Weekend golfers spend hours at the driving range hitting shot after shot after shot. But they don’t put anywhere nearly the same time in practicing those short golf shots around the green—the ones that require feel. These shots can tack strokes on to your score in bunches if you’re careless. Mastering these finesse shots will help you break 80 and lower your golf handicap.
Ideally, you’ll want to practice the finesse shots you face most often. If you hit a lot of greens in regulation, you probably won’t need to work on quite as many as other golfers. But if you’re like the students in our golf instruction sessions, you probably hit a lot of short approach shots. So work on those golf shots that save you the most strokes.
You want to master these golf shots.
How do you know what those are? Take note of the finesse shots you seem to face a lot the next few times you play. Then check our blog, newsletter, and videos for golf tips on how to hit them. Practice them as much as you can. Below are a few shots to get you started.
Putt From Rough
Putting from the rough comes in handy when you’re a few feet off the green – the ground is firm, and the pin is cut tight. It’s an option if you’re not comfortable chipping with your most lofted wedges. Or, if there’s a lot of grass behind the ball and you think you might chunk or blade the shot.
Set up with the ball well behind your back foot. Angle the putter’s blade down toward the ground. Hinge the club up quickly. Now swing the blade down on the ball. You want to feel as if you’re tapping the ball into the ground. Delofting the putterface like this pops the ball out of the grass and onto the green. The ball will roll like a putt.
Hit A Soft Lob
Use this shot when you need to go over a greenside bunker with the hole close to the bunker. The trick is not decelerating on the shot—a mistake we often see in our golf lessons. If you do decelerate, you’ll probably end up hitting into the bunker. You don’t want that. Another key to this shot is to keep your lower body quiet when you’re swinging.
Play the ball slightly forward off center. The farther forward you move the ball, the higher the shot. Make sure your hands are behind the ball at address. Now set your wrist early on your backswing, keep your weight centered through the swing, and turn through the shot. Swing through to a high finish. You’re belt buckle should be facing the target when you’re done.
Other ways exist to hit a ball on the collar of the green. But this one seems to work well for students in our golf instruction sessions. It’s ideal when you have several feet of fringe between you and the hole and the rough stops you from putting the ball. The grass won’t affect the mass of the 3-wood and the clubface has enough loft to glide the ball through the fringe.
Choke down on the shaft. Practice will tell you how far. Some students in our golf instruction sessions grip down a lot. Others, grip down very little. Bend your arms so they’re positioned at a 45-degree angle to the shaft. Use your normal stroke for a putt from this distance. The ball comes out hot and rolls to the hole, just like a putt.
Finesse shots take time to learn, but doing so will help out of a lot of dicey situations around the green. So the time you put in will be well spent. Saving shots around the green, as we’ve often said in our golf tips newsletter, is one of the keys to breaking 80 and reducing your golf handicap.
