Should I Change Golf Clubs When I Playing From Side Hill Lies? (Video) - by Pete Styles
Should I Change Golf Clubs When I Playing From Side Hill Lies? (Video) - by Pete Styles

If we look at playing a golf shot from a side hill lie explained by a sort of a ball above the feet or a ball below the feet kind of lie, that’s the side hill lie that we’re discussing. I want to try and play shot, there’s a huge amount of different things that we need to consider in order to produce the best results and one of those considerations should be your club selection. Let’s pick a shot where we’re 150 yards away from the green and play from a flat lie on the fairway; we’ll be playing a 7-iron onto the green. If I have a ball that’s on a side hill lie, I have to consider my club selection quite carefully because from a side hill lie, the ball will change shape. So the ball will draw more when the ball is above my feet and the ball will fade more when the ball is bellow my feet. And if we understand a draw and a fade, a draw will generally go a little bit further particularly when it lands, it will run out a little bit and a fade would generally stop a little bit quicker.

So actually if I played a ball above my feet, the tendency is to swing a little bit flatter to roll the face over a little bit, close the loft off it a little bit. If I play the 7-iron it could land in the middle of the green as I expect but it could roll over the back. So I would often like to play a more lofted club from a side hill lie maybe playing an 8-iron, swinging nice and smoothly around my body expecting the ball to land this time slightly short of the green but roll on. And likewise if I had 150 but from a downhill lie ball bellow my feet, and expecting the ball to cut and fade a little bit, I might actually go up a club; up to a 6-iron understanding the ball will land in the middle of the green but this time it will stop a little bit quicker. The other consideration for most positions is how comfortable you feel hitting the ball as hard as normal. So if you’re in a position where it’s a very extreme slope and the ball is way down bellow your feet and you’re slightly out of balance, you might feel that you can’t really commit to the shot and hit it hard therefore that shot would come up shorter. And likewise if the ball is way above your feet here and you feel well I can’t really commit to this all I can do is hack it out that would take a bit of consideration into your club selection as well. So when you’re on the side hill slopes there’s lots of things that you need to be working out into your course management, into your sort of shot making decision process and the club selection is definitely one of those. So when you’re on a slope, consider which club you need to play to get your accurate distance. 2014-08-13

If we look at playing a golf shot from a side hill lie explained by a sort of a ball above the feet or a ball below the feet kind of lie, that’s the side hill lie that we’re discussing. I want to try and play shot, there’s a huge amount of different things that we need to consider in order to produce the best results and one of those considerations should be your club selection. Let’s pick a shot where we’re 150 yards away from the green and play from a flat lie on the fairway; we’ll be playing a 7-iron onto the green. If I have a ball that’s on a side hill lie, I have to consider my club selection quite carefully because from a side hill lie, the ball will change shape. So the ball will draw more when the ball is above my feet and the ball will fade more when the ball is bellow my feet. And if we understand a draw and a fade, a draw will generally go a little bit further particularly when it lands, it will run out a little bit and a fade would generally stop a little bit quicker.

So actually if I played a ball above my feet, the tendency is to swing a little bit flatter to roll the face over a little bit, close the loft off it a little bit. If I play the 7-iron it could land in the middle of the green as I expect but it could roll over the back. So I would often like to play a more lofted club from a side hill lie maybe playing an 8-iron, swinging nice and smoothly around my body expecting the ball to land this time slightly short of the green but roll on. And likewise if I had 150 but from a downhill lie ball bellow my feet, and expecting the ball to cut and fade a little bit, I might actually go up a club; up to a 6-iron understanding the ball will land in the middle of the green but this time it will stop a little bit quicker.

The other consideration for most positions is how comfortable you feel hitting the ball as hard as normal. So if you’re in a position where it’s a very extreme slope and the ball is way down bellow your feet and you’re slightly out of balance, you might feel that you can’t really commit to the shot and hit it hard therefore that shot would come up shorter. And likewise if the ball is way above your feet here and you feel well I can’t really commit to this all I can do is hack it out that would take a bit of consideration into your club selection as well. So when you’re on the side hill slopes there’s lots of things that you need to be working out into your course management, into your sort of shot making decision process and the club selection is definitely one of those. So when you’re on a slope, consider which club you need to play to get your accurate distance.