re trying to hit a flop, they’ll try to hang back, which makes them skull, or drop kick, because they’re trying to get the ball up in the air, or they have too much handle drag so the club face shuts and it shoots out too low. We don’t want that. We still want our weight, pressing that lead foot a little bit, getting our sternum over the ball, want the face open, and we’re actually going to release the club, that’s right, release the club the little flip, to maintain – to keep that face open, to get the ball up higher.
So we don’t want any, what we talk about in full shots, we have the handle draggers with the hands out in front to compress it, we want this face open and releasing. So you can just do a couple mini shots or mini drills where you’re just feeling the club, releasing, you hear me just brushing that ground.
So what I got in here, I’ve got basically downhill, down grain, which here in South Carolina is typically where I miss it in the worst spots possible. So here I’ve done it again, so I’m going to lay this thing open a little bit, I’ve got my weight left, my sternums over the ball, I’m going to kind of keep it there, and I’m going to get a little nip, oops, I nipped it too good. Hit soft, really soft, that should have went pretty far. Came up a little short, I’m going to add a little bit more speed to this, that’s what’s fun about this shot, you can just play around all day. Ooh, nipper.
Mm-hmm (affirmative), there we go. Soft, look at that. And that’s how you hit the little soft flop guys. That’s your Tip Tuesday!