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The flop shot is one of the most complex shots in golf because to get that extra height you need to go against everything else you will do in that round of golf in accordance with your alignment and set up to the target.

The flop shot is made famous by the likes of Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods who time after time dazzle us with their phenomenal skills and courage to hit these shots at the most vital times but this shot has taken hours upon hours of practice and require a good skill set for a high danger level.

To hit the flop shot you will need the loftiest club in your bag so if you have a 60 or 64 degree thats perfect or it can still work with a 56 degree (sand wedge). Take your set up as normal to the target, and then rotate the club to increase the loft on the face but without having already taken your grip. You will now find the club face with more loft but pointing right of the target. To adjust the club face alignment, you need to move your body alignment to the left until your club face is pointing at the target.

The ball position should be just forward of centre with your weight favouring the left side to encourage the downward blow but with as much of the loft maintained as possible. The swing from here will be a normal rotation of the shoulders and hips with a hinge of the wrists swinging across the target line but parallel to your body alignment. This out to in path relative to the target line will create increased back spin and height.

The ball will go extremely high and not very far but will stop almost instantly after landing due to its height and spin. Be aware that this is possibly the hardest shot in golf and even harder to repeat on the 18th green in front of all your peers, so plenty of practise is in order for this one!

Providing your set up is perfect for the flop shot, playing the ball back in the stance could pose a few problems for you. You could:

• Hit the ball too far as the loft has decreased
• Top the ball
• Fat the ball
• Thin the ball

The best ball position would be just forward of centre so you are hitting down on the ball but also with as much loft as possible.

Swinging with increased speed into the ball will definitely create more back spin and therefore more height on your shot, however, this erratic speed will cause a lot of mis-timing which for a finesse type shot will result in poor shots. The swing speed should be a gradual increase of speed from the top of the back swing using the hips and shoulders, similar to what happens with the full swing shots.

Scooping the ball is not recommended. Once you allow the club to get ahead of your hands at impact it can create the thin shot which has to be one of the worst feelings in golf when you see your ball go a long way over the back of the green. Keep the hands relatively firm, allowing the natural hinging of the wrists to occur on the back swing and the release through impact. You may see some players add more wrists and get great results but this is not luck - it is thousands of hours of practise for one rare shot. Look for the consistency value from the shot and keep your technique solid.