5 Difficult Golf Shots Every Golfer Should Know

One of the biggest determinants of what sets a good golfer apart from a great golfer is often his or her ability to execute not just the easy shots, but the difficult ones as well.

Golf, as with life, has the tendency to throw us a few curve balls from time to time. These often come in the form of tricky lies, challenging hazards, and daunting natural obstacles.  In these cases it’s often the confidence and ability to execute a difficult shot that makes the difference between saving par, and a complete scorecard meltdown.

The pros we see on TV know this simple fact perhaps better than anyone — see Bubba Watson’s now infamous 2012 Masters shot. It’s for this reason that the game’s elite players dedicate so much of their time and focus on practicing some of golf’s most difficult shots.

So, to help you elevate your own game, we present you with five of the most difficult shots in golf and how you can utilize each to dip, dodge, and blast your way out of trouble.

The Low Punch Shot

Very often we see golfers underestimating their ability to get a ball up and over and obstacle (usually a tree). Think about it, we know you’ve been there before — a towering tree line stands between you and the green and you get the idea that with a big enough swing you can pop that gap wedge high enough to clear the danger. The trouble is that nine times out of ten your ball catches a branch high up on the tree and end up right back where you started (or worse). The other downfall to this type of shot is that even if you do get up and over the obstacle you’re not going to be able to put much distance on the ball with that high lofted club, which means you may not have a shot at reaching your intended target even with perfect execution.

For this and a handful of similar situations it’s vital that every golfer learns how to play the low punch shot. Although not always the easiest shot to control, the low punch shot can help you steer the ball under and through those tricky trouble spots. So with that in mind, take a look here as PGA professional Mark Wood shows us how to pull off the low punch shot with accuracy and effectiveness.

Mark Wood Golf Academy – Low Punch Shot

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The Flop Shot

Now let’s discuss the low punch shot’s polar opposite — the flop shot. As mentioned earlier, the key to the flop shot (and all shots really) is knowing when to use it. The flop shot can be very effective when trying to lift the ball over a bunker or other obstacle and have it still land soft on the green, but again, practicing and knowing the shot’s limitations is vitally important to it’s success on the course.

The shot itself can be quite tricky and can have disastrous results when even the slightest mistake is made (a “skulled” or “thin” flop shot will travel far further than intended). The flop shot also requires a few different swing variations depending on the lie. For more on how it’s done, here is the flop shot master himself making it look easy:

A Flop Shot Lesson With Phil Mickelson

Supplied by http://www.callawaygolf.com/CGTV/Video/ for http://whitleygolf.co.uk/

Remember what Phil said in the video “it’s not a high percentage shot, but because I’ve hit it so many times I do feel comfortable with it.” So it’s obvious that practice will be the key to success with this shot. Therefore, make sure to practice your flop shot techniques diligently before attempting them in a competitive round.

The Long Bunker Shot

Most golfers have quite a bit of experience playing a shot out of a greenside bunker, you grab your highest lofted club and splash it out of trouble. But, what happens when you’re caught up in a bunker that’s still to far from the green for your wedge to cover the distance?

Here’s top 25 coach Gary Alliss showing us how to pull off one of golf’s most dreaded shots cleanly:

Golf Tips: Long bunker shot

Golf Tips: Long bunker shot lesson from Golf monthly Top 25 Coach Gary Alliss. Learn how to play one of the toughest shots in the game!

Ball Below / Above Your Feet

Not only is a shot with the ball above or below your feet difficult to execute, it’s also difficult to practice. Why is that? Simply because the surface at just about every driving / practice range is usually completely flat, so you have no real opportunities to practice these shots other than out on the course. This is perhaps one of the reasons why many golfers feel frustrated with the fact that they are able to make great shots on the range but that success doesn’t translate to the course. The reality is that very few surfaces on your average golf course are completely flat, so knowing how to hit the ball from varying configurations is one major key to success.

Let’s break the instruction here down by first having PGA professional Piers Ward show us how to hit a ball that lies above your feet:

Golf Awkward Lie Ball Above Stance

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Now let’s shift focus and have the guys over at everydaygolfcoach.com show us how to hit a ball that lies below your feet:

Golf Shots Played from a Ball Below Feet Lie

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As you can see, both shots require remembering to make alterations to your setup and address before taking your swing, another reason why understanding the fundamentals of a good golf stance is such an important topic.

The Downhill Chip Shot

There are more ways that the downhill chip shot can go wrong than we would like to count (skulled, topped, popped under, the list goes on), which is perhaps why no golfer is thrilled when his or her ball settles on a downslope just off the green. One aspect that makes this shot particularly difficult is that our nature tells us to shift our weight up the slope for balance when in reality our weight should remain forward (down the slope) in order to complete the shot.

Here again is golf coach Mark Wood showing us how to pull off this awkward and challenging golf shot:

How to Chip from a Downslope – Mark Wood Golf Academy

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The Key to it All

The true key to executing each of these difficult golf shots well is consistent, and effective practice. The reason the pros on TV make these shots look so easy is because they spend countless hours practicing each of them well before the cameras ever start rolling.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can pull of a tricky shot in an important situation if you haven’t already laid the ground work with plenty of practice ahead of time. Instead, take time to learn each of these shots at your local practice facility in order to build confidence and accuracy.

Now get out there and make it happen!

(Cover Photo Credit)