The last couple of shots we’re learning in Advanced Elements of the Short Game this semester are the flop shot and the lob. These are specialty, low-percentage shots that today’s players like to use and abuse. You can understand why. They’re fun. But you should use these shots as a last resort – only when there’s NO other option for getting the ball anywhere close to a makeable distance.
The flop shot is an arm, wrists, and hands shot that uses the body to a minimum. Set-up closely resembles that of a standard bunker shot with both the body and the club slightly open. Weight favors the leading side, and a player should grip down on the club to shorten the arc and create the V-shape swing needed. The shot should be played by releasing the club underneath the ball while holding the clubface open. Because more exact timing is required for the flop, it’s considered to be the more difficult shot of the two. It’s best played out of long, cool-season rough like bentgrass.
The lob shot is the shot most players should be attempting, but it’s not as sexy as the flop. It relies more on the body and uses the arms and wrists to a minimum. Because the shot requires less timing of the hands and wrists, the shot is played more like a pitch with a slight rotation of the body and a natural hinging and unhinging of the wrists. The swing is more U-shaped, but the clubface needs to be held open to the target. Weight should favor the lead side. The lob works well from good to medium lies in short or medium-long grass.
PGA Professional Jay Friedman isn’t a man who’s afraid to say what he thinks, and he believes the closer you can keep the ball to the ground, the more effective you’ll be. I agree with him. I didn’t see Seve Ballesteros play when I was younger, but if I had to pick one player to hit a win-or-lose short game shot for me, it would be Phil Mickelson. He has the best short game for my money (no pun intended). Who better to give a less on the flop shot?
Golf Club Assembly & Repair
So far, we’ve built a 3-wood and a putter. This week, we got to work on a complete set of irons (4-iron through sand wedge) that we’re giving away to a local high school. There’s quite a bit of work that goes into building an entire set of clubs, so we broke into small groups with each of us getting assigned a different part of the project. There are 22 steps to building a single iron!
There are half-inch increments between irons, but your pitching wedge, gap wedge, sand wedge, and lob wedge should all be the same length. If you want all of your clubs to be the same swing weight, the club heads have to get heavier as you progress from 4-iron to sand wedge because the clubs get shorter. You should always start by building the longest club first (in this case the 4-iron), and the heaviest shaft should go into the longest club. That means the lightest shaft should go into the shortest club.
The most important considerations when club fitting are length and then lie. The most lofted club has to have the perfect lie because the most lofted club has the potential to go the farthest offline. Believe it or not, a 2-iron actually has a straighter initial direction than a sand wedge.