How Can I Play A Punch Golf Shot? (Video) - by Natalie Adams
How Can I Play A Punch Golf Shot? (Video) - by Natalie Adams

How can I play a punch golf shot? A punch golf shot is just a deliberately controlled low trajectory shot. It’s great for playing in the wind or if you’ve got overhanging branches where you got slightly out of position on the golf course and you need to get yourself back into the hole. So here is how to play a punch shot. Set the club next to the ball, I’d say take something like your 7-iron a quite straight faced club, you can play with your wedge but obviously your wedge or sand iron has a lot of loft on. So maybe take a 7-iron or a 6-iron slightly less loft on it.

Set your feet, shoulder width apart because if you play in this shot, generally you’ll be playing it when it’s windy, so if the feet are shoulder width apart you’ve got a good base to balance from. We want to take the left foot directly back about four to six inches but its just going to rotate the hips towards the target and make it easier for you to swing through the shot correctly, keeping the club on the target line. The key to hitting a punch shot is to have the shaft here leaning forwards so the handle of the club is more to the left than the club head is. So to create that position look at creating a straight line from your left shoulder down your left arm and then extend that straight down the shaft of the club. And what we want to do when we hit that punch shot is keep that straight line constantly. Its really important as you swing back you maintain that straight line, so you swing just above waist height,, we don’t want to hinge the wrist because hinging the wrist will start to create a much higher shot. So we’re going to take that straight line to the right of the ball, the key to hitting that low trajectory shot is really returning into that position where you can see we’ve got this forward lean in the shaft, and we’ve really retained that straight line. So just keep the straight line all the way through the shot and make sure you rotate your hips as you go into your follow through. Again hold your finish so you can see you’ve still got the straight line as you go into finish position. So keep -- maintain the straight line throughout the swing and you’ll hit a very low trajectory golf shot. My tip here to you would be hold the finish, look if you’ve still created the straight line down that left side, a lot of people will be not using the wrist on the back swing, back into the forward leaning shaft position here and then scooping at the ball and flicking the wrist as they swing through, and that action really puts a lot of loft onto the golf club, so you hit a much higher shot from there. When you go play a punch shot, again you don’t necessarily need to hit the shot and swing really, really hard. The harder you do swing at a golf ball, the more spin you’ll put onto it and the more back spin that you put onto that ball, the higher the ball will fly. So it’s wrong to approach hitting a punch shot by trying to hit it hard. If you need the ball to travel further take more club rather than swinging harder at it. But maintain the straight line as you swing through, you’ll start hitting some really well controlled trajectory low shots.
2014-05-19

How can I play a punch golf shot? A punch golf shot is just a deliberately controlled low trajectory shot. It’s great for playing in the wind or if you’ve got overhanging branches where you got slightly out of position on the golf course and you need to get yourself back into the hole. So here is how to play a punch shot. Set the club next to the ball, I’d say take something like your 7-iron a quite straight faced club, you can play with your wedge but obviously your wedge or sand iron has a lot of loft on. So maybe take a 7-iron or a 6-iron slightly less loft on it.

Set your feet, shoulder width apart because if you play in this shot, generally you’ll be playing it when it’s windy, so if the feet are shoulder width apart you’ve got a good base to balance from. We want to take the left foot directly back about four to six inches but its just going to rotate the hips towards the target and make it easier for you to swing through the shot correctly, keeping the club on the target line.

The key to hitting a punch shot is to have the shaft here leaning forwards so the handle of the club is more to the left than the club head is. So to create that position look at creating a straight line from your left shoulder down your left arm and then extend that straight down the shaft of the club. And what we want to do when we hit that punch shot is keep that straight line constantly. Its really important as you swing back you maintain that straight line, so you swing just above waist height,, we don’t want to hinge the wrist because hinging the wrist will start to create a much higher shot.

So we’re going to take that straight line to the right of the ball, the key to hitting that low trajectory shot is really returning into that position where you can see we’ve got this forward lean in the shaft, and we’ve really retained that straight line. So just keep the straight line all the way through the shot and make sure you rotate your hips as you go into your follow through. Again hold your finish so you can see you’ve still got the straight line as you go into finish position. So keep — maintain the straight line throughout the swing and you’ll hit a very low trajectory golf shot.

My tip here to you would be hold the finish, look if you’ve still created the straight line down that left side, a lot of people will be not using the wrist on the back swing, back into the forward leaning shaft position here and then scooping at the ball and flicking the wrist as they swing through, and that action really puts a lot of loft onto the golf club, so you hit a much higher shot from there.

When you go play a punch shot, again you don’t necessarily need to hit the shot and swing really, really hard. The harder you do swing at a golf ball, the more spin you’ll put onto it and the more back spin that you put onto that ball, the higher the ball will fly. So it’s wrong to approach hitting a punch shot by trying to hit it hard. If you need the ball to travel further take more club rather than swinging harder at it. But maintain the straight line as you swing through, you’ll start hitting some really well controlled trajectory low shots.