The Stinger Golf Shot for Everyday Golfers (Video) - by Pete Styles
The Stinger Golf Shot for Everyday Golfers (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now, we have to go and look at stinger shot. Now, the stinger shots are basically, it’s a name that’s being coined by Tiger Wood and his coach at the time Butch Harmon. Now, it’s been around for a good number years basically, the stinger shot. It’s a punch shot. It’s a punch shot that goes quite low. But Tiger really brought the shot to prominence by playing it at awful lot. Now, Tiger uses this shot to reduce the number of fairways he was missing. Tiger has always been known as a bit of a big driver. This is going back to maybe ten years ago when he was maybe still in his prime. He had lots of big booming tee shots. But occasionally, he was a little bit inaccurate, missing fairways left and both right.

So, he decided to bring a shot into his game and hits them “the stinger shot.” It was a shot that was a shorter shot than his driver, a slightly lower ball flight than his driver but a much more accurate shot than his driver. So, it was a placement shot, the par-fours where you just needed to be on the fairway of the dogleg to get his second shot onto the green or the par fives where he was going to layup. He would hit the stinger into the middle of fairway. Then, he’d be able to play the second shot or third shot from there. The stinger really was used as a course management decision, not just pulling the driver out of the bag and smashing it to full distance, but playing it carefully, a really nice shot to play in the wind as well because, like I suggested, it’s a slightly lower ball flight, it doesn’t have any great spin to it and it keeps it low under the wind. So into a headwind or a crosswind, the wind will affect the ball less because it’s not climbing too high. You can go ahead and play the stinger shots as well. You can normally play this from a small tee peg or actually a good lie on the deck as well.

I’m going to take a quite long iron. I’ve got a 3-iron. Now, the stinger would normally be played with your longest iron or hybrid club, if it’s relatively low lofted-hybrid club. You would play the ball just about center or maybe the front third of your stance, but not quite as far forwards as a normal 3-iron might be. It’s played back in your stance a little bit. A little bit of hands ahead as well. Again, de-lofting the golf club and taking the hands to point at the left hip. I’m going to play the grip a little bit down as well. So, effectively choking up on the club, griping down on the club, just to give me a little bit more control of the shot. I keep a little bit of extra body weight on to my left hand side here as well, to allow me to get in front of the ball and keep a low flight rather than leaning back and scooping the ball up into the air. My backswing would be fractionally shorter than normal and my follow through would be a little bit abbreviated as well. Effectively, that’s going to take out my wrist hinge. I don’t want to have too much wrist hinge because that’s creates power, but it also creates the inaccuracy that Tiger used to struggle with.

So the stinger shot is an abbreviated follow through as well, which just creates a punched feel. A nice wide stance, but ball forwards, gripping down, leaning to the left hand side, shorter back, shorter through an abbreviated finish. I’m going to go ahead and hit one of these, a nice, low punch stinger 3-iron. And that ball flight comes out really super low. It doesn’t quite fly as far as a normal 3-iron, but a lot more control than actually given a dry fairway, that would roll an awful long way. It’s a great shot to have in your bag. It’s a play into wind or to play when you need accuracy over and above distance. So try and go ahead and practice “The Stinger” and next time you’re on the range and see if you can copy Tiger Woods.

 2012-05-31

Now, we have to go and look at stinger shot. Now, the stinger shots are basically, it’s a name that’s being coined by Tiger Wood and his coach at the time Butch Harmon. Now, it’s been around for a good number years basically, the stinger shot. It’s a punch shot. It’s a punch shot that goes quite low. But Tiger really brought the shot to prominence by playing it at awful lot. Now, Tiger uses this shot to reduce the number of fairways he was missing. Tiger has always been known as a bit of a big driver. This is going back to maybe ten years ago when he was maybe still in his prime. He had lots of big booming tee shots. But occasionally, he was a little bit inaccurate, missing fairways left and both right.

So, he decided to bring a shot into his game and hits them “the stinger shot.” It was a shot that was a shorter shot than his driver, a slightly lower ball flight than his driver but a much more accurate shot than his driver. So, it was a placement shot, the par-fours where you just needed to be on the fairway of the dogleg to get his second shot onto the green or the par fives where he was going to layup. He would hit the stinger into the middle of fairway. Then, he’d be able to play the second shot or third shot from there. The stinger really was used as a course management decision, not just pulling the driver out of the bag and smashing it to full distance, but playing it carefully, a really nice shot to play in the wind as well because, like I suggested, it’s a slightly lower ball flight, it doesn’t have any great spin to it and it keeps it low under the wind. So into a headwind or a crosswind, the wind will affect the ball less because it’s not climbing too high. You can go ahead and play the stinger shots as well. You can normally play this from a small tee peg or actually a good lie on the deck as well.

I’m going to take a quite long iron. I’ve got a 3-iron. Now, the stinger would normally be played with your longest iron or hybrid club, if it’s relatively low lofted-hybrid club. You would play the ball just about center or maybe the front third of your stance, but not quite as far forwards as a normal 3-iron might be. It’s played back in your stance a little bit. A little bit of hands ahead as well. Again, de-lofting the golf club and taking the hands to point at the left hip. I’m going to play the grip a little bit down as well. So, effectively choking up on the club, griping down on the club, just to give me a little bit more control of the shot. I keep a little bit of extra body weight on to my left hand side here as well, to allow me to get in front of the ball and keep a low flight rather than leaning back and scooping the ball up into the air. My backswing would be fractionally shorter than normal and my follow through would be a little bit abbreviated as well. Effectively, that’s going to take out my wrist hinge. I don’t want to have too much wrist hinge because that’s creates power, but it also creates the inaccuracy that Tiger used to struggle with.

So the stinger shot is an abbreviated follow through as well, which just creates a punched feel. A nice wide stance, but ball forwards, gripping down, leaning to the left hand side, shorter back, shorter through an abbreviated finish. I’m going to go ahead and hit one of these, a nice, low punch stinger 3-iron. And that ball flight comes out really super low. It doesn’t quite fly as far as a normal 3-iron, but a lot more control than actually given a dry fairway, that would roll an awful long way. It’s a great shot to have in your bag. It’s a play into wind or to play when you need accuracy over and above distance. So try and go ahead and practice “The Stinger” and next time you’re on the range and see if you can copy Tiger Woods.