This one’s for all the Robin Hoods out there! In this video tip, Steve Dresser of the Steve Dresser Golf Academy in Pawleys Island, S.C. shows us how to approach an all-too-common circumstance for many golfers: hitting out of the woods.
Steve Dresser:
Well, where I spend most of my time on the golf course is over here in the trees! A lot of people look in their golf bag and they’ve got this old beat up 3 iron or something like that in there.
“Well, what do you have that for?”
“So I can punch out of the trees!”
Well, first of all, I might say, “well, come and take a lesson so you don’t hit in the trees so often, but you don’t need a 3 iron for that.” What you want to do is take a higher lofted club, like a 7, 8, 6 iron, something like that, but hood it down and turn it into a 3 iron. So I’ve got a pretty good opening here, but I definitely have to keep it low, keep it under those branches out there.
So the way to play this shot, anytime you have a not-so-good lie and anytime you’re trying to keep the ball low, you’ve got to come in at a little steeper angle of attack and therefore play the ball farther back in your stance. But you can see I’ve got the handle way over here, basically I’ve got the club head off my right knee and the handle off my left knee, which is turning that 7 iron into a 3 iron. I also have my weight over here on my left side, much like in the short game, because when you come right down to it this is a short game shot. I’m taking a smaller swing and just trying to punch it through those trees there.
So, get set up, balls a little more back in the stance, weight left handle forward, and we’re just going to bring it up and then hit down into the back of the ball. It came kind of close to that tree, but we got it up high enough to get over that bunker out there and back on the fairway. And that’s the other thing too, don’t try to be a hero, just get it back in play.