How to Hit a Lob Wedge from a Tight Lie - Golf Tip (Video) - by Pete Styles
How to Hit a Lob Wedge from a Tight Lie - Golf Tip (Video) - by Pete Styles

So if there's one shot the strikes fair into a lot of golfers, its going to be this little bad boy the Lob Wedge. And to make matters worse the lob wedge from the tight lie that area where around the side of the green, everyone walks, everyone drags their trolley, even drives the bogey and there's no grass left on the floor yet you've got to try and get the 60 degree lob wedge under the ball. Get the ball lofted over the bunker and get the ball to stop quickly on the green. Now that is a tough shot.

First thing is, it's quite important. You make sure you're using the right club for the job, and I would recommend the lob wedge here. A lob wedge more than a sand wedge. Sand wedge has a decent amounts of loft probably 55 or 56 degrees of loft. But it also has a lot of bounce angle. Now bounce angle is good in bunkers. Bounce angle is the bottom edge of the club sitting lower than the leading edge, and we like bounce angle in bunkers because it stops the club digging in. However, when you're playing from this tight lie having bounce angle that's 6 down below the leading edge of the golf club would actually cause the club to hit the floor, and kick off an effectively thin the ball. We really don’t want that. So when we're playing from this tight lie, we want very limited or little bounce angle. And my lob wedge is going to go 4 degrees of bounce, so that would set right under the ball even if I was playing of this tight carpet. I'd be able to slide that club underneath, so now I've got the right club. I now need the right technique. To get extra loft on the ball, we can actually play with a bit more of an open face. So an open face is taking a golf club that points vertically which would be square and just angling it to 1 o'clock or even 2 o'clock and then making my grip. That's quite an open club face. And then sit that down nicely benching the back of the wall with the face pointing to the right. Now, if I hit that ball, the ball would go to the right. And I clearly want to hit the ball straight, so I'm actually going to just move myself around just shuffling until I move down the left hand side as a s right handed golfer, so I've got my body aiming left open. I've got my club facing aiming right open. The two combined here would actually cause quite a straight, quite a high golf shot. Is that important? I make a really good solid contact on the back of the ball, so I'm going to play the ball central in my stance. I'm going to play my bodyweight a little bit left and play quite a steep swing so picking the golf quite steeply with a bit of wrist action and then dropping it back underneath the golf ball that actually cause the ball just to pop up quite nicely with the steep angle of attack even that's quite a tight line. So I have the face open to the right. The body open to the left, little bit of bodyweight on the left side, quite a steep swing and it will just pop underneath and I can get that ball to come up very quickly, land really softly quite a bit of backspin on the ball, but its really stopping quickly because of the steep trajectory. Now its nice practicing of a range, that it can hides a few mistakes maybe, but and take the good technique you practiced on the range. Take it on the golf course, and give yourself some really awkward lies in practice. It's too easy to always tee the ball up on a nice fluffy piece of turf and flick it onto the green. That's not the reality of this shot. The reality if this shot is just on a warm bare patch is the shot that a lot of golfers fear, but play it correctly, but play it nicely it will save you a couple of shots, get you back on the green, hold the putt, walk up for the par, happy days. 2013-09-16

So if there's one shot the strikes fair into a lot of golfers, its going to be this little bad boy the Lob Wedge. And to make matters worse the lob wedge from the tight lie that area where around the side of the green, everyone walks, everyone drags their trolley, even drives the bogey and there's no grass left on the floor yet you've got to try and get the 60 degree lob wedge under the ball. Get the ball lofted over the bunker and get the ball to stop quickly on the green. Now that is a tough shot.

First thing is, it's quite important. You make sure you're using the right club for the job, and I would recommend the lob wedge here. A lob wedge more than a sand wedge. Sand wedge has a decent amounts of loft probably 55 or 56 degrees of loft. But it also has a lot of bounce angle. Now bounce angle is good in bunkers. Bounce angle is the bottom edge of the club sitting lower than the leading edge, and we like bounce angle in bunkers because it stops the club digging in.

However, when you're playing from this tight lie having bounce angle that's 6 down below the leading edge of the golf club would actually cause the club to hit the floor, and kick off an effectively thin the ball. We really don’t want that. So when we're playing from this tight lie, we want very limited or little bounce angle. And my lob wedge is going to go 4 degrees of bounce, so that would set right under the ball even if I was playing of this tight carpet. I'd be able to slide that club underneath, so now I've got the right club. I now need the right technique. To get extra loft on the ball, we can actually play with a bit more of an open face.

So an open face is taking a golf club that points vertically which would be square and just angling it to 1 o'clock or even 2 o'clock and then making my grip. That's quite an open club face. And then sit that down nicely benching the back of the wall with the face pointing to the right. Now, if I hit that ball, the ball would go to the right. And I clearly want to hit the ball straight, so I'm actually going to just move myself around just shuffling until I move down the left hand side as a s right handed golfer, so I've got my body aiming left open.

I've got my club facing aiming right open. The two combined here would actually cause quite a straight, quite a high golf shot. Is that important? I make a really good solid contact on the back of the ball, so I'm going to play the ball central in my stance. I'm going to play my bodyweight a little bit left and play quite a steep swing so picking the golf quite steeply with a bit of wrist action and then dropping it back underneath the golf ball that actually cause the ball just to pop up quite nicely with the steep angle of attack even that's quite a tight line.

So I have the face open to the right. The body open to the left, little bit of bodyweight on the left side, quite a steep swing and it will just pop underneath and I can get that ball to come up very quickly, land really softly quite a bit of backspin on the ball, but its really stopping quickly because of the steep trajectory. Now its nice practicing of a range, that it can hides a few mistakes maybe, but and take the good technique you practiced on the range. Take it on the golf course, and give yourself some really awkward lies in practice. It's too easy to always tee the ball up on a nice fluffy piece of turf and flick it onto the green. That's not the reality of this shot.

The reality if this shot is just on a warm bare patch is the shot that a lot of golfers fear, but play it correctly, but play it nicely it will save you a couple of shots, get you back on the green, hold the putt, walk up for the par, happy days.