Playing Short Shots With Golf Fairway Woods (Video) - by Pete Styles
Playing Short Shots With Golf Fairway Woods (Video) - by Pete Styles

We've already discussed in the previous videos in the series how useful these fairway woods can be and how many opportunities you might have to play them; but there's one more little cheeky opportunity to use the fairway wood and it’s when you're very close to the green. It's not a common shot that you'll see a lot of people hitting but for people who struggle with chipping the ball very well, actually chipping the ball with a fairway wood might be quite useful. It's a type of shot where some golfers would be considering a hit in six or seven iron as a bump and run, some golfers might even contemplate putting the ball.

So it’s like a putt where we just want to get the ball bouncing a little bit, just cover a little bit of long grass first then get on the floor and roll out. So you're going to be using it within 10, 15, 20 yards of the green. Now one of the considerations is you will need a good lie, this club is not designed to cut through long grass so you need the ball sitting up on the turf potentially with the grass going in your direction so all the leaves of the grass going in your direction not facing in to you but going your way. Then the club can just push those leaves of grass over as it drives forwards. We're going to grip down on the club, we're going to stand the lie we are putting, a little bit of body weight left back and through with the shoulders, so no real wrist hinge. And just hopefully that little bump forwards with just the 15 degrees of loft that I have my three wood will just jump the ball forwards a few yards then get it bouncing then get it running out. It's not going to go high, it's not going to go very far but when it lands it won't stop either. So a sand wedge, lob wedge shot from this distance might land on the green and stop fairly quickly. So this needs a good lie, it needs to be able to fly low, it also needs plenty of room to be able to run out and release. So maybe a back fly on a par four where you're at the front of the green and the flag’s at the back and you want a little chip forwards that races all the way up to the back flag. The other thing with this is practice you know it sounds daft but you can't just go out on the golf course and pull out a three wood and chip this close the very first time; it's going to feel a lot very different. So plenty of practice with your three wood around the green for these little bump and runs and hopefully this is another excellent addition to your bag and your repertoire of different shots to hit. 2016-08-24

We've already discussed in the previous videos in the series how useful these fairway woods can be and how many opportunities you might have to play them; but there's one more little cheeky opportunity to use the fairway wood and it’s when you're very close to the green. It's not a common shot that you'll see a lot of people hitting but for people who struggle with chipping the ball very well, actually chipping the ball with a fairway wood might be quite useful. It's a type of shot where some golfers would be considering a hit in six or seven iron as a bump and run, some golfers might even contemplate putting the ball.

So it’s like a putt where we just want to get the ball bouncing a little bit, just cover a little bit of long grass first then get on the floor and roll out. So you're going to be using it within 10, 15, 20 yards of the green. Now one of the considerations is you will need a good lie, this club is not designed to cut through long grass so you need the ball sitting up on the turf potentially with the grass going in your direction so all the leaves of the grass going in your direction not facing in to you but going your way. Then the club can just push those leaves of grass over as it drives forwards.

We're going to grip down on the club, we're going to stand the lie we are putting, a little bit of body weight left back and through with the shoulders, so no real wrist hinge. And just hopefully that little bump forwards with just the 15 degrees of loft that I have my three wood will just jump the ball forwards a few yards then get it bouncing then get it running out. It's not going to go high, it's not going to go very far but when it lands it won't stop either. So a sand wedge, lob wedge shot from this distance might land on the green and stop fairly quickly. So this needs a good lie, it needs to be able to fly low, it also needs plenty of room to be able to run out and release. So maybe a back fly on a par four where you're at the front of the green and the flag’s at the back and you want a little chip forwards that races all the way up to the back flag.

The other thing with this is practice you know it sounds daft but you can't just go out on the golf course and pull out a three wood and chip this close the very first time; it's going to feel a lot very different. So plenty of practice with your three wood around the green for these little bump and runs and hopefully this is another excellent addition to your bag and your repertoire of different shots to hit.