Dan Grieve: Chipping From Bad Lies - Lesson With 8-Handicap Jess Ratcliffe

Hi, I'm Dan Grieve and I've teamed with Adidas Golf to help three lucky golf monthly readers

improve their short game. Let's get started. Jess, great to have you here at Woven. Welcome

Thank you for having me. And we're going to discuss this short pitch shot out of the rough because you say you've

been having some issues with it. Tell me a bit more about it. I have. I've just found that when I find myself in a spot like this and I'm going to

gravitate to playing a release two or a soft landing shot i just find i can catch it a little

bit thin i don't feel like i get the best connection and if i do get away with a connection

it will come out okay but then really run so it's not got that soft landing yeah yeah um that i see

in your shots but also i'd like to have in my game to think okay i'm in a bit of trouble here

and although i've got quite a lot of green to work with if i then was to think actually i've got this

one how do I get that softness in it because I think I can maybe in terms of the lie because

that's the big one in the rock so is it when it starts to sit down is this what you mean yeah it's sat down a little bit just like that just down there's a bit of of grass going in there so you're

thinking okay maybe this is more I'm having to to play this a little bit steeper possibly

but again if it's one where you're trying to limit the run on it a little bit and maybe I'm

being too ambitious of trying to get it close but it'll be something like this and then the ones that

I really can struggle with can be when it's also then on a down slope and you're trying to again

and like match the slope. But I find that if I can get a little bit too handsy

it will just come out, you know, come out running. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, all right, so you're sitting down a bit

We'll go for that back pin. Okay. 25 yards. I've got my 54. You've got 54

Let's see what you've got. Okay, decent contact. Okay

Popped out pretty nicely. more of a luckier one than I would normally get when you've got a card in

the hand. Here we go. Same sort of line. Yeah, sort of grabs it a bit, doesn't it

Yeah, that's what I find. I can feel it slows down and I then don't feel like I've really got to throw it

Yeah, sure. So this is where the IQ sign is, what I call the golf intelligence, but it really, really

comes into its own when you're reading lies in the rough now what you've got there is you've got quite a bit big cushion behind the the ball there so quite right I think you mentioned coming in

steeper you do need to come in a little bit steeper there but you're not really setting up correctly for the shot you're trying to play so you're setting up with the majority of your weight

actually on your right side okay probably about 60 percent or so so you're kind of tilting away

from the ball now you hit those okay you're a good player you will you will hit a lot of good

shots but from this position here and you start to try and release the club too much it has got that thin written all over it that how you hit the thin shot And just really you don get because you put you probably as well if you are getting a decent strike if you releasing it too much and your weight back here you going to start entering the sort of the

rough really about sort of maybe four five six inches behind the ball that's going to lose spin

so i think the big thing for you is when the ball starts sitting down a bit see i'd be setting up

much more like this i'd be down the grip i'd be opening the club face a bit more you have it dead

square as well okay helps you so i'll be opening up the face and i would be see the width of the

is wider and I'm leaning forward I'm really getting that left foot out and I'm leaning this way

and just by the very nature of setting up to it my chest bone now much further in front of the ball

from this setup with a bit of shaft lean that's going to encourage me to set the club a bit earlier

okay but if I was to set up like you I kind of want to go wider yes which is a shallowing right

understand shallowing and steep the ingredients yeah when you need to add some in and take some out so basically you've got to get a little bit steeper and then you can start to play around with

different releases. I mean, the safer release ones from the rough really is what I call a release one

which is where basically it finishes here where the butt screw is pointing at the hip. But if you wanted to release the club a little bit more, you could do, but you've got to do it

from this position, not from this position. Does that make sense? So yeah, so this would be me here

a little bit of hinge. I can pop down and get the height, you see, and I can throw it right up there

towards the pin. Now, if I wanted to come out a bit softer than that, I could do the same thing

and then I can just put a little bit more release into it and you can see that then comes out softer

Yeah, see they're the ones that I struggle with, the softer landing out of a tricky spot like this

Yeah, so to get it out, because it's a bit more advanced, obviously if the lie was perfect we'd

just set up for a normal soft landing shot in terms of how you're setting up to it, quite shallow

releasing it. The lie is dictating how you play this shot, the lie is the most important thing

So we read the lie, we get steeper at address and then from there we can add a bit of releasing but

But I think if you do it from this position, I think you're going to find it a lot easier. Okay. And 54 is fine

I don't mind a 54, particularly when you've got a bit of green. But just open the club face a bit

Okay. But when you're playing in the rough here, if you have it square, the rough is quite thick

It's going to tend to want to grab it. Yeah, and that's that feeling at the bottom. I would open it just to give you a little bit of margin

So if it does slip, it's still going to be square. But also what I would do here, just to protect against the rough grabbing it

is grip it a little bit tighter in this area here. Okay. You know, in the pad here, the little thing of going into the hand

So as you're coming through, I really am, I always advocate a light grip in short games

you probably know, but in the rough, I really want to, with the left hand here, get tighter

helps me hold the loft on the club. Okay, yeah. Set up a little bit more on your left

So a bit open. Yeah, that's it. Try a bit more this way

Does that feel different? It does, yeah. Okay, more that way with the face. You've got to be brave

There we go. Now, down the grip a little bit more, tight here

Right, that's great. That is great, right? That is fantastic And then to feel the release am I going like release one for this one or Well I think we try and get it softer So we do a two but you can do it from this setup

Okay. You can't do it from the old setup. No. Okay perfect. Go to the top of the swing

Okay and just try and get your left wrist a little bit more cupped. Okay. Okay now as you come down

you can come down because of the backswing you're coming down steeper you put a little bit of a late

release in there okay okay you've got to stay left the whole time and cupped you must cup you

do tend to get a bit i do right which then again off off the fairway light it's not the end of the

world you can play a low running shot in the rough if you do that if you flex the wrist and the loft

goes down it's going to tend to grab a lot okay so that cupping yeah i guess it feels

yeah like the that's not even it is it thumbs up that's it that's it so to get to there yeah that's

and then just hit the golden rule when you're in your off like this is don't hit the ball first

okay okay you've got to hit about an inch behind it okay right that's great that's really good

there we go right hinge it pop it just behind the ball right that came off really soft okay

too soft no running it but that's the type of that's the one if i've got a tight pin okay yeah

you don't want to run if you try and play this high shot you wouldn't run we'd do more than that

front hit release okay okay great there don't open it too much don't go crazy right there we go

There we go. A little bit of hinge. And release it at the bottom

I've done it again. They're coming out lovely. I mean, I will take those because most of the time

I'm in a tighter spot than having lots of green. But don't really, so look

if you were just trying to hit that shot 10, 12 yards, you've just played a world-class shot. Okay

The rest of it, you've got to feel it. Yeah. It's coming off softer now, so you've got to increase your speed

Okay, wow. Okay. Over here. Bit of forward lean of the shaft

like that okay okay just because of a lie right set it early release at the bottom have a bit more

chest speed uh through it this time very good now that's what you want so it's carried it's

landed soft that's nice and it's not running very far no i like that yeah that's very good

you played that really well thank you i think that's one thing throughout it's getting confident

with the chest as well, releasing the chest through it. Because I think that sometimes I can go slower with that

so the hands take over. We do a front hip release, like a motor of a running shot out of the rough now

So you set up exactly the same. Exactly the same, a little bit open. Just a touch open

Shaft lean. Shaft lean, absolutely. And now same thing from this setup

You're going to hinge the club a little bit earlier to get the steeper attack through the rough

But this time you're going to finish more like this. You're still turning the chest, but you're finishing more this way. Okay

So it's a front hip release, and this ball is now going to come out a little bit lower, but hopefully run to the back pin

Okay. So when you got green to work with have the rough it more that finish If you got the shorter one you got to go over something you put more of that release in okay So wait on this side bit of shuffling That really good there

Hinge, but front hip release this time, went slightly lower, more running shot. Good, now watch this all land, and watch it run out

So you just want to run out a little bit more. So, yes, great shot, you played out brilliantly

Take these for the course. You played it brilliant. But what you're understanding is it's one setup, and you just change your swing a little bit

depending on the slope and how much green you've got to work with. Yeah, I think that's been the challenge from the get-go

is I feel if you don't know this set-up, in your mind you think, well, I'm trying to play this shot

but you're going against the tide almost. You can't, you know, if you've already scuppered yourself. Yeah

Now, if we're going for this front pin, okay, so there's hardly any green, we can still stick to a 54

It might be easy to do a 58, but we'll... Have you got a 58? I have, yeah

Let's use a 58. Let's use a great club. Now, here you're going to play it exactly the same way

We do need some release into this to soften it. Okay. But get super wide now

Go even wider. So I want your hands to get lower. Point the loft more up

So would this feel like I'm more playing a bunker shot? More bunker shot, 100%

That's it. Keep the right leg in. Leg in, yeah. That's it. Good. Now set the club nice and early with the wrists

And you're coming down. And it's there. Okay. You feel that? Yeah

There's not much rotation of the upper body here. It's more of a hand and arm shot. Okay

So set it, release it. Okay. Nice and narrow in the follow through

Sharf lean or no? Yeah, no, you're good there. Do your good, come on, just feel it now. There you go, what a great shot

Go in. Oh wow. What a great shot. So there's no such thing as a bad lie. No

It's IQ. Yes. And think about how you need to change that angle of attack and release

So you've got some solutions there for different lines. Yeah, brilliant. And it's just so easy to practice. you do practice that I would just throw the balls over your shoulder in a rough yeah and just look

at each one and react to it and then you just learn how to do subtle differences in your in how

you set your weight and how you put the angle attack into it that's good and yeah lots of work

on it's a great part of the game there's no things a bad lie okay nope nope I know that now thank you

all right pleasure so before coming to today I would say the main struggle for me was getting

out the rough okay and having that soft landing shot I'd always try and bring a bit of softness

to it but either thin it massively especially if I'm on a down slope or get it out okay but just

not be able to control the run out so I really wanted to focus on those tricky shots which I

like to try and practice and can often find myself in on the course as well and so for me really

working with Dan on that in the session means now that I'm leaving with confidence if I do find

myself in those not quite position zed I think he calls it but those really tough ask lies where

You can't quite get to the back of the ball. There's that tuft of grass there. I'm going to feel a lot more confident walking into that shot

and hopefully get a good result as well