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The Short Game - Downhill Pitch Shots from Rough
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Staring at a downhill pitch shot out of rough can be intimidating and may even seem hopeless. You’re not alone. We’ve all been there, and in this video, I’ll show you how to hit the perfect, lofted shot that’ll save you a ton of strokes. You’ll learn the 6 keys to hitting downhill pitch shots from the rough.
- Weaken the Left and Right Hand Grip to Hold Off Release of Face
- Use 60 Degree Wedge
- Keep Face Open With Lot of Loft
- Move Ball Back in Stance
- Match Shoulders With Slope
- Stance Open With Target
- Steeper Swing to Match Slope
Downhill shots out of the rough are a very challenging shot for most people.
They don't know how to play them and there's a specific technique that you want to use that's going to really help you get out up and down.
When you hit a shot and you short side yourself and you have a really hard time getting the ball to stop quickly.
What happens nine times out of ten is that the clubface gets hung up in the rough and gets shut down.
You take all the loft off the ball, launches across the green and you're in big trouble.
There's a specific technique that I'm going to show you now that's going to help you with this shot.
And it's a few different things you've got to know.
The first one I'm going to show you is how to set up with the clubface and your grip.
Before we get into the ball position and all those things that I'm going to show you next, we're going to get the clubface and the grip set up perfectly correct.
So the first thing you want to do is you want to weaken your left hand grip.
This is important because what you want to do is you want to be able to hold off the release of the Clubface and not get the Clubface to shut down.
And be able to hold it firm enough that you can hold it through the thickness of the rough, and the rough won't shut it down as well.
This will also give you the added benefit of having a little extra loft coming through.
So you're not worried about launching the ball off the green because the downhill slope is already going to make the loft stronger than it normally is.
It's going to make it have a tendency to want to launch across the green.
And obviously because we're short-sided here, we want to hit a short, delicate shot.
So we want to have as much loft on there as we can so of course I'm using my 60 -degree wedge.
So, what I'm going to do first, I'm going to put my left hand grip on this, maybe my normal grip.
I'm going to weaken it and then I'm going to weaken the right hand to match.
This is going to allow me to be aggressive and hold a firm, flat left wrist while holding the clubface open through the hitting area.
So I'm not worried about de-lofting the club.
The second thing is I'm going to hold the clubface open just like I would in a bunker shot.
So you can see I won't, I'm not going to square up the clubface, that's going to take loft off.
I want a lot of loft, again because of the downhill slope.
So what I'm going to do with the Clubface open and my weaker grip is then move the ball back about two-thirds of the way back in my stance.
This is where a lot of people go wrong.
They play kind of where their normal ball position would be.
They get way on their front foot, That's going to make them have a very steep angle of attack, that's going to cause the clubface to lose loft.
And so, and then they're also going to get the club dragging through the grass too long.
The reason I move the ball back in my stance is for two things.
One, I want to make sure I get the ball as relatively clean as I can.
So I do want a steep angle of attack, but I don't want to get a lot of grass in between the clubface and the ball.
So, When I move the ball back in my stance, it allows me to make sure that I'm not going to go right underneath the ball.
That's a big fear.
When you have this much loft on there is that you just slip the blade right under the ball, the ball sits there and it gets just buried under a worse life.
Moving it back is going to allow me to have a steep angle of attack and get a lot of ball.
Before the clubface starts interacting too much with the grass.
Once I've got these three things set up, weaker grip, open clubface ball back two -thirds of my stance, then I just got to worry about this stroke.
And my swing is not going to be much different than normal, except I'm not going to have a lot of body turns, it's going to be a very wristy, Handsy stroke going back?
Because I want to pick the club up to get it up off the grass and allow me to have a lot of wrist angle coming down.
So that I have some power to get the club through the thick grass.
The last thing I'm going to do is I'm going to hold off the release, I mentioned that earlier with the grip, Is, as I come through, I'm going to hold the clubface open so that it doesn't flip over on me and launch the ball across the green.
Again, I'm wanting to maintain the loft as I come through.
So let's take a look at what this is going to look like.
Ball two-thirds of the way back in my stance.
Stance is open to the target, it's about 35 degrees or so roughly, that's a comfort thing.
Clubface open, laying back, weaker grip, And then, as I go back, I'm going to pick the club up relatively sharply and then come down and hold off the release of the club.
That ball comes out very nice and soft even though I'm on a pretty severe downhill lie.
The ball came out really nice and gentle and I've got a good shot at getting up and down for par.
So again, just work on your setup.
One thing I didn't mention there is your spine angle.
Typically you're going to want to try and match your spine with the slope.
Because I'm playing the ball back in my stance I'm not going to get it that severe.
So you'll notice that when the ball is back my spine angle is not exactly matching the slope.
That may be contrary to what you hear a lot.
But again, because the ball position and the way.
I'm holding off the release of the club and because I'm moving it back in my stance, I don't want to be this far forward.
Again, I'm trying to maintain loft.
If I get really steep on it, I'm going to come down even steeper, with a more steep angle of attack, and that's going to take more loft off.
So those are the keys to hitting a perfect short-sided downhill shot out of the rough.
Kyaw Thet
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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