Hybrid Golf Clubs Can Help You Conquer The Par Threes (Video) - by Pete Styles
Hybrid Golf Clubs Can Help You Conquer The Par Threes (Video) - by Pete Styles

One of the most common uses for a hybrid golf club in a lot of club golfers bags is going to be playing a long par-3s. I don't think many of us like getting to a par-3, and then looking down at the tee marker, and seeing the distance start with a 2; 200 and something on a par-3, no one is excited by that. You know, 130s and 140s, they get excited by 130, 140, they are going to wedge it up, but 200 and something, thinking long iron, Hybrid Fairway Wood. And actually the hybrid clubs are probably the clubs that have given most golfers hope on those 200 yard par-3s. The benefits of a hybrid club is such that it will give you enough distance to reach those holes most of the time, but actually as it lands on the green at that distance, it should come down with enough backspin, enough trajectory on its down-slope that it should stop on the green relatively quickly. It's not going to come driving in at this angle like a 3-wood drive, or even a 3 iron might land them bounce off the back of the green.

So, if that's the case, and you've decided that a hybrid club is the club to play on these 200, or something yard par-3s, let's have a look at the technique we can use. First thing I would consider doing is teeing the golf ball up. You don't get many opportunities to tee the ball up on the golf course, you only get 18 go’s. So, let's go ahead, and utilize the advantage there and tee the ball up. But, don't tee the ball up and make it high, if I have it on this tee, you can see how the club would come down completely underneath, and I'd sky the ball, and it would go too high up in the air. So, I'd want to tee the ball up relatively low, around about half the ball above the top of the club is going to be perfect. I'm then going to take advantage of the fact that I think this club is going to come down fairly quickly onto the green, but I still want to aim at a nice safe part. You know, if the flag is tucked in the corner of the par-3 green, don't be tempted to take that shot on, not at 200 yards away. Let's aim a little bit more sensibly for the middle portion of the green, the safe portion of the green. Now, because the ball is going to spend a little bit of time up in the air, so those are quite important on these par-3s is that we actually read the wind, so we stand back, and we look at which way the wind is blowing, either into behind, left or right, and we need to account for that in our shot alignment. Then, we take our time aiming in the right direction, setting ourselves up in the right direction, and then going ahead, making a nice smooth swing, being careful not to try and over-hit this, and trying to land this on the par-3 green. And if we can swing within ourselves, and have a nice balance follow-through, hopefully we can hit that ball the correct distance, and the correct height to land it on that par-3 green with the hybrid.
2016-05-09

One of the most common uses for a hybrid golf club in a lot of club golfers bags is going to be playing a long par-3s. I don't think many of us like getting to a par-3, and then looking down at the tee marker, and seeing the distance start with a 2; 200 and something on a par-3, no one is excited by that. You know, 130s and 140s, they get excited by 130, 140, they are going to wedge it up, but 200 and something, thinking long iron, Hybrid Fairway Wood. And actually the hybrid clubs are probably the clubs that have given most golfers hope on those 200 yard par-3s. The benefits of a hybrid club is such that it will give you enough distance to reach those holes most of the time, but actually as it lands on the green at that distance, it should come down with enough backspin, enough trajectory on its down-slope that it should stop on the green relatively quickly. It's not going to come driving in at this angle like a 3-wood drive, or even a 3 iron might land them bounce off the back of the green.

So, if that's the case, and you've decided that a hybrid club is the club to play on these 200, or something yard par-3s, let's have a look at the technique we can use. First thing I would consider doing is teeing the golf ball up. You don't get many opportunities to tee the ball up on the golf course, you only get 18 go’s. So, let's go ahead, and utilize the advantage there and tee the ball up. But, don't tee the ball up and make it high, if I have it on this tee, you can see how the club would come down completely underneath, and I'd sky the ball, and it would go too high up in the air. So, I'd want to tee the ball up relatively low, around about half the ball above the top of the club is going to be perfect.

I'm then going to take advantage of the fact that I think this club is going to come down fairly quickly onto the green, but I still want to aim at a nice safe part. You know, if the flag is tucked in the corner of the par-3 green, don't be tempted to take that shot on, not at 200 yards away. Let's aim a little bit more sensibly for the middle portion of the green, the safe portion of the green. Now, because the ball is going to spend a little bit of time up in the air, so those are quite important on these par-3s is that we actually read the wind, so we stand back, and we look at which way the wind is blowing, either into behind, left or right, and we need to account for that in our shot alignment.

Then, we take our time aiming in the right direction, setting ourselves up in the right direction, and then going ahead, making a nice smooth swing, being careful not to try and over-hit this, and trying to land this on the par-3 green. And if we can swing within ourselves, and have a nice balance follow-through, hopefully we can hit that ball the correct distance, and the correct height to land it on that par-3 green with the hybrid.