Why You Need This: In this video, you'll discover how to hit a ball below your feet.

Hitting the ball solidly when it's below your feet can be a tricky shot.

With a severe lie, you're ball will slice off to the right.

And if you aim way left, it's common to over-adjust and pull the sucker.

Well, I have some good news for you...

Hitting a ball that's below your feet is simpler than you think.

In the first part of the video, you'll learn what's happening with the overall trajectory of your shot.

For a well hit shot that's flat with the ground, the ball trajectory is straight (or at least land straight to your target).

For a sidehill lie with the ball below your feet, your club will tilt and your ball will shoot off to the right.

There are 2 main issues you need to address when the ball is below your feet...

1. reaching down to make contact, and
2. making sure you know where your ball will end up.

Since the ball is below your feet, it can be difficult to reach the ball.

Here are a few quick tips...

Widen your stance to improve your balance.

Next, bend down with your chest and squat down a bit to get your club head to the ball.

Where do you need to aim?

For beginners to intermediate players, I recommend aiming slightly to the left (perhaps the left side of the fairway or left side of the green).

Now, if you're a more advanced player, aim at the target and hit a draw shot.

What about distance?

If you're aiming a bit left of the target and letting the ball fade in, make sure you realize that you're likely going to lose some distance.

So, if your shot would normally require an 8 iron, use a 7 iron to make up the distance loss.

And one more tip...

Your club plane will be more vertical for hitting balls below your feet.

That's natural.

As a quick visual lesson...

Imagine the ball was well above your feet, let's say waist high.

In that case, you'd need to swing with a way flatter plane to make contact with the ball.

The opposite is happening when the ball is below your feet.

Watch this video now to take the mystery out of how to hit a ball below your feet...

And confidently strike solid shots from this tricky lie!

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 4:25

Video Transcription:

Hey guys, and welcome back. The ball below your feet, man that’s a tricky shot. You get up in the fairway, maybe you’re off the edge of the fairway, you’re hitting into the green. The ball is going to slice over to the right. You’re going to miss the ball right.

You try to line up left, you pull it to the left, you just eel like you can’t get comfortable. I’m going to go over in a lot of detail exactly how to hit from these side hill lies, when the ball is well below your feet. I’m going to go over from the ground up, everything you’ll need to know to get this correct.

First off, let’s talk about what’s going to happen with the overall trajectory of the ball. If I come in normally flat with the ground here, and here’s the loft of my club, and this ball’s going to shoot out pretty much straight ahead.

Well as I start to tilt on this downhill kind of slope like this, my club is also going to tilt. So even if my club is facing straight forward, now all of a sudden that ball wants to go to the right.

We’re also going to have trouble as we’re reaching down to try to hit this golf ball with it well below our feet, especially if we get these really severe ones. We’ll feel like we almost can’t even reach the golf ball, we’re trying to reach down really far, and it can make things a little bit awkward.

Those are the two main things that we’re trying to combat. We don’t want that ball to go out to the right, and we also want to make sure that we can reach the ball so we can get a good, clean strike on this golf ball.

Let’s start out with the stance. When the ball is below your feet, you’re going to feel like your weight is a little bit more toward the balls of your feet. It’s going to be up here towards your toes, the balls of your feet. You’re not going to feel a lot of weight on your heels, and that’s OK.

You should feel like you have some pressure there, one of the things you also want to do, go ahead and get a little bit of knee bend. That way you still feel like you have some balance.

I like to get my stance a little bit wider, so if this is your normal stance width, go ahead and get a little bit wider. That way you feel like you just have a little bit better balance, because we’re feeling like we’re kind of off-balance this entire time.

We’re also going to feel like from there our chest is going to bend down a little bit more. I’m going to really try to reach down at this ball. If this ball was above me, my chest would be higher to the ground like this.

Since this ball is so far below me, now my chest is going to feel like it’s more perpendicular to the ground. So if you had some shirt buttons on here, I’m going to feel like those are facing more down toward the ground.

Now as I mentioned, this ball because my club is pointing more this way, that’s going to tend to shoo a little bit out to the right. Depending on how severe the slope is, I try to line up a little bit to the left. Just know that your natural curvature of the ball is going to want to tend to pull it to the right.

If you get really good at these shots, you can feel like you start to close down the face a little bit to counteract that. That’s more for an advanced player.

If you were going to try to hit this ball dead straight, it’s almost a bit of a draw feeling, to where you’re feeling like you’re closing this face coming in prior to contact a little bit. Then that’s going to hold that straight. That’s a little bit more advanced.

For you beginner to intermediate players out there, instead of lining up straight ahead I’m going to go ahead and line up toward the left edge of the fairway, or the left edge of the green. I’m just going to plan on that ball fading a little bit from left to right.

I’m really not going to try to fight it. Realize that it’s not going to go quite as far, so I need to do two things. Number one, I need to take one extra club. If I normally hit an 8 iron, I’m going to hit a 7 iron.

Number two realize that that ball is going to be curving, don’t try to kill the ball. I’m not going to try to rip it. If I’m between clubs, I definitely want to go toward that longer one.

Let’s go over this again. Number one, weight’s going to be on the balls of my feet. I’m going to widen my stance a little bit so I feel like I’m in good control. I’m going to bend my knees, my chest is going to be closer to the ground.

For those of you that are beginner to intermediate players, just go ahead and line up a little bit left, toward the left edge of the green, left side of the fairway. Don’t try to fight that ball working from left to right, just let it happen.

Then finally here, I’m going to feel like my swing is a little bit more up and down. I’m not going to feel as much around.

Imagine that ball is up around my feet, or well above my feet here, and I’d be swinging level with the ground this way as the ball gets more below my feet, I’m going to feel more vertical, kind of like a Ferris wheel versus a merry-go-round.

The farther the ball gets below your feet, the more it’s going to feel like a Ferris wheel.

I put those pieces together, let it happen. Should be able to hit it right down the middle of the fairway or on the middle of the green.

That ball started to turn over a little bit. Take that extra club to combat that distance, and you guys are going to do great.

Practice these one by one, dump a big bucket of balls on the side of a hill somewhere. Hit 50 or 60 of them until you get used to how much that’s going to curve, and you’re going to knock them out every time.

Good luck to you guys.