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How To Play Difficult Short Game Shots
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Apr 1, 2025
In this video, Joe 'The Pro' Ferguson talks you through how to play some of the toughest short game shots in golf. Getting out of trouble around the greens is crucial to keeping the momentum of your round going and so it's important you have the skills at your disposal to be able to hit the ball close and tap it in for an easy par rather than racking up a score-killing double bogey. Check out the shots featured in the video listed below.
View Video Transcript
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I'm Joe Ferguson and I'm going to show you how to get up and down from anywhere
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Okay so you might have noticed that golf is rarely straightforward. We often find
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ourselves in tricky situations around the green. So I'm going to show you a few scenarios here that you might commonly find yourself in on the golf course and
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the skills I'm going to show you are going to help you turn three shots into two, keep the momentum going in your round and improve your scores. So let's
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get to it. So I found myself in a particularly smelly spot here. I've missed the green left, I'm
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on a severe downslope coming over a bunker with not much green to work with. One of the
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first things people do here is they tend to panic and try and help the ball up in the
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air. And that might be the worst thing you can do. In these scenarios you can't fight
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the slope, you have to use the slope. If you start leaning back to try and help the ball
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up in the air, you'll bottom out early, hit the shot fat and it won't go the required
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distance. So one of the first things you need to do is move your body with the slope. Get your
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shoulders more level, move your sternum in front of the ball to make sure you're using the slope
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Inevitably the ball is going to come out lower here because we've got this downslope so you need
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to take your most lofted wedge and even open it up a little bit more to make sure you get the
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required height. So again move with the slope, move the sternum in front of the ball, try and get
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your shoulders more level to the slope and then just swing down the slope
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Got quite a nice result there and that's how to cope with a downslope
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Right, I've missed another green and I found myself in a particularly horrible lie in the
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bunker, it's plugged. So this is a real problem for me, I've not got a lot of green to work with and I've got
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to get this ball out and as close as possible. So what do I do? So first things first, I need to get underneath this golf ball, it's sitting below the surface
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of the ground, so I need to do everything in my power to be able to get steeper on the
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increase my angle of attack and drive this leading edge of the golf club under
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the ball. If you don't do that and you try and help it up you're going to scull it across the green. So the way I do that I get a little bit wider I try and move
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more of my weight forward so I'm steepening my angle, steepening my angle
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of descent and I'm just going to drive this club in as hard as I can behind the
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ball and stick it in the ground. You can open or close the face as much as you
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want some people prefer to play this square I prefer to add a bit of loft
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because I feel comfortable enough that I'm going to get the blade under the ball so I open it up a little bit. Wider stance, leaning forward, drive that club as hard as you can
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as vertical as you can behind the ball and stick it in the ground. And it pops out nicely. It's
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released up pretty close Six or seven feet from there I really happy with that Right I stuffed again I behind this bunker I got a tight pin not much green to work with and I really struggling
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The first thing you need to do in this scenario, and this is absolutely crucial, is you have to assess the lie
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I play a lot of pro-ams, I play with a lot of amateurs, who, when they miss a green, have already decided
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what shot they're going to play. And if you come up to the ball and it's lying
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sitting down on a bare patch of turf, for example, and your plan is an open-faced flop shot
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well, no one in the world can execute that. You've already ruined the shot before you've even started
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So a really key part of short game is learning how to read the lies
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and knowing what's possible. Unfortunately, there's no real shortcuts for that. That's experience
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That's going around the chip and green, throw some balls down in different lies and work out what's possible
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Fortunately, in the lie that I've missed the green with here, it's perked up a little bit
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So I've got an opportunity to throw this ball up in the air and get it stopping relatively quickly
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First thing I need to do is add loft. One of the key ways of doing this is make sure
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you open the face before you take your grip. See a lot of people taking their grip, manipulating
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the face open and all that's going to do is return back closed. So open the face, then
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take your grip. So I'm going to have a relatively wide stance to support what's going to be
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a relatively aggressive swim. Because we've opened the face here, loft's pointing up so
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I need to give it some more momentum. Another good tip here is to keep a really light grip
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grip pressure we don't want any tension in the hands and we also want the club to feel
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possibly like it's passing the hands a little bit and we don't want any shaft lean or dry
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that's going to take loft off that because we're already putting quite an aggressive swing on it
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so light grip pressure open the face allow the club head to pass the hands and just slip under
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the ball and play it with confidence just let it pop up land soft and we're in a good position to
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save par again. Right this is particularly horrible. I found myself in a bunker here and this must be the
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best part of 50 yards, 40 to 50 yards, really awkward range, a load of bunker to carry and this
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is where panic can really set in. One of the most common mistakes I see is people automatically reach
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for their most lofted club and just go and try and get really close to the ball, pick it off and get
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a little bit of a cleaner strike. Now that's really high tariff. Looks great if you can execute it but
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as a percentage play I'd like you to consider something else. Have a little go, reach for your
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pitching wedge, even your nine iron and just try and play it like a basic splash shot that you would
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around the green and trust the extra length and the shaft the less loft will propel the ball the
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correct distance. I find it easier not to change too many variables by moving out where I'm trying
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to get in the sand if I just play the normal splash shot with my pitching wedge that I would around the green Hopefully it will come out a little bit stronger and make the required distance
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And that's a great result, that's pitched, spun up lovely. The compact sands helped there a lot
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but that's a really good way of coping with a very, very awkward shot
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Right, it's happened again. I've missed another green and here at the Oxfordshire, around the greens, there's some particularly juicy thick rough. And that's okay if your ball
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sat on top of it but the two lies I've got here it's right down in it so I need a method of coping
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and getting these balls out of there. Primarily the number one thing I need to do because these
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balls are kind of below the surface of where I would want them to be I've got to get this club
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head under the ball. The first method I use is probably a more traditional method and it's about
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just steepening my attack angle to make sure this club instead of coming in nice and shallow and
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and impacting the grass here and getting tangled up. I need to do what I can to steepen this attack
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angle and just pop the ball out. So I'm just going to essentially feel like I'm dropping the club
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onto the back of the ball with a bit of a stabbing motion and just get the ball moving forward
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Wait a little bit further forward, a little bit of shaft lean to help that leading edge get through
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the turf and I'm just going to drop the club on the back of the ball and it's going to pop out
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with a bit of release and roll out and I've got the green to be able to play that shot
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Sometimes, however, you don't have as much green and this is a bit more of an American
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style shot. You might see this a bit more on the PGA Tour where they tend to play almost
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like a bunker shot with grass. So you're deliberately impacting behind the ball, you're accepting
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that you're not going to pick the ball first. You're opening the blade and you're trying to slip the club through the grass as you would the sand. It'll come out a bit higher
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a little bit softer. It's a little bit more high tariff this one, so it does need some
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practice in but essentially it is just a bunker shot with grass so I'm moving the ball a little
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bit further forward a wider stance I'm opening that club face and I'm literally just going to
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try and play almost as a deliberate fat shot and pop it up it's come out a little bit high it's
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come out a little bit strong that one but it's stopped nice and quick and it's got me out of
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what is some particularly thick and juicy rough so practice both of those methods and work out
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what's going to be the best scenario to use them in right I'm getting a bit grumpy now I might be
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the unluckiest golfer in the world. I've hit three glorious shots in here. They've just rolled off the
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green by a foot and I'm presented with this. They're all up against the collar from the fringe to the
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rough and I've got to deal with it. I can't just cry about it. I've got to figure out a way of
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getting these up and down. The eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed I've got three golf clubs
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in my hand and I'm going to show you three different methods to cope with that. So I'm
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going to start with a good old belly wedge Now a belly wedge is essentially a deliberate I can get to the bottom of that golf ball So I going to use the leading edge and try and get that into the equator of the golf ball directly halfway up
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the ball so it comes out just rolling like a putt. So the best way to do it is the fringe will
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probably dictate where the club sits anyway I can't get this any lower than that. I'm going to
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use my putting grip and pretty much a putting stance and I'm just going to rock my shoulders
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and try and get the ball moving forward. It's a little bit quick down that slope so it's
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four or five feet past but that's a pretty acceptable result. I'm okay with that
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So that's one method of coping with it. The next method is three-wood believe it or not
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The way the sole of a three-wood is designed obviously we've got a bit more width here that helps it stop snagging in this sort of tangly rough behind the ball. So it's a pretty
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safe option to help ensure you get some reasonable contact and get it going somewhere close. You do
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have to be wary there's generally a little bit more energy on the face of a three wood than there
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would be on a putter or wedge so it can pop out a little bit quick so factor that in and do a bit
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of practice with this before you use it but again a similar method putting grip you can't get to the
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bottom of the ball so you're just sort of giving it a little pop forward let the slope do the rest
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and that's tracking on a really good line and just missed so a really safe method I'm happy with both
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of those I've got a good chance of saving my par on both the last one's a little bit more elaborate
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and I first saw Vijay Singh do this at Sawgrass on the 17th hole up against the really really thick
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collar of rough and he just manipulated the putter instead of having in its normal orientation
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using the face turning in and using the toe end and you can see what that does to this angle here
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all of a sudden the toe is very very steep and low to the ground and I've got no friction from
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back here so I've already preset a descending blow into the ball now there's certain putters
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you wouldn't want to try this with so ensure yours is compatible. You've got a relatively flat toe end
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and again it's just a similar method. So use your putting stroke, your putting grip and just bump
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your shoulders and allow the toe end of that putter to just nudge the ball out gently and get
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it rolling towards the hole. That one's got a little less pace on it so that one's stone dead
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Really happy with all three of those. I've turned what could have been a really difficult and
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annoying scenario from a good approach shot there to a really pretty simple par
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Right, well I like those tap-in for pars so hopefully what I've shown you there has armed you with the skill set that's going to leave you with a lot more of those, keep your momentum in the rounds and improve your scoring. So from me here at the Oxfordshire, that's everything. I'll see you next time
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