How To Hit A Flop Shot With A Golf Lob Wedge (Video) - by Pete Styles
How To Hit A Flop Shot With A Golf Lob Wedge (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now the flop shot in golf is probably one of the most iconic shots that we’ll see quite often the highlights reels, the sort of player highlights of a tournament are often made up of guys hitting flop shots, which is quite an iconic shot and it’s quite difficult for most golfers to hit I guess. And therefore, when we see the professionals pull it off, it really looks quite glamorous and we get the round of applause around the green. So a flop shot is a ball that flies very, very high but a very short distance and ideally when it comes down it stops quite quickly, ideally next to the flag and doesn’t roll off the back of the green.

So a lot of golfers if they are faced with this shot, so we are on one side of a pond or a bunker, we’ve got a tight patch of grass to land the ball on – on the green and then it might roll off the back of the green and into the water again. A lot of golfers are going to be fearful of that shot, fearing that if they landed the ball on the green it would roll too far. Now part of the problem is they’re probably not utilizing the right club. So if you are trying to hit this high floppy shot with a pitching wedge or a sand wedge, you are making life more difficult for yourself right in the first place. So go ahead and get yourself a lob wedge ideally with more loft as possible, at least 58 degrees and may be up to 64 degrees of loft on that wedge. Then you learn how to play the flop it’s a quite specific technique, it’s a different technique from the shots that we would normally play. And it is a little bit of a high risk shot, it’s a high tariff shot, so we only really play this shot as and when we need it. If the situation was different and there was nothing in between me and the flag and it was flat and smooth, I wouldn’t be playing this high up and over shot, I would be playing a lower bump and run type of shot. But if the situation demands on the golf course I can play the ball forwards in my stance. I can play the stance open so I’m aiming to the left, I can play the club face open so it’s aiming to the right, and I can have my hands slightly back behind the golf ball. So all of that goes completely against conventional chipping and pitching, which might look a little bit more like this. So you can see how that’s standard pitch or chip shot where the ball would go slightly lower, this is a much higher, riskier version of that shot. So like I said, by riskier basically I mean that if you get this shot wrong it could be quite severe penalty and punishments. The two shots that I might get wrong: one I could hit the ball flat and go completely under the ball, that ball is not going to go far enough, landing in the front hazard. The other shot might be I hit half with the ball and I fin it, that goes wrong and finishes in the back hazard. So I really want to make sure that when I set myself up in this opened up position, I commit to a nice down strike, fly the ball high up into the air, and as it lands it stops very, very quickly and it doesn’t go very far. You can almost appreciate just by purely the time that that ball is in the air how high that ball has gone, but I promise you it hasn’t gone more than 30 feet, sorry 30 yards, only about 30 yards, very open face, really quite an aggressive full hit down to make that ball go so high and so short. Now the classic fault with that is hitting the ball not hard enough. Golfers are quite scared to commit to a shot that only needs to go a short distance and therefore, making a full swing. So we often see golfers who got perfect technical issues in their setup, face is open, feet are open ball is in a good position, but then they slightly under hit the ball and it only goes a half way there and lands in the front bunker. So if you are going to commit to that shot and you are going to commit to those techniques I’ve just giving you go ahead and make a really good committed effort to hit the ball quite aggressively, quite firmly with acceleration, commit to the shot and you’ll soon be hitting lob wedge shots nice and close to the flag. 2016-05-05

Now the flop shot in golf is probably one of the most iconic shots that we’ll see quite often the highlights reels, the sort of player highlights of a tournament are often made up of guys hitting flop shots, which is quite an iconic shot and it’s quite difficult for most golfers to hit I guess. And therefore, when we see the professionals pull it off, it really looks quite glamorous and we get the round of applause around the green. So a flop shot is a ball that flies very, very high but a very short distance and ideally when it comes down it stops quite quickly, ideally next to the flag and doesn’t roll off the back of the green.

So a lot of golfers if they are faced with this shot, so we are on one side of a pond or a bunker, we’ve got a tight patch of grass to land the ball on – on the green and then it might roll off the back of the green and into the water again. A lot of golfers are going to be fearful of that shot, fearing that if they landed the ball on the green it would roll too far. Now part of the problem is they’re probably not utilizing the right club. So if you are trying to hit this high floppy shot with a pitching wedge or a sand wedge, you are making life more difficult for yourself right in the first place. So go ahead and get yourself a lob wedge ideally with more loft as possible, at least 58 degrees and may be up to 64 degrees of loft on that wedge. Then you learn how to play the flop it’s a quite specific technique, it’s a different technique from the shots that we would normally play.

And it is a little bit of a high risk shot, it’s a high tariff shot, so we only really play this shot as and when we need it. If the situation was different and there was nothing in between me and the flag and it was flat and smooth, I wouldn’t be playing this high up and over shot, I would be playing a lower bump and run type of shot. But if the situation demands on the golf course I can play the ball forwards in my stance. I can play the stance open so I’m aiming to the left, I can play the club face open so it’s aiming to the right, and I can have my hands slightly back behind the golf ball. So all of that goes completely against conventional chipping and pitching, which might look a little bit more like this. So you can see how that’s standard pitch or chip shot where the ball would go slightly lower, this is a much higher, riskier version of that shot.

So like I said, by riskier basically I mean that if you get this shot wrong it could be quite severe penalty and punishments. The two shots that I might get wrong: one I could hit the ball flat and go completely under the ball, that ball is not going to go far enough, landing in the front hazard. The other shot might be I hit half with the ball and I fin it, that goes wrong and finishes in the back hazard.

So I really want to make sure that when I set myself up in this opened up position, I commit to a nice down strike, fly the ball high up into the air, and as it lands it stops very, very quickly and it doesn’t go very far. You can almost appreciate just by purely the time that that ball is in the air how high that ball has gone, but I promise you it hasn’t gone more than 30 feet, sorry 30 yards, only about 30 yards, very open face, really quite an aggressive full hit down to make that ball go so high and so short.

Now the classic fault with that is hitting the ball not hard enough. Golfers are quite scared to commit to a shot that only needs to go a short distance and therefore, making a full swing. So we often see golfers who got perfect technical issues in their setup, face is open, feet are open ball is in a good position, but then they slightly under hit the ball and it only goes a half way there and lands in the front bunker. So if you are going to commit to that shot and you are going to commit to those techniques I’ve just giving you go ahead and make a really good committed effort to hit the ball quite aggressively, quite firmly with acceleration, commit to the shot and you’ll soon be hitting lob wedge shots nice and close to the flag.