How Senior Golfers should play a Golf Punch Shot Correctly (Video) - by Dean Butler
How Senior Golfers should play a Golf Punch Shot Correctly (Video) - by Dean Butler

Okay what I want to talk about here is how we play a punch shot. Describe what a punch shot is? A punch is literally where you hit down and you punch the ball so you – imagine what sort of conditions you'll be playing this shot. Maybe on the golf course, the wind is blowing is coming off the right hand side. The last thing you want to do is send that ball up here and that the wind take it over maybe you're in the trees and you got that canopy overhanging you think wow, I need to keep that ball low so how do I do it? Well, this is – this is sort of examples of where the punch shot comes in.

So the first thing is look at the light. If the light is good maybe take a little bit more loft than what you might have been going for, but don't go too lofted. Remember you want to try and punch the shot. So if you’ve got a conventional sort of 7-iron into the green, then let's think about I'll be taking a 6-iron or doing what I'm going to show you now how to punch. When you set up to keep that ball low to create a punch, we want you to put the ball further back. Now, think about it. When you team up with a driver, we put the ball forward so it is up and the drive goes up, so we want to keep the ball low. Let's put the ball inside the right foot. By putting the ball inside the right foot we're going to guarantee a much earlier strike because we're going to hit the ball much early because its further back so put that ball back. The second thing is I want you to concentrate on from here keeping that weight 60-40 in your left hand side. This will create a slightly steeper swing just slightly steeper which will encourage you not to move off the golf ball. It will keep you quite central. Once you're over the golf ball here all that a normal swing when you push away hinge your wrist, I don't want you to encourage any wrist activity is that arm shot, so if the punch shot is take an extra club, put the ball further back, put your weight 60-40 in your left hand side and from here, if I just swing the club back now just of the waist high so from here back here and through and leave at my wrist going through, so if I just demonstrate waist and through you can see how – look how short that follow through is, and that follow through there is a very restricted swing, but remember my backswing was restricted. We're trying to keep that ball low. We're trying to punch. We're trying to make sure that the wind doesn’t throw the ball around or we're trying to keep the ball below the trees. It would be a good time that you might play a punch shot is when you're in the thick rough and the ball just sat right down. The technique is exactly the same, but the club selection would be different because now we're having to use a sand wedge or a loft wedge to get that the ball out of that very, very deep line which is sat right down and in which case everything we've just shown you is exactly the same. But the only difference from there would be we breakout and break the risk up and then break the wrist up and then head down. Remember it’s all about that. So there's your punch shot covered well and truly very simple, ball further back, weight 60-40, from there it's just all arms. Keep the swing very, very short and if you got a nice horrible buried line in the rough use the loft wedge. Do the same technique, but just literally break your wrist and chop down. That's how you play punch shots. 2013-11-01

Okay what I want to talk about here is how we play a punch shot. Describe what a punch shot is? A punch is literally where you hit down and you punch the ball so you – imagine what sort of conditions you'll be playing this shot. Maybe on the golf course, the wind is blowing is coming off the right hand side. The last thing you want to do is send that ball up here and that the wind take it over maybe you're in the trees and you got that canopy overhanging you think wow, I need to keep that ball low so how do I do it? Well, this is – this is sort of examples of where the punch shot comes in.

So the first thing is look at the light. If the light is good maybe take a little bit more loft than what you might have been going for, but don't go too lofted. Remember you want to try and punch the shot. So if you’ve got a conventional sort of 7-iron into the green, then let's think about I'll be taking a 6-iron or doing what I'm going to show you now how to punch. When you set up to keep that ball low to create a punch, we want you to put the ball further back. Now, think about it. When you team up with a driver, we put the ball forward so it is up and the drive goes up, so we want to keep the ball low.

Let's put the ball inside the right foot. By putting the ball inside the right foot we're going to guarantee a much earlier strike because we're going to hit the ball much early because its further back so put that ball back. The second thing is I want you to concentrate on from here keeping that weight 60-40 in your left hand side. This will create a slightly steeper swing just slightly steeper which will encourage you not to move off the golf ball. It will keep you quite central. Once you're over the golf ball here all that a normal swing when you push away hinge your wrist, I don't want you to encourage any wrist activity is that arm shot, so if the punch shot is take an extra club, put the ball further back, put your weight 60-40 in your left hand side and from here, if I just swing the club back now just of the waist high so from here back here and through and leave at my wrist going through, so if I just demonstrate waist and through you can see how – look how short that follow through is, and that follow through there is a very restricted swing, but remember my backswing was restricted.

We're trying to keep that ball low. We're trying to punch. We're trying to make sure that the wind doesn’t throw the ball around or we're trying to keep the ball below the trees. It would be a good time that you might play a punch shot is when you're in the thick rough and the ball just sat right down. The technique is exactly the same, but the club selection would be different because now we're having to use a sand wedge or a loft wedge to get that the ball out of that very, very deep line which is sat right down and in which case everything we've just shown you is exactly the same. But the only difference from there would be we breakout and break the risk up and then break the wrist up and then head down.

Remember it’s all about that. So there's your punch shot covered well and truly very simple, ball further back, weight 60-40, from there it's just all arms. Keep the swing very, very short and if you got a nice horrible buried line in the rough use the loft wedge. Do the same technique, but just literally break your wrist and chop down. That's how you play punch shots.