Golf Drill Tip: Uphill lie – Compensations (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Drill Tip: Uphill lie – Compensations (Video) - by Pete Styles

So now as we look at the uphill lie, we have talked about what the swing does on the slope, we have talked about what the ball does on the slope, we now need to talk about the compensations and try and get this ball to fly as accurately and as straight as possible and to the right distance. So as I set up on the slope, I can really feel the hill is trying to pull me back down the hill, if I have to work increasingly hard to stay nice and level, so that in my followthrough I can drive forward and up the hill. As I swing back, if I make too deep a back swing turn, my body weight gets very much on the outside. So I had to really focus hard on not to just kicking my right knee in and turning into my right knee and not letting it wash out sideways, so as I swing back, you will see me fighting hard to hold my body weight against my knee to really drive up, desperately trying to get into a followthrough position so I can still get my right tiptoe on the floor. Anything where I am leaning back to impact is going to cause me to hit the flat shot or to hit quite a big pull shot, neither of which I want to do clearly. So I am going to try and load up, drive off and still get quite nicely up the hill. It might also be encouraging if you could just have the ball little bit further back in your stance. We know that the hill is going to hit the ball very high. We don't want to the ball to stall too much. So having it slightly more back in the stance should help me get in front of it, should help me get a good contact, and should just knock the ball flight down slightly. The other way to keep the ball flight down of course is to use your clubs. So if I am 160 yards out and it would be a normal 7 iron shot, I might feel that my 7 iron is going to go up too much with the extra 10 degrees of the hill is going to give in launch, so I can knock it down to a 6 or maybe a 5 iron to keep some penetration on the flight, particularly if you got a up slope into a headwind, this thing can just go straight up in the air, almost like a 9 iron pitching wedge hits the headwind and drops down. So I might take about 5 iron play it back more back in my stumps, load my right leg, release up the hill and try and get moving forward really quickly. I might also be inclined to just aim a smidge down the right-hand side because anytime I do get caught back I am going to produce a drawing or hooking golf shot, so just aiming marginally to the right would just give me a bit more leniency with turning the ball from right to left, so as I setup now, I am still going to stick with my 7 this time, I am going to play the ball slightly back in my stance, I am going to drive up the hill as far as I can and I expect the ball to draw slightly and I get right up on to my front foot here, the toe comes around and I haven’t been pulled back down the hill too much and that's a successful way of trying to play the ball on the severe up slopes.

 2013-03-27

So now as we look at the uphill lie, we have talked about what the swing does on the slope, we have talked about what the ball does on the slope, we now need to talk about the compensations and try and get this ball to fly as accurately and as straight as possible and to the right distance. So as I set up on the slope, I can really feel the hill is trying to pull me back down the hill, if I have to work increasingly hard to stay nice and level, so that in my followthrough I can drive forward and up the hill. As I swing back, if I make too deep a back swing turn, my body weight gets very much on the outside. So I had to really focus hard on not to just kicking my right knee in and turning into my right knee and not letting it wash out sideways, so as I swing back, you will see me fighting hard to hold my body weight against my knee to really drive up, desperately trying to get into a followthrough position so I can still get my right tiptoe on the floor. Anything where I am leaning back to impact is going to cause me to hit the flat shot or to hit quite a big pull shot, neither of which I want to do clearly. So I am going to try and load up, drive off and still get quite nicely up the hill. It might also be encouraging if you could just have the ball little bit further back in your stance. We know that the hill is going to hit the ball very high. We don't want to the ball to stall too much. So having it slightly more back in the stance should help me get in front of it, should help me get a good contact, and should just knock the ball flight down slightly. The other way to keep the ball flight down of course is to use your clubs. So if I am 160 yards out and it would be a normal 7 iron shot, I might feel that my 7 iron is going to go up too much with the extra 10 degrees of the hill is going to give in launch, so I can knock it down to a 6 or maybe a 5 iron to keep some penetration on the flight, particularly if you got a up slope into a headwind, this thing can just go straight up in the air, almost like a 9 iron pitching wedge hits the headwind and drops down. So I might take about 5 iron play it back more back in my stumps, load my right leg, release up the hill and try and get moving forward really quickly. I might also be inclined to just aim a smidge down the right-hand side because anytime I do get caught back I am going to produce a drawing or hooking golf shot, so just aiming marginally to the right would just give me a bit more leniency with turning the ball from right to left, so as I setup now, I am still going to stick with my 7 this time, I am going to play the ball slightly back in my stance, I am going to drive up the hill as far as I can and I expect the ball to draw slightly and I get right up on to my front foot here, the toe comes around and I haven’t been pulled back down the hill too much and that's a successful way of trying to play the ball on the severe up slopes.