Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover "Spinning Pitch Vs. Stock Pitch Vs. Flop Shot | Slow Motion Technique Breakdown"

Are your flop and pitch shots making you want to quit golf?

Do you try to help the ball up in the air, only to end up scooping it?

Trust me when I say that many golfers tend to make this mistake…

…but it’s simply not true that you need to help the ball to get it in the air.

The secret is in how you use your wrists and the clubface to make it happen properly…

Start practicing these techniques and watch your scores plummet!

 

 

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    Ronnie Snowden    

Video Duration: 9:20

Video Transcription:

Clay: Hey, it's great to have you here today. Ronnie Snowden, top speed golf certified golf instructors joining me. And we're going to take a look at some slow motion video for a flop shot, a high spinning wedge shot, and then a stock pitch shot. And one thing that I thought was really cool is when you're hitting this flop shot, most people think they need to be scooping and kind of helping the ball up in the air.

When we look at this high speed footage, you're seeing that the hands are actually still in front, even when you're hitting the flop shot. Oh yeah, and by the way, the videos I'm showing you here, the slow motion videos, are of a friend of mine and phenomenal player Austin Hitt. He's a Corn Fairy Tour player, and he demonstrates these absolutely perfectly, so he's a good model to use.

Ronnie: What'd you think was pretty neat? Well, I thought what was really cool was that even on this, you know, flop shot that you had this face wide open, as you, as he comes through the ball here, he's still releasing that club. 

Clay: Yeah, yeah, instead of trying to hold off the whole way, the face is going to turn over.

I thought that was pretty neat too. So let me hit all three of these shots. I'll show you, so you get an idea of what they are. And then Ronnie's going to break them down in detail, show you how to do them. So shot number one is a flop shot. It's going to be very high in the air, very low spin here. So we're not trying to get a lot of spin on this.

It's mostly just trying to pop the ball up in the air so that when it comes down, it lands in the green and stops because it's going straight down. Shot number two is not going to be as high as the flop shot. That's going to be the high spinning pitch. This one's going to be a little lower than a flop Have a good amount of spin on it.

I nicked that one really well 6, 500 rpms of spin for only a 40 yarder. That's pretty good spin rate Shot number three is going to be the stop pitch That's going to be even lower than the high spinner and still have a decent amount of spin But not quite as much as the high spinner Like one more there So you'll notice when they hit on the screen the first one went in the black second one at the top of the screen And this third one is going, you know, kind of halfway up the screen, the short distances, the flight scope isn't always getting them, but you get the concept there now.

Now let's look at the cool slow motion footage and Ronnie's going to walk you through the differences in each of these three. So Ronnie, what's the differences? Let's start from the ground up. What's the stance width for each three of these shots? 

Ronnie: Alright, so let's first look at the far left here. That's your flop shot.

That's going to be your widest stance of the three shots. You're going to have at least two club head lengths between your feet on this shot. And then the middle shot, the high spinning pitch, it's going to be, your feet are going to be a little bit closer together. Probably more like one to one and a half club head lengths apart with your feet.

And then finally, your stock pitch shot, you want to be much closer, less than the club head length apart with your feet. 

Clay: I like that. And then what about my swing links? Obviously we can only see the bottom half of the swing because I want to get a close up, but I'll do the different swing links. How would those vary between a flop, a high spinner and 

Ronnie: a stock?

Well, by far your, your flop shot is going to be the longest swing. Okay. You, you want to get a lot higher. You gotta get that club way at launch that club or that ball way up in the air, so it'll land nice and soft. 

Clay: Yeah. So it's almost like a three quarter swing, right? Lots of club at speed to get it to pop up there.

And that's one of the reasons he just talked about stance is going to be a little bit wider, right? Now, when I hit the high spinner, what should I do there? Obviously we know it's going to vary if I'm hitting a 10 feet or 30 feet or 50 yards, right? It's going to be different, but 

Ronnie: yeah, but it's a much, 

Clay: it's 

Ronnie: a shorter backswing with the high, with the high spinning pitch.

Clay: Yes, it's almost, if the first one is three quarters, this one's halfway. They're half, 

Ronnie: yeah. 

Clay: And then the stock one 

Ronnie: is going to be even a little bit shorter than that? Yeah, a little bit shorter than that. Those two are very similar, much more, you know, the flop is definitely a lot longer than those two, but those two are closer, but, but the, the stock pitch is going to be the shortest of the three.

Clay: Yeah, so as you get shorter swings, the stance gets closer together. And then the reason that they're shorter too is as you start to take some loft off, which we'll go over in a minute, the ball comes off faster and harder. So you don't have to swing so hard. Yeah. So now we've done the hands. What about the club face at address?

When we're looking at Austin's videos here and Austin's a corn ferry tour player. One of the best players in the world. He's doing these basically textbook perfect. 

Ronnie: What would you see on the flop? So the flop is by far the most open of the three. The clubface is wide open. Okay. You know, it depends on how, how fast you have to get it, you know, how far you're going to hit it, how high you need to get it.

But it's going to be by far the, the most open of the three, the high spinning pitch is still going to be a little bit open. Okay. But not as open as the flop shot. And then your start pitch is actually not going to be very open. It's going to be more of a square. square face at impact. 

Clay: Yeah. One of the things we were just talking about off camera is if I was to line, put an alignment stick on this club, if I have this flop way open, now sudden the face is going out there.

If I swung like that, the ball would shoot off to the right, but the hands are lowering down. And now all of a sudden, That stick is going straight ahead toward the target. Same thing with that high spinner, we're starting there and a little bit lower. And then the square face, the stock chip, some people like to start with the face a little bit open.

That's okay. But pretty much everybody as they come into impact is going to have the face square, which is going to get it to launch a little bit lower there too. Um, what about 

Ronnie: the lag? in these three shots. So you're going to have lag with all these shots. You know, I know some people would think with a flop shot that you're not going to have that lag, but all three of these shots you have lag.

Clay: Yeah. 

Ronnie: And you can see where there with 

Clay: his hands in front of his right leg on each of these, there's still a pretty big angle between his hands and the club shaft when his hands are in front of his right leg. And then let's get to the, probably the most important part, which I think is pretty cool. The shaft lane.

What are you going to see with flop versus high spinner 

Ronnie: versus stock. So What is probably surprising to some is that even with the flop shot, you're going to have some shaft length. It might only be one, two, three degrees, but you still are going to have your hand slightly ahead. Now with the high spinning pitch.

There's much more. I'm going to say probably around 10 degrees of shaft lean with the high spinning pitch. And then the most of all is going to be your stock pitch. It's going to be the furthest up probably 12, 15 degrees of forward shaft lean. 

Clay: Yeah. And that's pretty standard. I mean, you can even on a stock one, if you want to get even a little bit more, get that 60 degree wedge and he's using a 60 degree here.

You can use 60 going to be tough to hit the flop shot with a 56. You're going to have to use a 60 with that one, but the pros almost all hit 60 degree wedge on all three of these shots. Pretty much all the time. Um, you're going to see, like I said, like he said, two or three degrees of the flop. 10 to 12 is probably what I see.

Like when we're looking on radar with a, with a high spinner. And then when you want to get into that lowest stock one, you could be anywhere from say 12 to 15, or if you even wanted to pinch it a little bit more, launch it lower. You could even get around almost 20 degrees of shaft lane, something like that.

It's just not going to be as much spin if you're doing it. And then finally, one that is really cool is, you know, when you're doing that flop, you're not feeling like you're just holding the face open. You'll see on all of these, 

Ronnie: you're pretty much releasing right? All three of these, you're releasing the club still, even on that flop, like, like Clay just said, as you see, Austin's coming through that ball, that clubhead, if you look here, is still releasing as it comes through.

Yeah. And I 

Clay: like that because it feels like, Your hands have to be pretty soft when you're doing that. Lots of times we try to muscle it and manipulate it. He's very soft. Look how loose his wrists are. Look how the face keeps on turning on over. It's really just the result of having the face very open is going to do all the work for you.

You don't have to hold it open even more. You can just kind of let those wrists go.