If you’ve played in Myrtle Beach often enough, you know that the second word of this golf market (“Beach”) often leads to a challenging word to your game (“Wind”). In this video, Steve Dresser of the Steve Dresser Golf Academy at True Blue Golf Club is here to show you how to execute the knockdown shot as a counter to playing into windy conditions.
Steve Dresser:
We’re really lucky to live very near the beach. One of the drawbacks is the wind can really kick up sometimes. Wind can really wreak havoc with your game. To me, it’s the most difficult element to deal with. I can deal with a little bit of rain, even cold, but wind can really mess with your golf ball a lot.
You want to learn to hit the ball lower when the wind is really blowing, and hit what’s called knockdown shots with your irons. To do that, you would play the ball a little farther back in your stance than you normally would. You might even put a little more weight on your left side and you’re going to have your hands more left of the ball than you normally do.
Your wrists now area already cocked by virtue of having your hands more left of the ball, and this style shot all you’re really going to do is bring the club up a little bit to about three quarters and then when you come into the ball, you want to make sure you return that same shaft angle to the ball. Effectively, you’re taking loft off of the club at impact.
This is actually really good for your full swing and hitting regular iron shots because it teaches you to contact the ball with the handle ahead of the club face and to take a divot after you hit the ball. For this particular instance, it’s going to help us keep the ball low and out of the wind.
My target is behind me and one thing I should mention is don’t do this with anything longer than about a seven iron or so. You’ll start delofting it so much you can’t really get it up in the air very high.
Again, I’ve got the ball a little bit back in my stance, my weight a little bit forward, handle forward and the real key is to hit the ball with the handle forward. You see, you’ve got kind of an abbreviated follow through when you do that. Really hits that low, piercing shot and it’ll still land very softly on the green, believe it or not.