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Golf sometimes affords us the opportunity to show off in front of our buddies and play some amazing shots that have plenty of wow factor. Whether it's the stinger, a high bomb with the driver, a sky-high flop shot or a driver off the deck, we all want to have these shots in our locker. But how do you actually play them? Step up Golf Monthly staff writer and PGA Pro Joe Ferguson to show you exactly how!
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Right, thanks for joining me. I want to show you some of the coolest shots in golf
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I'll come here to the beautiful Santa de Cera Golf Club in Madeira
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one of the coolest spots in golf, to show you some of the coolest shots. Okay, so one of the coolest shots always has been and always will be the bombed driver
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Those players, you can just turn it up a notch and find another 20 to 30 yards like a Rory
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I think that's really, really cool, and here's how they do it
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So what you have to do is create optimal launch conditions of high launch and low spin
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and there's a couple of ways we can go about doing that. Firstly, T-height
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It seems like a really simple change, but just getting that ball pegged up nice and high
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will allow us to sweep up on the ball in that kind of tennis forehand motion
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creating a high launch and a low spin, which can help penetrate with the shot
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Another method of keeping that launch high is making sure we keep the ball forward in our stance
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so right off the front toe, might ordinarily be just inside the left heel, but just nudging it up
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a scooch so we can just keep sweeping it on the up to help with that launch. Now we're going to try
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and create a lot more speed as well, so we're going to need a more solid base so we don't lose our
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balance, so creating a bit more width of stance really helps to create that stability. Then from
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there it's all about speed. So how do we generate more speed? One of my favorite methods is just
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reaching a little bit in the back so you can create maximum width. We're not swaying to do it
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You can only create as much width as your arms are long but just making sure I'm getting my arms
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as far away from my body, my hands as high as I can at the top to create that centrifugal force
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which is going to produce maximum ball speed. And then from there when I've reached as high as I can
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I'm just going to spin my body as hard as I can and launch it
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It's going to look a little something like this. And that's launched nice and high
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Let's bomb straight down there, right out the centre as well, to be fair
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So that'll be a big, long carry. So that's all you need to do to be able to bomb driver
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So one of the coolest and most Instagrammable shots in golf seems to be the Stinger
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A lot of people use it as a safety shot on tighter holes, and this is quite a tight tee shot
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so it's probably not a bad place to learn it. So what do we do? What impact conditions do we need
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to be able to create to hit a stinger? Well, first of all, dynamic loft needs to be low
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so you want to be taking your longest iron to hit this, and I've got my three iron here
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So creating less dynamic loft means creating a little bit of shaft lean and closing that club base down a little bit There a load of different ways to do this Some people like to play the ball a long way back To me that tends to create a steeper
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attack angle and can actually impart a little bit more spin and get it rising. I like to play this
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thing from my normal ball position. What I like to feel is I try and feel like the back of my glove
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hand here, the logo on my glove is pointing down at the ground for as long as possible
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which is closing that club face. If it starts pointing up at the sky, club face is open
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you're going to have to release it to get it square. Whereas if it's closed here, we can just turn hard
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hold the club face off, create that forward shaft lean which is going to knock down that dynamic loft
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and give us that penetrating ball flight. So that's one way of feeling it. Some other people just like to feel like
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they cover the ball with their chest and keep that handle ahead of the club face
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So all they're doing is having a race between their hands and their club head and trying to make sure their hands win that race to impact
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Because if your club head wins the race, adding loft is going to pop up
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So here's how to play it. In over the ball, take your normal grip
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Like I said, I don't like to change ball position that much. And I'm just going to go with my feeling
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of keeping that glove hand down to the ground and covering the ball in my chest
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and forcing it forward nice and low. Well that's a pretty good example
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That's about 10 to 12 feet off the ground I would say, drilling up through there and
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a really nice result on a very, very tight hole. Not only does it look cool, it's also pretty functional
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Speaking of cool, what would be really cool is if you're enjoying this video, please hit
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the like button, comment down below, tell me about some of the cool shots you've played
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And if you're not subscribed to the channel, do it now. free and you can see all of our upcoming videos. Okay, so one of the coolest shots in golf for me
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will always be the flop shot. This is probably made most famous by Phil Mickelson when he first
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came out in the early 90s. What is a flop shot? It's a shot where you've got an open face
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the ball is going to go sky high, come down like a butterfly with sore feet, land softly on the
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ground and not go very far. You've got to use it in the right situation. I think I might be in that
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situation here at the beautiful Paliero Golf Club in Madeira. I've got a chip, I've missed the green
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left, and I'm coming down here onto a super severe down slope. You can see how this is
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If I play a normal chip shot here, which I'll show you now, I don't think I've got any chance
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of stopping this ball quick enough by the hole. Just hit that down slope and off it goes. One of
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The first things you need to do is open the club face before you take your grip I see so many people taking their normal grip with a square club face and trying to squeeze the club open like that but all that going to happen is your hands are going to return to a more comfortable position at impact the clubface will be too square and the ball will go miles So open that
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clubface first, get that in behind the ball, that gives you a good sense of how much ground you've got to work with under there as well. So place it in behind the ball then take your grip. You want
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the ball slightly forward in your stance and we want a pretty level impact through the ball here
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So we don't want to be chopping down on it. We don't want to be certainly scooping up on it
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I want you to feel like the club face is dead level with the ground and you're just going to cut the legs from under the ball
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But we've opened the face a lot, right? So we're going to need to give it a bit more momentum
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And that's where the big swing comes in so we can send the ball a good way up in the air
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and it's not going to go too far forward. So we've got the club face open
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and we're just going to take a big old swing, slide the club under the ball
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up in the air, pop it down, and that's beautiful. I managed to stop that just short of the hole
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on a really, really tricky, tricky shot, and I've got a really good chance to save my par
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Okay, so sometimes you can find yourself on a golf course in a particularly troublesome spot
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but believe it or not, you can use some cool shots to get out of it, and I'm going to show you one here
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So the situation I'm in, I've missed this fairway to the right, and I'm stuffed behind these trees
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I could be pragmatic, and I could nudge it out and chip it just into the fairway and play from there
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that's no fun so I'm going to play a cool shot and get out of it. So I'm going to move this ball
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around the trees. So how do I do that? It's simple geometry. I've just got to make sure
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my club face is pointing left of the path of my club. So the path being the direction the club's
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traveling in and the club face being where it points at impact. If I make sure that club face
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is left of the path that spin axis is going to tilt and the ball is going to move right to left
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the more I can create that differentiation between face and path the more the ball is going to move
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so how do I do it well first with setup so I can preset a path that's right by simply aiming my
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body to the right so that's going to influence my club traveling over there and then from there all
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I want to do is toe the club face in so when it comes to impact the club head's going to be
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traveling that way but the club face is going to be pointing that way so you're going to see a
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sweeping hook the more you can do it the more curvature you're going to get and you're going
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have to practice this because it's more about experience and knowing how much you can push it
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So here, I'm going to aim my body that feels like that tree in the distance there. I'm going to toe
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the club in and then it's just about commitment. It's about swinging up that line and understanding
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it's going to hook around those trees. That's a beautiful example. I got that about 190 yards up the fairway I think So I just gained myself nearly 200 yards from being boring and chipping out by using a really cool shot Okay so I in a really difficult situation here
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This could be classed as one of the most difficult shots in golf, the 40 to 50 yard bunker shot
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but if you get it right and you play it in the right way, it can turn into one of the coolest shots in golf
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I've done another video about trying to be a bit more pragmatic and playing it with a nine iron on a pitching
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wedge and just playing it as a normal splash shot, and that's a really functional way to play it
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but sometimes you just can't. Sometimes you've got to carry a lot of stuff
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And if you can get it really precise on strike, you can carry it all the way
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zip it up straight away, or even spin it back. And that looks really, really cool
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So the way to do that, you need to take your most lofted wedge. And it's really about precision of strike
8:49
Instead of a normal splash shot, where you might be trying to impact about an inch or two behind the ball
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we're going to actually get pretty close to ball first here. It's not actually going to be ball first
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but it's going to be very close to. And that's where the sort of precision element comes in
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because if you do get ball first with the momentum I'm going to put into it, it's going to go a long
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long way. And if I don't quite get it as precise as I want, it's just going to flub out. So you've
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got to be super, super precise here. It's all about commitment and just nipping as close to
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the ball as you can. So I'm going to play it pretty similar to a normal bunker shot, but I'm
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just aiming for a point in the sand about a centimetre behind the ball. And I'm going to
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go full commitment with full speed to get plenty of carry. And that's pretty much perfect. That's got all the way to the pin and zoom
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And that is a cool shot. One of the coolest shots in golf and also one of the most difficult
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is the driver off the deck. And you need a very specific set of circumstances to use this shot
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and it really is a bit of a last throw of the dice. And it's handy. I've got a slight upslope
9:53
to help with the elevation. Now, this shot used to be a lot more difficult with the older, smaller style drivers
9:58
but the MOI and the launch conditions of these new modern drivers make it a little bit easier
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So, you need a decent lie, which I've got here, and then I actually don't change that much
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I'm just really focusing on the quality of strike. Obviously, when you're hitting off a T-peg
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your angle of attack will be a little more up. This ball is now, obviously, at ground level
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so I'm probably going to move it back maybe half a ball in my stance just to make sure I'm not quite catching it on the up
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I want this sort of dead level. But aside from that, it's just a case of getting set, committing
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making a really good swing. And then all I'm doing is really focusing on strike
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and making sure I pick it clean and get it going. That's just about spot on, cutting onto the pin
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Yep, that is exactly the result I wanted and that's a cool shot
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