Tom Watson Pro Golfer Delicate chip from the rough (Video) - by Pete Styles
Tom Watson Pro Golfer Delicate chip from the rough (Video) - by Pete Styles

Tom Watson's mastery of the short game and particularly the little shots around the green is one of the reasons why he still can compete on the PGA Tour. Particularly on the golf course he's suited. The golf course isn’t too long but it has technical greens and technical rough around the greens. Tom Watson at the age of 65, 66 can still compete with a lot of the younger, bigger hitting players. And one of the key shots that he has in his armory is a very delicate little flop shot from just around the side of the green. And here's how you can play that.

If your ball sitting down in the longer grass around the side of the green. I encourage you to take your sand wedge. Your sand wedge can work quiet well particularly because it has a heavy sole and quite a good bounce profile. The lower trailing edge is below the leading edge and that's creating bounce and that will stop the club digging into the ground as you hit through the golf ball. So playing it out of longer grass, we can actually open the club face a little bit that would be opening the club face to the right-hand side this way that creates more loft.

We then encourage you to aim your feet left of target so drawing your left foot back a little bit. Now it's quite important that you let your shoulders follow your feet. So your shoulders aim left as well. And then we just let the club fall across the target line. So we swing from out to in. The club face is pointing quite straight where you want the ball to go but your club path is coming out to in across your body. You play with very soft hands as well. We don’t really get too much flicking or too much rotation in this. It's quite soft hands and just let the club glance underneath the golf ball.

If you're playing the shot from particularly long floppy rough, it might be worth just setting the angle of the wrist a little bit earlier because if you take the club back too flat, you're going to get tangled up in a long grass just behind. So we're going to pick the golf club up nice and steep just drop it back across the underside of the golf ball and just feel how you could just chop its legs off. Imagine the golf ball sitting there where legs underneath it and you're just going to chip it slow legs off. And this is Tom Watson's great shot why he's still able to compete. He just chops its legs off, hits nicely on to the ball. The ball pops up nicely and lands really softly, particularly good when you're in long grass just around the side of the green. You just use the sand wedge for that shot, play it nice and open with soft hands and hopefully that will work for you next time you are around the green but the line isn’t very good.

[playerProfile url="https://golf-info-guide.com/pga-players/tom-watson/"][/playerProfile] 2012-12-03

Tom Watson's mastery of the short game and particularly the little shots around the green is one of the reasons why he still can compete on the PGA Tour. Particularly on the golf course he's suited. The golf course isn’t too long but it has technical greens and technical rough around the greens. Tom Watson at the age of 65, 66 can still compete with a lot of the younger, bigger hitting players. And one of the key shots that he has in his armory is a very delicate little flop shot from just around the side of the green. And here's how you can play that.

If your ball sitting down in the longer grass around the side of the green. I encourage you to take your sand wedge. Your sand wedge can work quiet well particularly because it has a heavy sole and quite a good bounce profile. The lower trailing edge is below the leading edge and that's creating bounce and that will stop the club digging into the ground as you hit through the golf ball. So playing it out of longer grass, we can actually open the club face a little bit that would be opening the club face to the right-hand side this way that creates more loft.

We then encourage you to aim your feet left of target so drawing your left foot back a little bit. Now it's quite important that you let your shoulders follow your feet. So your shoulders aim left as well. And then we just let the club fall across the target line. So we swing from out to in. The club face is pointing quite straight where you want the ball to go but your club path is coming out to in across your body. You play with very soft hands as well. We don’t really get too much flicking or too much rotation in this. It's quite soft hands and just let the club glance underneath the golf ball.

If you're playing the shot from particularly long floppy rough, it might be worth just setting the angle of the wrist a little bit earlier because if you take the club back too flat, you're going to get tangled up in a long grass just behind. So we're going to pick the golf club up nice and steep just drop it back across the underside of the golf ball and just feel how you could just chop its legs off. Imagine the golf ball sitting there where legs underneath it and you're just going to chip it slow legs off. And this is Tom Watson's great shot why he's still able to compete. He just chops its legs off, hits nicely on to the ball. The ball pops up nicely and lands really softly, particularly good when you're in long grass just around the side of the green. You just use the sand wedge for that shot, play it nice and open with soft hands and hopefully that will work for you next time you are around the green but the line isn’t very good.

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