Lob Wedge Tips, Why Do I Hit My LW So Badly, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Lob Wedge Tips, Why Do I Hit My LW So Badly, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

You will always think that the shortest club in someone’s bag should be the easiest club in the bag and therefore the longest club in the bag would be the most difficult. Some drivers should be most difficult that would mean that ball in the putter clubs the lob wedge should be the easiest club. So why is it that so many people come to me on a daily basis and say Pete I just can't hit that lob wedge, my lob wedge is my -- I'm scared of it. It’s my most fearful club in the bag. And I think the problem is with the lob wedge particularly is when it goes wrong, it goes badly wrong. It doesn't take any prisoners this lob wedge. Generally a lob wedge shot we’re going to be playing from quite near to the green. So we don’t have a lot of room to work with. But for the lob wedge to be good it needs a lot of power to make the ball go up and then come down quickly.

So when near to the green we don’t have much room yet we've got a lot of power, that’s the recipe for things to go wrong. And a well stroke lob wedge you hit down on the ball, the ball goes all the way up into the air, takes all the time, lands and stops very, very quickly when it comes down. But that big swing there to only hit the ball 30 yards, so if I miss hit that I'm in trouble. Now there is two common miss hits with a lob wedge. One is going to be too high up on the golf ball, so catching the ball around the equator of a top half of golf ball then all the energy that I had in my swing converts to forwards energy, forwards momentum and that ball goes low head high to a lower and 100 yards instead of going up high nice and soft 100 yards low shoots up and bounce, kills your playing partner who is going past the head level. Then all the bad shots we often see with a lob wedge is pretty much the opposite of that what we actually hit down too low. A lot of golfers particularly the lob wedge because they're trying to hit the ball so high, instinct kicks in and we lean back. We lean back onto the rare leg and we try and flick the ball and then help it up into the air because we want to see the ball go high. I think if you are going to throw a ball you would lean back and you’d throw it up. If you're going to hit a tennis shot you’d hold the ball, you’d hit from the underneath and it would go high. We don't want to this ball to go high because we’re helping it. We want this ball to go high because that’s the club’s job. That’s what the club is designed to do. So the best way for you to hit good lob wedge shots is to narrow the stance down a little bit, play the ball around the center of the feet, stick the body weight over that front leg 70% into that front side and then nice and committed hit down and be really forceful about the downward strike. Not down back here and not up here but down into that front leg. If you can hit down into your front side the club will dive underneath the ball, create the height, create plenty of spin for a nice soft landing lob wedge shots. 2014-11-07

You will always think that the shortest club in someone’s bag should be the easiest club in the bag and therefore the longest club in the bag would be the most difficult. Some drivers should be most difficult that would mean that ball in the putter clubs the lob wedge should be the easiest club. So why is it that so many people come to me on a daily basis and say Pete I just can't hit that lob wedge, my lob wedge is my — I'm scared of it. It’s my most fearful club in the bag. And I think the problem is with the lob wedge particularly is when it goes wrong, it goes badly wrong. It doesn't take any prisoners this lob wedge. Generally a lob wedge shot we’re going to be playing from quite near to the green. So we don’t have a lot of room to work with. But for the lob wedge to be good it needs a lot of power to make the ball go up and then come down quickly.

So when near to the green we don’t have much room yet we've got a lot of power, that’s the recipe for things to go wrong. And a well stroke lob wedge you hit down on the ball, the ball goes all the way up into the air, takes all the time, lands and stops very, very quickly when it comes down. But that big swing there to only hit the ball 30 yards, so if I miss hit that I'm in trouble. Now there is two common miss hits with a lob wedge. One is going to be too high up on the golf ball, so catching the ball around the equator of a top half of golf ball then all the energy that I had in my swing converts to forwards energy, forwards momentum and that ball goes low head high to a lower and 100 yards instead of going up high nice and soft 100 yards low shoots up and bounce, kills your playing partner who is going past the head level. Then all the bad shots we often see with a lob wedge is pretty much the opposite of that what we actually hit down too low. A lot of golfers particularly the lob wedge because they're trying to hit the ball so high, instinct kicks in and we lean back.

We lean back onto the rare leg and we try and flick the ball and then help it up into the air because we want to see the ball go high. I think if you are going to throw a ball you would lean back and you’d throw it up. If you're going to hit a tennis shot you’d hold the ball, you’d hit from the underneath and it would go high. We don't want to this ball to go high because we’re helping it. We want this ball to go high because that’s the club’s job. That’s what the club is designed to do. So the best way for you to hit good lob wedge shots is to narrow the stance down a little bit, play the ball around the center of the feet, stick the body weight over that front leg 70% into that front side and then nice and committed hit down and be really forceful about the downward strike. Not down back here and not up here but down into that front leg. If you can hit down into your front side the club will dive underneath the ball, create the height, create plenty of spin for a nice soft landing lob wedge shots.