Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover "How to Play a Short Pitch From Thick Rough"

I know how frustrating it can be to get a nasty lie when you're really close to the green.

If you swing nice and easy (because you're very close to the pin), then the nasty rough grabs your club and causes you to flub the shot...

...or if you swing aggressively to get the club through the rough, the ball sails way past the hole.

So what can you do to actually get these shots near the hole?

In today's video, I'm going to give you 5 keys that will make this shot much easier for you...

...and instead of racking up the strokes when you get into this situation...

...you can start getting up and down and shave strokes from your game!

 

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 4:46

Video Transcription:

Clay Ballard: What a pain in the butt these thick, rough, green-side shots where you’re fairly close to the flag.

You know if I swing hard enough to guarantee that I’m going to get it out of this rough, I’m going to fly way past the pin.

If I swing really easy, to just make sure that I hit it the right distance, a lot of times the rough’s going to grab my club. It’s going to completely stop it, and I’m just going to flub it. It’s going to go just a couple feet here.

Both options are extremely frustrating and add one or two strokes to your scorecard in a heartbeat. It’s a great way to double bogey a hole.

Let me set this down really, really thick in this rough. So I’m going to take this and really bury it down in this Bermuda.

Any of you that play in Florida know that this is tougher to hit out of than even Fescue that’s four or five inches tall because it just completely swallows up the club. So it’s really buried in there.

There’s a couple things I want you to follow. Number one, when we have all this rough to hit through, the last thing I want to do is catch a bunch of that starting way back here and hit all this grass.

That’s going to kill the speed of my club, and that’s going to be the one you flub and hit three or four feet. So I want to make sure I put it back in my stance, that way I’m chopping down a little bit more.

I’m really kind of thumping the ground when I hit this shot. I want to see a little bit of a divot almost there. Even on this short shot.

So I’m coming down, hitting right behind the golf ball, that’s going to allow you to be more consistent, not hit as much as that rough behind it. It also, when you hit the rough, it wants to take that hosel of the club and slam the face shut.

It’s going to help to keep it a little bit more square. Number two, I’m going to open the face a little bit. I have my 60° wedge here, I’m going to open it probably 20°.

That way, I can go ahead and thump this ball fairly hard. If I hit it a little too hard, it’s going to go up in the air and still stop fairly close to the hole.

If I hit it a little too soft, it’s still going to get up in the air and it’s going to get on the green. So if you’re a little hard or a little soft, it has a lot more margin for error when you have the face slightly open.

Number three, I’m going to have my weight left. Then number four, I’m going to go ahead and be pretty aggressive with this. It’s not a flop shot, but it is fairly aggressive swing.

Then number five, I’m going to go ahead and hinge my wrist. I’d again, I don’t want this to be a chipping type motion, when I do that, you’ll notice that because this grass is longer, I’m starting to make contact with the turf way back here. It’s going to eat it up.

So ball back in the stance. Weight a little bit left, don’t have to get crazy left here. Face a little bit open. Swing hard, and hinge the wrist. If you do those four things, this shot gets pretty easy.

All right, so that one felt pretty good. Now, not everything’s going to be fixed, short-sighted, thick rough, very difficult shot.

I’ll be honest with you, this is a tough shot. You could easily mess this shot up no matter how good you are. The pros even mess these up sometimes and dribble them a little bit in front.

So you’re going to hit some bad shots when you’re in a thick rough. The main thing here is to not get in this thick rough and try to play toward the fatter part of the green.

But where you’re really going to pick up some strokes, where you’re really going to knock a lot of strokes off your handicap and score a whole lot better, and most importantly make a whole lot more birdies, which is fun, is hitting those shots the correct distance inside 100 yards.

I bet you right now, when you’re 30 yards out and you’re in the middle of the fairway and you hit a shot, you probably don’t hit it 30 feet right of the hole. You probably don’t hit it 40 feet left of the hole.

But I bet you, you can be 30 and 40 feet short and long when you’re hitting those. How is it that the pros are able to dial in those distances and hit right at 30, 40, 50 yards?

They do it almost like the ball has a chance to go in every single time. Well, I have a system that’s going to allow you to do that.

I call it the Clock System, and if you go over to the Top Speed Golf System on your website, go to the Short Game area, I’m going to teach you not only how far back to go on each of those shots, but the most important part.

I’m going to dial in those lengths of swing that I’m also here’s the kicker, here’s the one thing that most people get wrong with this, I want to talk about the right tempo and timing to have when you do those.

When you make the right length swing, and you do it on a consistent tempo or timing, that’s when you can really dial in those distances.

So when you hit two good shots on a par 5 and you only have 30 yards left, you feel like you’re going to knock that shot right next to the pin and have the correct distance.

That’s when it’s fun to play golf, because you’re going to be writing a lot of birdies on the scorecard. So head on over to the Short Game section.

Work through those Short Game videos, I’m going to walk through that Clock System, along with some other short game secrets that are going to help you to score a whole heck of a lot better.

I can’t wait to see you there. It’s going to be a blast sharing these secrets with you. I’ll see you in the Short Game System soon.