7 Shots That Will Save Your Game This Winter | Golf Monthly
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.
Transcript
00:00 Now you may have already noticed that temperatures are dropping and golf courses are getting a little
00:03 bit wetter and that can only mean one thing, winter is coming. Well in this video we've been
00:08 joined by Golf Monthly Top 50 coach Adam Hahn who's going to talk us through seven shots that you need
00:14 to save your game this winter. We've also partnered up with PING in this video, I've kitted myself
00:19 and Adam out in their latest autumn and winter apparel to keep us nice and warm
00:23 and nice and dry out on the golf course. We're at West Hill today, let's get started.
00:28 [Music]
00:33 Right Adam, so we're gonna look at a couple of shots here that you're gonna need in the winter
00:36 and that is out of some differing lies. Now before we get into the shot itself, let's talk about
00:41 identifying a lie, how important that is and how not a lot of golfers actually identify the lie
00:47 before they go and hit their shot. I see that so often, it's probably the biggest mistake amateurs
00:51 make is not looking at their lie before they pull their club, so they might get their yardage,
00:55 they'll pull their club and then they'll hit the shot and they won't actually look at how the ball
00:59 is sitting. It's probably the most important thing to do, you'll never see a good player
01:03 not look at their lie before they hit it. Listen, I'm criminal of this as well so,
01:07 you know, we're not alone. We've pulled out two lies here that we're going to get a lot in the
01:10 winter. Let's start with this one on the left hand side, a flyer lie. Now let's talk about how to
01:16 identify a flyer lie first and what it actually means. Okay, so a flying lie is when the ball's
01:21 kind of sat in the semi-rough and it's sitting up slightly, it's almost like it's on a tee and what
01:26 that does, that reduces the spin on the ball so when you strike the ball it's going to actually
01:30 fly a little bit further. So in the winter that's actually quite a favourable lie to have. Where the
01:34 ball's sitting up a little bit, we've got to be a little bit careful that we don't go underneath it.
01:37 Okay. So, you know, we're not necessarily trying to change too many things here but one thing we
01:42 can't do is be too steep and kind of chop down on this flying lie. So we'll be a little bit careful
01:48 with the ball position. We may have the ball position even slightly forward of normal. Okay.
01:52 Imagine the ball's on the tee, we kind of can sweep it up a little bit. So on this kind of lie,
01:56 that's really helpful. Right, so I'm going to get you to hit that in just a second. Let's talk about
01:59 this lie on the right and you'll get this a lot in the winter. It's not as wet at the minute but
02:04 it's sort of a bare lie. One of the key things of this, different to the flying lie, is this one we
02:09 actually need to hit a little bit more down on. We want to definitely get ball turf strike with
02:13 this one. So two things I see golfers do that really you need to avoid. Number one is trying to
02:20 kind of help the ball up off the ground just through fear of hitting the ground and fatting
02:24 it. So there's kind of a bit of a, we call it a missed radius, where the radius of the swing
02:28 shortens and then we end up thinning and topping it. The other one is kind of a bit on our back foot.
02:33 Again, trying to help the ball up in the air and kind of avoiding that muddy lie and avoiding the
02:38 fat shot. Both of them actually cause problems more than they help. So certainly this one here
02:44 with the slightly muddy underneath, making sure that we're moving forward aggressively onto our
02:48 front foot is really, really key. I'd say that's the most important thing to focus on when you
02:52 swing through these shots. Let's give it a go. I nearly had him. You can see how little spin that
03:06 came out with and how much that sort of dug in. Comes out really hot again in the winter. That's
03:10 brilliant. We want our ball flying further. So this lie is actually quite a nice thing to have.
03:14 Okay, Adam, fairway woods and hybrids are really important to use well over the winter. Can you
03:24 explain why a bit more carry distance through the air is so much more helpful and then how to use
03:28 these clubs more efficiently this time of year? Yeah. So, you know, when we're faced with a
03:32 situation where we've got a long iron in our hand or a long iron yardage in the winter, when the
03:38 ground's a bit softer, one of the great things that the hybrids and fairway woods have is a much
03:44 kind of wider, flatter sole to the club. Okay. So that helps with that softer ground. It glides
03:49 through the ground much easier. So where we might normally take a four or five iron in the winter
03:54 months, we know the ball isn't flying quite so far. So it's a good idea to take out your hybrid
03:58 or your fairway wood and we can make a few adjustments for kind of replacing a fairway
04:03 wood for a long iron in our setup and hitting our shots. So the key thing, the first thing I would
04:09 say is it's actually not a bad idea to slightly grip down the club. So we might slightly grip down
04:16 our hybrid or fairway wood just for a little bit more control. Now, it also takes a little bit of
04:22 yardage off. Yeah. So if we're not trying to hit, let's say our four iron normal distance
04:28 and our hybrid normally goes further than that, just gripping down gives us a little bit more
04:31 control and also just helps it not fly too far through the air.
04:35 Right. So the next shot, Adam, is going to save golfers out there this winter. It might sound
04:45 really obvious. We're not reinventing the wheel here. It's quality of strike. Now, from this
04:50 range, we're 150 yards and in, this is a really important scoring area. So how do we have better
04:57 strike in the winter? Can you give us a drill that people can go away with and practice at home,
05:00 on the range and on the course? Absolutely. I mean, when the ground's wet, one of the things
05:04 golfers don't like doing is hitting the ground, right? Because their relationship with the ground
05:08 normally isn't a good one. So we need to make sure that we're hitting the ground in the right place.
05:13 Okay. We all know that we're supposed to be hitting the ball and then the ground. Okay.
05:17 Ball turf contact is what we're looking for. So a really simple drill for this would be
05:21 making some practice swings before you hit the ball, which many golfers don't do anyway.
05:26 Yeah. But focusing on where you're making contact with the ground. So as I'm making my practice
05:31 swing, I'm trying to make contact with the ground forwards of the golf ball. Any particular distance
05:37 in front? Do you pick a spot in the turf? Not particularly. I'm just making sure that my
05:41 contact is anywhere from the golf ball up. That's going to ensure that the downward hit we're
05:45 looking for and it really stopped golfers kind of backing up or lifting or trying to scoop the ball
05:50 off the wet ground. Sometimes I might lay a towel down on the range. Yeah. You might lay just a towel
05:55 behind here and swing through and try to miss the towel effectively hitting the ground forwards. And
06:01 then, yeah, you can bring that into your practice swings on the golf course and then you can bring
06:05 it into your real shots when you're actually playing. That's a really good tip. And we've
06:08 said this already, but quality of strike is so important in the winter. You can get away with
06:13 a scabby one in the summer, can't you? It might run, but like in this hole, uphill, bunkers in
06:18 front, you're going to need that quality of strike. So think about that when you're on the course and
06:21 when you're practicing at the driving range. Okay, Adam, so we're working our way up the hole now.
06:31 And an important shot to save you this winter is that 60, 70, 80 yard pitch shot that when the
06:37 ground gets really soft, it's actually really hard to hit. A lot of people start fatting them. So can
06:41 we talk about how to avoid the fat shot and to get these scoring shots as tight as possible?
06:46 Absolutely. The most common thing I see with this type of shot with a wedge in our hand
06:50 is golfers that get kind of very, very narrow, meaning the club sort of comes in towards them,
06:55 the shaft gets quite vertical, and then they kind of come down too steep and chunk.
06:59 That's where that fat, especially when the ground's soft and wet and horrible.
07:02 Absolutely.
07:02 It's going nowhere.
07:03 So we want to try and create more width with this shot. One thing I would always say is
07:07 never make a full swing, an absolute full swing with a really lofted club. And the reason being
07:13 is when we're making a real full swing, it's easy for the club to come in too narrow, come down too
07:18 steep. So I always think a three-quarter swing is absolutely a must when we're playing these shots.
07:23 If that means you've got to change wedge, then do so. But a way I really like, a nice feeling
07:28 or a drill if you like, or a nice feel, is that when we make our backswing, we should have enough
07:33 width in the club head here that if we take our right hand off, we can't reach the club head.
07:39 Okay.
07:39 To me, that shows we've got a nice amount of width. So from there, we can come in kind of
07:43 shallower and kind of pick the ball off nicely using the bounce on the club.
07:48 Yes.
07:48 And avoid that kind of leading edge digging into the ground.
07:51 Right then Adam, we found ourselves in a bunker, which you might do in the winter and the summer.
08:00 But a difference in the winter is the lie.
08:03 Yeah.
08:03 A lot more compact, a lot less sand most of the time when it's wet. Let's talk about
08:07 identifying the lie and how to play out of it when there's not a lot of sand in the ball.
08:11 When it's compact and hard like this, it's very different to when it's sitting fluffy.
08:15 Okay. When it's sitting fluffy, we want to use the bounce of the club, right? Which is the
08:19 sole, kind of the rounded bottom of the sole is the bounce. And that stops the club from
08:23 digging into the sand.
08:24 Okay.
08:24 Okay. Now, of course, when it's hard like this, if we have too much of a bounce angle on the club,
08:30 we're going to bounce up off that hard pan into the middle of the ball and it's going to thin.
08:35 Yes. That's the common shot I have in these sorts of situations.
08:38 So the things we need to change, first of all, we need to make sure we've got a wedge in our bag
08:42 that has a low bounce. So that's going to be a number like a six or an eight degree of bounce.
08:46 Yeah.
08:46 And that's going to keep the leading edge down in the sand. It's going to stop it from coming up
08:51 too high to prevent those sort of thin shots. In this scenario, we actually want to encourage
08:55 the leading edge to dig a bit.
08:57 Any setup changes for when it's compact and just...
08:59 Yeah, absolutely. So with a normal bunker shot, we would normally set ourselves up
09:04 and have the ball a bit forwards, face a little bit open. And of course,
09:09 when we open the face, we expose more bounce.
09:11 Sure.
09:12 We definitely don't want to do that in this scenario.
09:14 Interesting.
09:14 So having the ball maybe a little bit more central and squaring the face up.
09:19 Squaring the face up helps the leading edge kind of get into the sand much easier.
09:23 Yeah.
09:23 You know, an opening club is always going to expose more.
09:27 A closing club is almost like a bit of a digging tool.
09:30 Yeah. It's actually useful in this situation.
09:32 Absolutely. And we want to get the bounce going down or the leading edge,
09:35 sorry, going down into the sand.
09:36 Brilliant. Really useful tips there.
09:38 OK, we were in the bunker. I didn't talk about bounce. We're now out of it.
09:47 We'll talk about it again with these two different chip shots here.
09:50 So we've got a buried lie in the wet rough.
09:53 Yes.
09:53 And a tight lie, but the ground's still pretty wet.
09:56 Yeah.
09:56 So let's talk about again how we identify what bounce to use in what situation.
10:00 So what I'd say is, you know, whenever we're out now, we're on the grass,
10:03 we're on soft ground, right?
10:05 So we no longer need to dig. We don't want to dig.
10:07 No.
10:07 So we're trying to avoid using a wedge with low bounce.
10:11 Very different to when we're on that hard pan bunker shot out there.
10:14 Especially out of this lie we've picked here,
10:15 which is a bit buried down in some wet rough.
10:17 Yeah.
10:18 You do want to interact with the ground.
10:20 Yes.
10:20 But going through it and not digging into it.
10:22 Exactly. So we still need a little bit of a downward angle
10:25 because the ball sat down in the grass, right?
10:27 So we've got to get down to the bottom of the ball,
10:29 but we don't want low bounce at the same time
10:32 because as coming down, we're just going to dig.
10:35 Brilliant.
10:36 Right. So with a bit of bounce on that club at a steeper angle,
10:39 we won't dig in, but we will pop the ball out.
10:41 Okay. So that's a shot you're going to need in your bag definitely over the wind.
10:44 So let's move to this lie here. You know, we're not far off here.
10:47 Yeah.
10:47 But it's almost a different shot entirely, right?
10:49 Yes.
10:50 A tighter lie, but we've still got some wet ground.
10:52 Yeah.
10:52 How would you say people go about this one?
10:54 So again, high bounce. We want to use the bounce of the club.
10:57 But one thing I like golfers to try and get comfortable doing on these sort of shots
11:02 is getting comfortable hitting the ground and feeling how it's going to interact.
11:07 Okay.
11:07 Right. So I've just made a little swing there. I've hit the ground,
11:09 but because I've hit with the back or the underneath of the club, it hasn't dug in.
11:14 So if you're comfortable hitting the ground, knowing that it's not going to dig,
11:18 then the bounce will work for you.
11:20 You'll slide through and you'll be able to hit decent shots in the wet condition.
11:23 Okay. Now I like, especially on this shot here,
11:25 it's a decent way away, but nothing to go over off a thin lie.
11:28 Yeah.
11:28 Maybe getting something like an eight iron out,
11:30 but can you just chat about the bounce, if there is any on here,
11:32 and how that might interact differently with this?
11:34 Yeah, sure. So with a flatter face club on this kind of lie,
11:38 we really want the club working very much shallow,
11:40 like almost like a putting stroke in a way.
11:42 We want to get away from any steep angle that's going to potentially dig that into the ground.
11:46 Now, our irons, typically, we want to take a bit of a divot in a full swing, right?
11:51 Right.
11:51 But when we're around the greens like this, we don't really want that.
11:54 So keeping that moving nice and level with the ground.
11:57 If you catch it slightly thin, that's better than catching it slightly fat.
12:01 Definitely.
12:01 Okay. Because we're trying to get the ball out low and rolling.
12:04 Right then, last but not least, Adam, we made it to the green, finally.
12:13 Yeah.
12:13 And come winter, and especially coming out in the summer, the greens are really quick.
12:17 It can be tough on these long putts to get yourself to hit it hard enough,
12:21 or get the pace right when they're a bit slower, a bit wetter, less firm.
12:25 So what kind of tips can you give us to get better at these sort of lag putts in the winter?
12:29 Yeah. So what I see a lot of golfers do when the greens start to get a bit slower,
12:33 and they've got longer putts uphill in the winter,
12:36 is they tend to try to accelerate really fast and kind of add a hitting motion.
12:41 Okay.
12:41 Okay. Now, to be a good putter and control your distance,
12:44 we want the putter moving at a nice constant speed, right?
12:47 So we don't want the club coming back and then suddenly accelerating.
12:50 Right.
12:50 That's a real temptation when the greens are a bit slower, right?
12:53 So to combat that, I want golfers to be a little bit more aware of the length of their stroke.
12:58 Okay. So we want the backswing and the downswing to kind of be the same tempo, the same speed.
13:04 We don't want to be going back slow and then really accelerating.
13:07 It's really easy to over egg it then with that sudden rate of acceleration.
13:13 So we want a nice constant speed.
13:15 And the way we're going to do that is matching up the backswing length
13:19 with the length of putt we've got effectively.
13:21 Oh, cosied up nicely. Have a look for us.
13:31 Not bad.
13:33 Just missed, but I'd say that's a gimme on the way back.
13:36 So a great tip there from Adam, really think about that putting stroke even more in the winter
13:40 on these long putts on wet greens.
13:42 Massive thanks to Adam for joining us in this video.
13:44 Some really, really useful advice there.
13:46 But for now, from Westhill, we'll see you next time.