The players this week at The Masters will be faced with many difficult shots, however, the trickiest of them all will be the lofted pitch around the greens. Why tricky? Extremely tight lies with the grass mowed/grain going towards the player or away from the hole.
This delivers a sticky situation where, too often, the club can grab the turf before the ball. Worse yet, is the next time we face the same shot an scoop it just enough to catch it dead in the forehead of the ball…looks more like bowling than golf!
The trick to this shot, same as many others, is the club’s angle of attack. Shallow is the name of the game as anything steep will garner a tiny margin of error. A fraction behind the ball will result in the dreaded chili dip, and a fraction after gives us the skull.
Our goal is to create a flat spot at the bottom of the arc that is 3-5 inches long. This will allow the club to make great contact anywhere in the 3″-5″ space which is clearly a very large margin of error. In fact, when looking at a great shot on High Speed video, we can even see the club coming in contact with the grass before the ball! You will be amazed at how far behind the ball you can make contact with the turf while hitting high quality shots!