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7 Shots That Will Save Your Game This Winter
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Apr 1, 2025
Winter golf comes with its own unique challenges. As golf courses get wetter, fairways usually take distance off drives, bunkers often become more compact, and greens tend to get slower, therefore it's important we adapt our game in the right areas to keep playing at our best. In this video, Dan Parker is joined by Golf Monthly Top 50 coach Adam Harnett talks through seven key shots you need in your armory to save your game this winter. He'll cover everything from identifying certain lies, how to strike the ball in wet conditions, and how to get your putting pace right on slower greens. Work on getting these techniques right, and I'm sure it will save your game in some vital situations this winter.
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Now you may have already noticed that temperatures are dropping and golf courses are getting a
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little bit wetter and that can only mean one thing, winter is coming. Well in this video we've been
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joined by Golf Monthly Top 50 coach Adam Hahn who's going to talk us through seven shots that you need
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to save your game this winter. We've also partnered up with Ping in this video, I've kitted myself
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and Adam out in their latest autumn and winter apparel to keep us nice and warm
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and nice and dry out on the golf course. We're at West Hill today, let's get started
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Right, Adam, so we're going to look at a couple of shots here that you're going to need in
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the winter, and that is out of some differing lies. Now, before we get into the shot itself, let's talk about identifying a lie, how important
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that is and how not a lot of golfers actually identify the lie before they go and hit their shot
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I see that so often. It's probably the biggest mistake amateurs make is not looking at their lie before they
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pull their club. So they might get their yardage, they'll pull their club, and then they'll hit the shot
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and they won't actually look at how the ball's sitting. It's probably the most important thing to do
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You'll never see a good player not look at their lie before they hit it. Listen, I'm criminal of this as well
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So, you know, we're not alone. We've pulled out two lies here that we're going to get a lot in the winter
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Let's start with this one on the left-hand side, a flyer lie
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Now, let's talk about how to identify a flyer lie first and what it actually means
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Okay, so a flying lie is when the ball's kind of sat in the semi-rough and it's sitting up slightly
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It's almost like it's on a tee. and what that does that reduces the spin on the ball so when you strike the ball it's going to
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actually fly a little bit further so in the winter that's actually quite a favorable lie to have
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Where the ball's sitting up a little bit we've got to be a little bit careful that we don't go underneath it. Okay. So you know we're not necessarily trying to change too many things
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here but one thing we can't do is be too steep and kind of chop down on this flying lie so
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we'll be a little bit careful with the ball position we may have the ball position even
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slightly forward of normal. Okay. Imagine the ball's on the tee we kind of can sweep it up a
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little bit so on this kind of lie that's really helpful. Right so I'm going to get you to hit that
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in just a second let's talk about this lie on the right and you'll get this a lot in the winter it's
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not as wet at the minute but it's sort of a bare lie. One of the key things of this different to the
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flying lie is this one we actually need to hit a little bit more down on we want to definitely get
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ball turf strike with this one so two things I see golfers do that really you need to avoid
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number one is trying to kind of help the ball up off the ground just through fear of hitting the
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ground and fatting it so there's kind of a bit of a we call it a miss radius where the radius of the
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swing shortens and then we end up thinning and topping it um the other one is kind of a bit on
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our back foot again trying to help the ball up in the air and kind of avoiding that muddy lie and
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avoiding the fat shot both of them actually cause problems more than they help so um certainly this
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one here with the slightly muddy underneath making sure that we're moving forward aggressively onto
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our front foot is really really key i'd say that's the most important thing to focus on when you swing
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through these shots. Let's give it a go. I nearly had him. You can see how little spin that came out
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with and how much that sort of dug in. Comes out really hot again in the winter. That's brilliant
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We want our ball flying further. So this lie is actually quite a nice thing to have. What is the best way to use
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Okay, Adam, fairway woods and hybrids are really important to use well over the winter
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Can you explain why a bit more carry distance through the air is so much more helpful And then how to use these clubs more efficiently this time of year Yeah so you know when we faced with a situation where we got a long iron in our hand or a long iron yardage
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in the winter when the ground's a bit softer, one of the great things that the hybrids and fairway woods have
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is a much kind of wider, flatter sole to the club. OK, so that helps with that softer ground. It glides through the ground much easier
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So where we might normally take a four or five iron in the winter months, we know the ball isn't flying quite so far
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So it's a good idea to take out your hybrid or your fairway wood. And we can make a few adjustments for kind of replacing a fairway wood for a long iron in our setup and hitting our shots
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So the key thing, the first thing I would say is it's actually not a bad idea to slightly grip down the club
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So we might slightly grip down our hybrid or fairway wood just for a little bit more control
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Now, it also takes a little bit of yardage off. So if we're not trying to hit, let's say, our four iron normal distance and our hybrid normally goes further than that
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just gripping down gives us a little bit more control and also just helps it not fly too far through the air
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Right. So the next shot, Adam, is going to save golfers out there this winter
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this might sound really obvious we're not reinventing the wheel here it is quality of
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strike yeah now from this range we're 150 yards yep and in this is a really important scoring area
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so how do we have better strike in the winter can you give us a drill that people can go away with
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and practice at home on the range and on the course absolutely i mean when the ground's wet
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one of the things golfers don't like doing is hitting the ground right because their relationship
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with the ground normally isn't a good one okay so um we need to make sure that we're hitting the
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ground in the right place okay we kind of we all know that we're supposed to be hitting the ball
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and then the ground okay ball turf contact what we're looking for so a really simple drill for
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this would be making some practice swings before you hit the ball which enough you know many golfers
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don't do anyway yeah but focusing on where you're making contact with the ground so as i'm making
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my practice swing i'm trying to make contact with the ground forwards of the golf ball any particular
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distance in front do you pick a spot in the turf not particularly i'm just making sure that my
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contact is anywhere from the golf ball up. That's going to ensure, you know, that the downward hit
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we're looking for and it'll really stop golfers kind of backing up or lifting or trying to scoop
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the ball off the wet ground. Sometimes I might lay a towel down on the range. Yeah. You know
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you might lay just a towel behind here and swing through and try to miss the towel effectively
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hitting the ground forwards. And then, yeah, you can, you know, bring that into your practice
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swings on the golf course and then you can bring it into your real shots when you're actually playing. That's a really good tip. And, you know, we've said this already, but quality of strike
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is so important in the winter. You can get away with a scabby one in the summer, can't you? It
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might run. But you know, like in this hole, uphill, bunkers in front, you're going to need
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that quality of strike. So think about that when you're on the course and when you're practicing
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at the driving range. Okay Adam, so we're working our way up the hole now. An important shot to save you this winter is
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that 60, 70, 80 yard pitch shot that when the ground gets really soft, it's actually really
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hard to hit a lot of people start fatting them so can we talk about how to avoid the fat shot and
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to get these scoring shots as tight as possible absolutely the most common thing i see with this
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type of shot with a with a wedge in our hand is golfers that get kind of very very narrow meaning
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the club sort of comes in towards them the shaft gets quite vertical and then they kind of come down too steep and chunk that where that fat especially with the ground soft and wet and horrible absolutely it going nowhere so we want to try and create more width with this shot one thing I would always say is
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never make a full swing an absolute full swing with a really lofted club and the reason being is
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when we're making a real full swing it's easy for the club to come in too narrow and come down too
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steep so I always think a three-quarter swing is absolutely a must when we're playing these shots
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If that means you've got to change wedge, then do so. But the way I really like a nice feeling or a drill, if you like, or a nice feel
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is that when we make our backswing, we should have enough width in the club head here
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that if we take our right hand off, we can't reach the club head
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To me, that shows we've got a nice amount of width. So from there, we can come in kind of shallower and kind of pick the ball off nicely
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using the bounce on the club and avoid that kind of leading edge digging into the ground
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Right then Adam, we found ourselves in a bunker, which you might do in the winter and the summer
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but a difference in the winter is the lie. Yep. A lot more compact, a lot less sand most of the
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time when it's wet. Let's talk about identifying the lie and how to play out of it when there's
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not a lot of sand in the ball. When it's compact and hard like this, it's very different to when
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it's sitting fluffy. Okay, when it's sitting fluffy, we want to use the bounce of the club
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right, which is the sole, kind of the rounded bottom of the sole is the bounce, and that
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stops the club from digging into the sand. Now, of course, when it's hard like this
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if we have too much of a bounce angle on the club, we're going to bounce up off that hard pan
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into the middle of the ball and it's going to thin. Yes. That's the common shot I have in these
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sort of situations. So the things we need to change, first of all, we need to make sure we've got a wedge in our bag that has a low bounce. So that's going to be a number like a six or an eight
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degree of bounce. And that's going to keep the leading edge down in the sand. It's going to stop
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it from coming up too high to prevent those sort of thin shots. In this scenario we actually want
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to encourage the leading edge to dig a bit. Any setup changes for when it's compact under
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Yeah absolutely so in it with a normal bunker shot we would normally set ourselves up
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and have the ball a bit forwards, the face a little bit open and of course when we open the face we
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expose more bounce. Sure. We definitely don't want to do that in this scenario. Interesting. So having
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the ball maybe a little bit more central and squaring the face up squaring the face up helps
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the leading edge kind of get into the sand much easier yeah um you know an opening club is always
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going to expose more a closing club is almost like a bit of a digging tool yeah it's actually
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useful in this situation absolutely and we want to get the bounce going down or the leading edge
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sorry going down into the sand brilliant so really useful tips there
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okay we were in the bunker adam talk about bounce we're now out of it we talk about it again with
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these two different chip shots here so we've got a buried lie in the wet rough yes and a tight lie
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but the ground's still pretty wet yeah let's talk about again how we identify what bounce to use in
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what situation so what i'd say is you know whenever we're out now we're on the grass we're on soft
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ground, right? So we no longer need to dig. We don't want to dig. So we're trying to avoid using a wedge with low bounce
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Very different to when we're on that hard pan bunker shot out there. Especially out of this line we've picked here, which is a bit buried down in some wet rough
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You do want to interact with the ground, but going through it and not digging into it
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Exactly So we still need a little bit of a downward angle because the ball sat down in the grass Right So we got to get down to the bottom of the ball but we don want low bounce at the same time because as coming down we just gonna we just gonna dig brilliant right so with a bit of bounce on that club at a
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steeper angle we won't dig in but we will pop the ball out okay so that's a shot you're gonna need
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in your bag definitely over the wind so let's move to this light here you know we're not far
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off here yeah but it's almost a different shot entirely right yes a tighter lie but we've still
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got some wet ground yeah how would you say people go about this one so again i would again high
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bounce we want to use the bounce of the club but one thing i like golfers to try and get comfortable
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doing on these sort of shots is getting comfortable hitting the ground and feeling how it's going to
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interact okay all right so i've just made a little swing there i've hit the ground but because i've
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hit with the the back or the underneath of the club it hasn't dug in so if you're comfortable
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hitting the ground knowing that it's not going to dig yeah then the bounce will work for you
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you'll slide through and you'll be able to hit decent shots in the wet condition okay now I like
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especially on this shot here it's a decent way away but nothing to go over off a thin line yeah
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maybe getting something like an eight iron out but can you just chat about the bounce if there
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is any on here and how that might interact definitely with with this yeah sure so with a flatter face club on this kind of lie we really want the club working very much shallow like almost
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like a putting stroke in a way we want to get away from any steep angle that's going to potentially
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dig that into the ground. Now, our irons, typically, we want to take a bit of a divot in a full swing
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right? Right. But when we're around the greens like this, we don't really want that. So keeping that
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moving nice and level with the ground, if you catch it slightly thin, that's better than
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catching it slightly fat. Definitely. Okay, because we're trying to get the ball out low and rolling
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Right, then, last but not least, Adam, we've made it to the green, finally. Yep. And come winter
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and especially coming out in the summer the greens are really quick it can be tough on these long
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putts to get yourself to hit it hard enough or get the pace right when they're a bit slower a bit
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wetter less firm so what kind of tips can you give us to get better at these sort of lag putts
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in the winter yeah so what i see a lot of golfers do when the greens start to get a bit slower and
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they've got longer putts uphill in the winter is they tend to try to accelerate really fast and
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kind of add a hitting motion okay okay now to be a good putter and control your distance we want
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the putter moving at a nice constant speed, right? So we don't want the club coming back and then
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suddenly accelerating. And that's a real temptation when the greens are a bit slower, right? So to
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combat that, I want golfers to be a little bit more aware of the length of their stroke. Okay
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so we want the backswing and the downswing to kind of be the same tempo, the same speed
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We don't want to be going back slow and then really accelerating. It's really easy to over-egg
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with that sudden rate of acceleration. So we want a nice constant speed
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And the way we're gonna do that is matching up the backswing length with the length of putt we've got, effectively
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Oh, cozied up nicely. Have a look for us. Woo hoo. Not bad
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Just missed, but I'd say that's a givey on the way back. So a great tip there for Madden, really think about that putting stroke
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even more in the winter on these long putts on wet greens. Massive thanks to Adam for joining us in this video
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Some really, really useful advice there. But for now, from West Hill, we'll see you next time
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