Three Golf Tricks Shots to Escape Trouble (Video) - by Pete Styles
Three Golf Tricks Shots to Escape Trouble (Video) - by Pete Styles

I'm sure we've all found ourselves in a awkward situation where we've driven the ball into the trees and now its recovery time, and I have certainly been once or twice in my golf career. And often it's not the shot that got you into trouble, but it’s the shot that's going to get you out of trouble. That's the important one. Sometimes people go in the trees and just resign themselves to the fact they made double bogey on this hole and they're going to write it off.

I walk in the trees and think well, here's the challenge. Here's something exciting. Here's something where I can try and get this ball back in play as close to the green, so I can get a good score. Here's three different shots that you could try next time you're on the trees. First thing is we might decide whether we're going to go up and over the trees. The other one might be going down under the trees. Now often the easiest and best way to make this decision is actually to get yourself down low to the ball, and now that sounds a bit funny, but from here I get a completely different view of what's up and over and really goes to the trees the golf ball I might have. So I'll be getting down nice and low with my golf ball and having a look is there a gap up here, is there a gap down there which way am I going to play it. If I have decided I'm going to play the up and over route, the first thing that is good club selection. Make sure you've taken plenty of loft. Don’t be too greedy and sort of think well, I'll clear that with a stick sign then stand over the ball thinking no, I won't, I'm going to have to lean back because leaning back you generally are really going to hit the ground before the ball getting the bad strike so we take a nice lofty club, I've taken a pitching wedge here. I'm going to increase the loft on the shot slightly by playing it forwards in my stance nice wide stable platform now ball slightly ahead of center. But then I'm going to just focus on making a really good solid contact. Any leaning back and scooping yes it might hit the ball up, but its probably going to give me a bad contact which I don’t really want, so I've got a very lofted club and then just folks are making a good solid contact down on the back of the ball and driving that ball backup into the air, and that would give me my high lofted over the top route out of the trees. The other option here would be to play a low shot. Now, couple of things I would do to play the low shot. Firstly, I'd just change clubs. I drop it down to something like a 5 iron. I could then make sure I play this ball even low than normal 5 iron by playing it back in my stance, so I'll drop it near to my right side. As the ball is dropped back in my stance, I would keep my bodyweight leftwards and my hands ahead. That delofts the golf club even more. This would give me a nice low shooting shot, so I would look down where the ball is, see my gap, keep it under that gap. One thing you should consider where the shot that comes out low and running is it will run a long way, so I might be able to play it across the fairway, but I really don’t want to run it too far if I have to run it right across the other side of the fairway. There's a good number of times I played on playing lessons with golfers whether I've chased one out of the trees really nicely only to say its come for across the fairway back into the trees on the other side, so just get out of the trees, have a good look, see how far you've got to work with. It might only be 40-50 yards across the fairway to the trees on the other side, so don’t go chasing this one out 130 yards straying to the other trees. Make sure you got angle and space where you can play out sideways to get it back on the fairway to get your next shot playable. One of the shot you might consider when you're in the trees is if you have a very restricted backswing, you don’t have much room to work with, but you can go low and run it out. Its just may be play a little sort of the hybrid putter, so I've got my hybrid club here. I've got my 5 hybrid, and I'll be able to play this shot slightly back in my stance, and a good little nudge forwards. It works with a very restricted backswing, and because the soul of the golf club is designed to, to not sort of dig into the turf too much, but to bounce off the turf. It works well when you have limited swing under the trees just a little punt forwards and I get that going. There would be 40-50 yards just punting it forwards under the trees, and that would quite often get me back in play to be able to my next shot to get back on the green maybe saving a bogey, maybe even saving a par, but bogey at worst. So when you're in the trees, consider should I go high, should I go low, should I just punt it outside ways? But get yourself down to ball level. Have a good look. See which way it's going to come out and then commit to the shot that you've chosen. 2013-09-16

I'm sure we've all found ourselves in a awkward situation where we've driven the ball into the trees and now its recovery time, and I have certainly been once or twice in my golf career. And often it's not the shot that got you into trouble, but it’s the shot that's going to get you out of trouble. That's the important one. Sometimes people go in the trees and just resign themselves to the fact they made double bogey on this hole and they're going to write it off.

I walk in the trees and think well, here's the challenge. Here's something exciting. Here's something where I can try and get this ball back in play as close to the green, so I can get a good score. Here's three different shots that you could try next time you're on the trees. First thing is we might decide whether we're going to go up and over the trees.

The other one might be going down under the trees. Now often the easiest and best way to make this decision is actually to get yourself down low to the ball, and now that sounds a bit funny, but from here I get a completely different view of what's up and over and really goes to the trees the golf ball I might have. So I'll be getting down nice and low with my golf ball and having a look is there a gap up here, is there a gap down there which way am I going to play it. If I have decided I'm going to play the up and over route, the first thing that is good club selection. Make sure you've taken plenty of loft. Don’t be too greedy and sort of think well, I'll clear that with a stick sign then stand over the ball thinking no, I won't, I'm going to have to lean back because leaning back you generally are really going to hit the ground before the ball getting the bad strike so we take a nice lofty club, I've taken a pitching wedge here.

I'm going to increase the loft on the shot slightly by playing it forwards in my stance nice wide stable platform now ball slightly ahead of center. But then I'm going to just focus on making a really good solid contact. Any leaning back and scooping yes it might hit the ball up, but its probably going to give me a bad contact which I don’t really want, so I've got a very lofted club and then just folks are making a good solid contact down on the back of the ball and driving that ball backup into the air, and that would give me my high lofted over the top route out of the trees. The other option here would be to play a low shot.

Now, couple of things I would do to play the low shot. Firstly, I'd just change clubs. I drop it down to something like a 5 iron. I could then make sure I play this ball even low than normal 5 iron by playing it back in my stance, so I'll drop it near to my right side. As the ball is dropped back in my stance, I would keep my bodyweight leftwards and my hands ahead. That delofts the golf club even more. This would give me a nice low shooting shot, so I would look down where the ball is, see my gap, keep it under that gap.

One thing you should consider where the shot that comes out low and running is it will run a long way, so I might be able to play it across the fairway, but I really don’t want to run it too far if I have to run it right across the other side of the fairway. There's a good number of times I played on playing lessons with golfers whether I've chased one out of the trees really nicely only to say its come for across the fairway back into the trees on the other side, so just get out of the trees, have a good look, see how far you've got to work with. It might only be 40-50 yards across the fairway to the trees on the other side, so don’t go chasing this one out 130 yards straying to the other trees. Make sure you got angle and space where you can play out sideways to get it back on the fairway to get your next shot playable.

One of the shot you might consider when you're in the trees is if you have a very restricted backswing, you don’t have much room to work with, but you can go low and run it out. Its just may be play a little sort of the hybrid putter, so I've got my hybrid club here. I've got my 5 hybrid, and I'll be able to play this shot slightly back in my stance, and a good little nudge forwards. It works with a very restricted backswing, and because the soul of the golf club is designed to, to not sort of dig into the turf too much, but to bounce off the turf. It works well when you have limited swing under the trees just a little punt forwards and I get that going. There would be 40-50 yards just punting it forwards under the trees, and that would quite often get me back in play to be able to my next shot to get back on the green maybe saving a bogey, maybe even saving a par, but bogey at worst.

So when you're in the trees, consider should I go high, should I go low, should I just punt it outside ways? But get yourself down to ball level. Have a good look. See which way it's going to come out and then commit to the shot that you've chosen.