Splash It Out Of The Rough
Posted by Double Eagle in Recovery Tips, Short Game Tips
I saw a great tip on an recent episode of Playing Lessons With the Pros on the Golf Channel. I want to say it was the Craig Stadler episode, but don’t hold me to that.
It was a great technique for getting out of thick green-side rough. Often, if you try to make a normal pitch or chip shot in that situation, the club head can get hung up and any number of things can happen, including the possibility of hitting it fat or thin, skulling it, or flubbing it a few yards. The rough will tend to grab the hosel and turn the face closed causing problems with shot trajectory, direction, and distance.
What you can do in that situation is use a sand wedge and open the face and play it sort of like a little splash shot out of the sand. When you lay the face open a bit, the bounce of the club gets the leading edge moving through the grass better with less chance of the rough grabbing the hosel and shutting the face down. There’s also less chance of the club just digging into the rough and staying there.
As you swing through the ball, resist letting the face close as you would for a normal shot. Keep the face open through impact, like you would for a sand shot. Remember to aim a little left to compensate for the open club face, and prepare for the shot to splash out and run more than it would from the fairway at the same distance, due to the lessened spin.
Above all, be sure to take several practice swings in similar rough near your ball to get a good idea of how the shot is going to feel as the club passes through the rough.
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