The Mechanics Of The Golf Punched Shots (Video) - by Pete Styles
The Mechanics Of The Golf Punched Shots (Video) - by Pete Styles

So hopefully now you're sold on the idea or the concept of bringing a punch shot into your game. We now need to look at how it's going to work for us in more specifically how the swing is gong to help us hit the punch shot. So there's a couple of different things we can consider, mostly actually in the set up position; so the set up is going to be slightly different for the golf punch shot to a normal punch shot – sorry, normal golf shot. I’ve got myself an 8-iron here, I'm going to set up to my 8-iron as I would do for a normal golf shot. I've got the ball just very, very slightly ahead of center, it almost looks in the center but very slightly ahead, and I've got myself a full grip; it’s going to be a nice, big, powerful backswing and that's what a full swing would look like. For a golf punch shot, we are going to be slightly different here; we want to control the ball flight, maybe hit the ball flight a little bit lower. So the first thing, now it stance a little bit and actually take the ball a little bit further back in the stance, into the back third of your stance for a good punch shot. It can go further back, that will bring the ball flight down a bit lower and be a bit steeper and we can have the ball up to the middle, maybe just slightly ahead of middle, but that would be less severe in terms of it's punching ability; it would go slightly higher. So I'm going to take it into the back third of my stance. The next thing I'm going to do is grip quite a lot down on the club, effectively chocking down on the club. I'm actually also going to move nearer to the ball for that same reason that I'm not holding the full length, I'm going to feel like I'm stretching. So I move a little bit closer as I grip down on the golf club; by griping down and holding here, I should feel like I've got a lot more control of the club head, the club head also has a little bit less club head speed. So it's not going to necessarily going to go as far but it should go a little bit lower, so it will still go a decent distance.

The next consideration is actually during the swing; we want to make a slightly shorter backswing and a slightly shorter follow through effectively its abbreviated cut-off follow through. So we don't have masses of wrist hinge coming back, we don't have masses of wrist hinge coming through that will also have knock down back, knock down through. We'll feel like we can again control our distance, control our height, and it's going to work towards just knocking the ball down a fairway here, so back third, hands nicely ahead and hold of the follow through a little bit. And you can see it was a good, firm hit down into the back of the ball; quite a big piece of turf comes out of the ground just here, but quite importantly the ball was at the back of that divot. So we hit down, nicely into the divot and then there's a follow through, so it's quite a good smash down. If you're not used to taking divots, you might appreciate it when you're hitting your punch shots; you take bigger and deeper divots and it can feel quite awkward as you hit into the ground and the club slows down quite aggressively. But like I said, if you're not used to taking divots that might feel a bit funny, but as long as the divot is after the ball; so it's not a fat shot, we are not hitting the ground first, we are hitting the ball then the turf. So short back, shot through with a slightly backwards ball position and a grip down; practice those on the range first, then take your newfound skills of hitting punched shots out onto the golf course. 2016-10-13

So hopefully now you're sold on the idea or the concept of bringing a punch shot into your game. We now need to look at how it's going to work for us in more specifically how the swing is gong to help us hit the punch shot. So there's a couple of different things we can consider, mostly actually in the set up position; so the set up is going to be slightly different for the golf punch shot to a normal punch shot – sorry, normal golf shot. I’ve got myself an 8-iron here, I'm going to set up to my 8-iron as I would do for a normal golf shot. I've got the ball just very, very slightly ahead of center, it almost looks in the center but very slightly ahead, and I've got myself a full grip; it’s going to be a nice, big, powerful backswing and that's what a full swing would look like. For a golf punch shot, we are going to be slightly different here; we want to control the ball flight, maybe hit the ball flight a little bit lower. So the first thing, now it stance a little bit and actually take the ball a little bit further back in the stance, into the back third of your stance for a good punch shot. It can go further back, that will bring the ball flight down a bit lower and be a bit steeper and we can have the ball up to the middle, maybe just slightly ahead of middle, but that would be less severe in terms of it's punching ability; it would go slightly higher. So I'm going to take it into the back third of my stance. The next thing I'm going to do is grip quite a lot down on the club, effectively chocking down on the club. I'm actually also going to move nearer to the ball for that same reason that I'm not holding the full length, I'm going to feel like I'm stretching. So I move a little bit closer as I grip down on the golf club; by griping down and holding here, I should feel like I've got a lot more control of the club head, the club head also has a little bit less club head speed. So it's not going to necessarily going to go as far but it should go a little bit lower, so it will still go a decent distance.

The next consideration is actually during the swing; we want to make a slightly shorter backswing and a slightly shorter follow through effectively its abbreviated cut-off follow through. So we don't have masses of wrist hinge coming back, we don't have masses of wrist hinge coming through that will also have knock down back, knock down through. We'll feel like we can again control our distance, control our height, and it's going to work towards just knocking the ball down a fairway here, so back third, hands nicely ahead and hold of the follow through a little bit. And you can see it was a good, firm hit down into the back of the ball; quite a big piece of turf comes out of the ground just here, but quite importantly the ball was at the back of that divot. So we hit down, nicely into the divot and then there's a follow through, so it's quite a good smash down. If you're not used to taking divots, you might appreciate it when you're hitting your punch shots; you take bigger and deeper divots and it can feel quite awkward as you hit into the ground and the club slows down quite aggressively. But like I said, if you're not used to taking divots that might feel a bit funny, but as long as the divot is after the ball; so it's not a fat shot, we are not hitting the ground first, we are hitting the ball then the turf. So short back, shot through with a slightly backwards ball position and a grip down; practice those on the range first, then take your newfound skills of hitting punched shots out onto the golf course.