Pro Golf Shot Bubba Watson: Monster Hook (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Pro Golf Shot Bubba Watson: Monster Hook (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

Very occasionally in golf, you'll get one shot that stands out in the memory and it might last a year the memory of that one shot. It might last 10 years the memory of the shot. And I think Bubba Watson's recovery in the playoff from the trees on the right hand side of the 10th hole of Augusta from last year against Louis Oosthuizen in the playoff hole, that's the sort of shot that you'll remember, where you were when you saw that shot happen.

He's blasted his T-shot like Bubba Watson is famous for, blasted his T-shot well down the right hand side of 10. He's miles down that took a big bounce down the hill, very close to the green, but still way off sideways in the trees. He's got about 140 yards to go, but he can't see the green. He can only see out sideways unto the fairway. So, as a left-handed Bubba Watson is, it's a massive hook shaped for him to hook it back onto the 10th fairway, try and get it to curve in flight to land on the green and then get it to stop and spin as well. Bubba setup to the ball with a wedge, massive into out swing, big forearm rotation, really got this ball curving very quickly in the air.

Actually as a left hander, he had advantage there because to shape of the ball in that fashion as a right hander would have been very, very difficult to do and I don't think you would have seen many right handers take that shot on. Most of them would have chipped the ball back out into the play and then pitched up to the green there, possibly not making the part that Bubba Watson went on to make and maybe taking the play off to an extra hole. But as it was, as Bubba was a left-hander, he could shake the ball that viciously in the air.

Now, as a right-hander, I'm going to try and play a similar sort of shape of shot. Clearly, my hook is going to go the opposite direction, but if you ever find yourself in the trees and you really need to hook the golf ball out very quickly, you can use a similar approach to how Bubba Watson played it.

The first thing to do is take an appropriate golf club. Now, I've got a seven iron here. That's just going to give me a decent amount of height and a bit of curve on the golf ball as well. I'm going to set up with my body aiming quite a long way down the right hand side of where I want the ball to actually finish up. Now, by setting it down the right hand side, what I'm effectively doing is making my swing path set out down the right hand side and then I'm going to get the golf club to sit in a closed position in relation to my swing path. So, my swing path is going to hit out to the right hand side and the club face is going to sit over to the left hand side, so, closed club face.

Then as I make a swing along the line of my swing path, heading out right with the club face in, the ball will have spin on it and it will start to curve. It'll have back spin and a bit of sort of side spin if you like. It's effectively tilted back spin, but it will curve from right to left in flight. We call it side spin just because it's easy to understand even though the ball does not actually rotate sideways.

One thing I have to consider here, the ball will go a long way. That's why Bubba Watson was able to hook that pitch away from the good distance out. This ball will go quite a long way and more importantly, it will go lower and therefore roll quite a long way. So, you have to account for the fact if you're going to try and land this one on the green, it may disappear over the back of the green as well.

Bubba Watson really managed to get his pitch in ways to grab very quickly, but if I'm aiming my body down the right hand side, and aiming my club down the left hand side and then go ahead and make my normal swing, I can see the ball bending very quickly from right to left during my swing.

Now, the ball will set off pretty close to where the club face is aiming. About 85% of the ball's initial direction is controlled by whether club face is aiming and then the ball will start to spin from the right to left on that line. So, it's well worth actually practicing this shot first, to work out how far right you want to aim or if you're trying to fade the ball the opposite way, how far left you want to aim and how far you want to shoot your club face in to see how far you want the ball to bend.

You can also then measure how far the ball goes and get an approximation for how far the ball rolls, so, there's no sort of hard and fast calculations for this of aim here, aim here and this is the shot you'll produce. It's a little bit more random than that, but what I'd like you to practice on, aim your body right, aim your club left, have a few goes, see what you get. And then increase the angle of more body right, more club left and then decrease the angle, less body to the right, less club left and just see how you can shake the ball from the very aggressive Bubba Watson's style hook back to a more sedate gently draw.

Then when you're on the golf course, appreciate a position where you can actually get that ball to get you out of trouble trying to escape like Bubba Watson did in the playoff and hopefully, you'll be able to pull off some really nice escape, keep your score down by understanding how you can shape the golf ball like Bubba.

[playerProfile url="https://golf-info-guide.com/pga-players/bubba-watson/"][/playerProfile] 2012-09-17

Very occasionally in golf, you'll get one shot that stands out in the memory and it might last a year the memory of that one shot. It might last 10 years the memory of the shot. And I think Bubba Watson's recovery in the playoff from the trees on the right hand side of the 10th hole of Augusta from last year against Louis Oosthuizen in the playoff hole, that's the sort of shot that you'll remember, where you were when you saw that shot happen.

He's blasted his T-shot like Bubba Watson is famous for, blasted his T-shot well down the right hand side of 10. He's miles down that took a big bounce down the hill, very close to the green, but still way off sideways in the trees. He's got about 140 yards to go, but he can't see the green. He can only see out sideways unto the fairway. So, as a left-handed Bubba Watson is, it's a massive hook shaped for him to hook it back onto the 10th fairway, try and get it to curve in flight to land on the green and then get it to stop and spin as well. Bubba setup to the ball with a wedge, massive into out swing, big forearm rotation, really got this ball curving very quickly in the air.

Actually as a left hander, he had advantage there because to shape of the ball in that fashion as a right hander would have been very, very difficult to do and I don't think you would have seen many right handers take that shot on. Most of them would have chipped the ball back out into the play and then pitched up to the green there, possibly not making the part that Bubba Watson went on to make and maybe taking the play off to an extra hole. But as it was, as Bubba was a left-hander, he could shake the ball that viciously in the air.

Now, as a right-hander, I'm going to try and play a similar sort of shape of shot. Clearly, my hook is going to go the opposite direction, but if you ever find yourself in the trees and you really need to hook the golf ball out very quickly, you can use a similar approach to how Bubba Watson played it.

The first thing to do is take an appropriate golf club. Now, I've got a seven iron here. That's just going to give me a decent amount of height and a bit of curve on the golf ball as well. I'm going to set up with my body aiming quite a long way down the right hand side of where I want the ball to actually finish up. Now, by setting it down the right hand side, what I'm effectively doing is making my swing path set out down the right hand side and then I'm going to get the golf club to sit in a closed position in relation to my swing path. So, my swing path is going to hit out to the right hand side and the club face is going to sit over to the left hand side, so, closed club face.

Then as I make a swing along the line of my swing path, heading out right with the club face in, the ball will have spin on it and it will start to curve. It'll have back spin and a bit of sort of side spin if you like. It's effectively tilted back spin, but it will curve from right to left in flight. We call it side spin just because it's easy to understand even though the ball does not actually rotate sideways.

One thing I have to consider here, the ball will go a long way. That's why Bubba Watson was able to hook that pitch away from the good distance out. This ball will go quite a long way and more importantly, it will go lower and therefore roll quite a long way. So, you have to account for the fact if you're going to try and land this one on the green, it may disappear over the back of the green as well.

Bubba Watson really managed to get his pitch in ways to grab very quickly, but if I'm aiming my body down the right hand side, and aiming my club down the left hand side and then go ahead and make my normal swing, I can see the ball bending very quickly from right to left during my swing.

Now, the ball will set off pretty close to where the club face is aiming. About 85% of the ball's initial direction is controlled by whether club face is aiming and then the ball will start to spin from the right to left on that line. So, it's well worth actually practicing this shot first, to work out how far right you want to aim or if you're trying to fade the ball the opposite way, how far left you want to aim and how far you want to shoot your club face in to see how far you want the ball to bend.

You can also then measure how far the ball goes and get an approximation for how far the ball rolls, so, there's no sort of hard and fast calculations for this of aim here, aim here and this is the shot you'll produce. It's a little bit more random than that, but what I'd like you to practice on, aim your body right, aim your club left, have a few goes, see what you get. And then increase the angle of more body right, more club left and then decrease the angle, less body to the right, less club left and just see how you can shake the ball from the very aggressive Bubba Watson's style hook back to a more sedate gently draw.

Then when you're on the golf course, appreciate a position where you can actually get that ball to get you out of trouble trying to escape like Bubba Watson did in the playoff and hopefully, you'll be able to pull off some really nice escape, keep your score down by understanding how you can shape the golf ball like Bubba.

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