The Correct set up for Senior Golfers Playing from Greenside Rough (Video) - by Dean Butler
The Correct set up for Senior Golfers Playing from Greenside Rough (Video) - by Dean Butler

Okay, so you have just hit a nice shot in towards the green, and just imagine, it’s gone into that greenside rough. Well there is two types of the greenside rough, one where the ball has sat up and one where the ball has sat down. So we are going to go through the routine of what we should be doing to play both golf shots. So let's just imagine we have got the good line, the ball has sat up beautifully. Okay, well the first thing is, is select your golf club, what do you want to do, what are you faced with?

So let's just imagine you take a lob wedge, there is a bunker there and we want to get the ball up in the air. The ball has sat up lovely. Now the danger here of the ball being sat up so beautifully and your confidence is sky high, is literally going right underneath the ball and the ball just dropping back down even further. So what we need to do is select the club, set yourself up with your hands well and truly forward and go down the grip slightly which is pulling the club more up towards you. And by doing that, what will happen is that we are morel likely to actually get the ball, and we are trying to get a clean contact, we are trying to not go down. So go down the grip, which will pull the club backup towards you, hands forward. And I want you to concentrate on keeping your height. So here I am, and much of this ball has sat up, remember I can't go underneath it. I use my height and then from here, I'm going to go back and you will see I have made a nice contact with the ball because remember, what we don't want to do is let that club slide underneath so much so that we are actually going to go underneath it. And now we are going to be facing with the second lie. The second lie is now that ball is now in the same position, but it is now sat right down, same shot faced again. Again, select your club, but this time what we need to do is we need to come in a little bit steeper because that ball sat down now. So what we need to do is change that ball position, we need to pull that ball further back, because whenever we need to come in and come down and nice and steep, put the ball back in your stance. The set up is still the same, don't forget, hands forward, weight 60-40, keep that weight on the left-hand side. And look at my hands, how well forward they are. Keep that, now remember from here, we need to just break the wrist ever so slightly now, because we need to almost kind of, for want of a better phrase, it’s going to chop into the back of the ball. So hands forward, you want to break those wrists going back and then execute down. But I would always encourage you to go about 2 inches behind the ball here. To come back in the ideal position of one inch, it’s too easy for you to misjudge it and you catch the ball and you have put the ball further and further into the rough or indeed the bunker or anywhere else. So keep your hands forward, from here, from here, nice break and you can hear that contact. Remember, we have set out to hit that contact, because this ball is now, not set up here, it’s sat down here. So, we have got to get below the ball, if you hit the top of the ball, we smother it, we can just imagine the results. So there is two ways of playing the two shots from the greenside rough, a bit of practice and I'm sure you'll be getting some great results and enjoying those shots, the scores. 2013-10-28

Okay, so you have just hit a nice shot in towards the green, and just imagine, it’s gone into that greenside rough. Well there is two types of the greenside rough, one where the ball has sat up and one where the ball has sat down. So we are going to go through the routine of what we should be doing to play both golf shots. So let's just imagine we have got the good line, the ball has sat up beautifully. Okay, well the first thing is, is select your golf club, what do you want to do, what are you faced with?

So let's just imagine you take a lob wedge, there is a bunker there and we want to get the ball up in the air. The ball has sat up lovely. Now the danger here of the ball being sat up so beautifully and your confidence is sky high, is literally going right underneath the ball and the ball just dropping back down even further. So what we need to do is select the club, set yourself up with your hands well and truly forward and go down the grip slightly which is pulling the club more up towards you. And by doing that, what will happen is that we are morel likely to actually get the ball, and we are trying to get a clean contact, we are trying to not go down.

So go down the grip, which will pull the club backup towards you, hands forward. And I want you to concentrate on keeping your height. So here I am, and much of this ball has sat up, remember I can't go underneath it. I use my height and then from here, I'm going to go back and you will see I have made a nice contact with the ball because remember, what we don't want to do is let that club slide underneath so much so that we are actually going to go underneath it.

And now we are going to be facing with the second lie. The second lie is now that ball is now in the same position, but it is now sat right down, same shot faced again. Again, select your club, but this time what we need to do is we need to come in a little bit steeper because that ball sat down now. So what we need to do is change that ball position, we need to pull that ball further back, because whenever we need to come in and come down and nice and steep, put the ball back in your stance. The set up is still the same, don't forget, hands forward, weight 60-40, keep that weight on the left-hand side. And look at my hands, how well forward they are.

Keep that, now remember from here, we need to just break the wrist ever so slightly now, because we need to almost kind of, for want of a better phrase, it’s going to chop into the back of the ball. So hands forward, you want to break those wrists going back and then execute down. But I would always encourage you to go about 2 inches behind the ball here. To come back in the ideal position of one inch, it’s too easy for you to misjudge it and you catch the ball and you have put the ball further and further into the rough or indeed the bunker or anywhere else.

So keep your hands forward, from here, from here, nice break and you can hear that contact. Remember, we have set out to hit that contact, because this ball is now, not set up here, it’s sat down here. So, we have got to get below the ball, if you hit the top of the ball, we smother it, we can just imagine the results. So there is two ways of playing the two shots from the greenside rough, a bit of practice and I'm sure you'll be getting some great results and enjoying those shots, the scores.