Golf Swing Instruction – Hitting the Flop Shot

This particular golf tip will demonstrate a flop shot from some 60 feet away or 20 paces from where the ball currently rests to the flag on the green. I am set-up a little left of my target with my lower body and will be using mostly arms, shoulders and torso to execute a proper golf swing. Once you have set-up to the target, your focus shifts to timing, balance and acceleration through the shot. I am using a three quarter range swing to build enough club head speed through this play, or I risk hitting into the sand bunker in front of me. The reason for the increase in speed at this distance is due to the amount of loft and trajectory that follows this type of set-up. I need to stay centered over the ball, which is how I set-up to this type shot, which places me at the bottom of my swing with this length club. My shoulders only need to tilt rather than rotate around my body, to do so would change the dynamics of the swing and ultimately the trajectory of the ball. My club face must remain open, with its face upward towards the clouds, as this would be the projected flight needed to go the distance and stop the ball quickly. This golf swing technique is more about swinging back and through, maintaining the open and flatter clubs face with out regards to swinging far around my body and completing with a high finish. As I begin my downswing, there will be a natural weight shift to the left side. Most of my weight is on the left side at the beginning and remember not to make a big release similar to the full shot. You can see the back of my left hand, which acts as the steering wheel of the club which is opened 90-degrees at the top of my swing and have not cocked or loaded the club using a big release mentality. I want you to notice this, because in this golf lesson, you see in the next photo, what the back of my left hand's responsibility will be at impact. This is one of the key factors in the golf swing technique to being successful at the flop shot.

In the last paragraph, we mentioned the back of the left glove hand and its importance in the flop shot golf swing instruction. It is one golf tip, showing several pieces involved towards the whole golf lesson, which helps you visualize the building blocks for your personal blue print. You must take the appropriate time to focus each segment of each type of any golf swing in order to be productive while you practice it during the learning curve. If you practice bad habits continuously on the practice range, don't be surprised if you find your score card at the practice range mentality. This is why I choose to provide you still photos of each segment of each shot, which provides you the opportunity to visualize a simple golf swing that you can practice piece-by-piece, until it all flows into one tempo. It really helps golf made easy mentality to sink in, because you can actually stand in your living room and simply hold your club at a paused position, like my photos, to learn by doing through visualization. I feel it's important to offer and recommend some additional techniques from Ken Venturi, who has over 50 years of experience, which he shares in Getting Up And Down. I want you to be aware of any golf help I can offer, because there's more than one way to play this game. The first golf tip I mentioned in this golf lesson you'll remember was the back of the glove hand which is the steering wheel of the clubs face. Then notice how my whole left side is in motion and balance with the back of that glove hand. My weight is 90 percent on the left foot, the extension of both arms at impact and just after maintain a "Y" formation; the palm of the right hand has helped to power through this impact zone with full acceleration and points at my intended flight path. The left shoulder has tilted properly back, through and upward so as to stay on the intended swing path and you can see I'm in a solid position of balance and stability. You can draw a fairly straight line from my left shoulder, down the entire arm and hand, continuing down the golf shaft into the club face. Now briefly look at the previous picture — you'll notice in my backswing there is very little change in the arms, hands and shoulders. A slight lifting to gain some additional height for distance in the back swing, but little difference than what you see in this picture. The reason why this is important to show, is to show you that there is not much wrist action or shoulder rotation, which only leads to an off line shot and longer distance than required. You can certainly make this shot using wrist action, as some professionals do. If you're not a seasoned professional, you should start with soft hands and a full arm extension with an open blade, as shown here. I use this golf swing technique because I find it hits the ball higher and lands quieter. Practice this until you feel confident before modifying your approach to how you choose to add the final result to your blue print.

The flop shot is the best choice for this lie because I observed the flag stands about seven feet from the fringe, on an elevated green, with an approach over a sand bunker. Most people's first reaction is they're going to hit this straight into the bunker. That fear won't be realized, if you have a pre-shot routine in place, because it will help you focus on the proper golf swing and that in itself is what eliminates that kind of thinking. Use the pre-shot routine as a tool to keep the conscious mind working towards a positive result, like pacing your distance to the flag and counting how many steps from your ball to the flag, then multiplying by three to know approximately how many feet this ball needs to travel. While doing this, you can have a look at the break and condition of the green. While on the green analyzing this, it will also reveal the speed of the green. You'll get a visual of the direction of where you mentally need to swing towards to land your ball. These are routine points of interests I'm sharing with you as part of this golf instruction for the flop shot. You might consider adding some yardage to your distance, because you're swinging to an elevated green. Golf tips you find elsewhere won't reveal the whole picture to you sometimes, and it's difficult for you to know if you have all the correct information in order to play out the whole shot in your mind. This is why I offer you so much content and still photos, because I genuinely want you to succeed towards the betterment of your golf game. Let's look further into this picture to complete the sequence. My set-up is aligned to a pre-determined spot on the green where I want my ball to land. My feet are slightly opened at address and shoulder width apart, squatting slightly lower than normal, to give myself a lower center of gravity. This helps me to get under the ball easier. My club face is laid open to the point that it almost points at the clouds. This is what pops the ball upward quickly. You must accelerate through this shot, or you will hit it short. You use very little wrists in this swing, mostly shoulders and arms and the weight of the club head as the tempo source. The club needs to stay low into the grass through impact to create the proper height needed, resulting in a dead ball, drop and stop landing. Do not allow your wrist to roll over, because it will hood or close over the ball, and that's a recipe for disaster. A good golf tip to remember is to continue accelerating towards your target, until you feel the ball is up and away. You can observe that my head is still down and eyes focused were the ball had been resting. This positioning helps to facilitate good dynamics in your flop shot, creating the proper golf swing to use, when those difficult pin placements call for that specialty shot that's now in your hands.

Some golf instruction can fall short by not putting much attention to your golf swing speed. It is this foundation in your timing, which you probably know, can falter any shot. If you haven't been instructed much in this area, you can benefit by making a conscious effort to consider making it part of your routine prior to each and every shot. You probably have heard at some time to get a good feel for the shot before you hit the ball. How true is this? Quite true actually, because by taking one or two practice swings, you'll feel the weight of that particular club head and that feel is what provides you a timing sequence. Listen to it and feel it prior to every shot and you will be more successful. Your grips can affect your timing as well, because if you don't maintain good grips on your clubs, they can slip in a sweaty palm. It can throw off your timing and move while in your hands while swinging in the swing circle. This actually does happen and creates miss hits. If your club's grips are older, cracking, worn or hard from being on there for a few seasons, here is my recommendation. Change to new grips based on your amount of play, or at the minimum, every other season. I personally use the Golf Pride Decade Multi-compound Grips.Now that you have picked up a couple of golf tips that affect timing, swing speed and mechanical break downs in timing, let's continue with how critical this timing is to the success of your flop shot. Notice after contact, I am still shifting and driving forward towards my intended landing zone. The whole purpose for this is not to look cool but to allow the momentum I have generated in this swing to be released. Why I do this is to allow my swing to avoid deceleration. This deceleration is exactly what causes the ball to come off the club face heavy and fall short into the sand bunker. This momentum has helped lift the ball up high off the open club face. The success of this shot clears the bunker and lands in the area of the green I chose from being on the green prior to this flop shot. Don't ever rush and omit your pre-shot routine, because it's what leads you through a successful execution. I always finish with most of my weight planted on the left foot, arms extended through the shot. My head is back of the impact zone, with my eyes fixed on where the ball had been resting prior to impact. This is an engrained habit to get into on every shot. After a short period of executing this golf tip, you will become confident in this shot and will trust your swing to the point you'll know where the ball is in flight and where it's landing without looking, based solely on feel from the balls impact. That will be the time you realize you have mastered the golf swing to beat the odds in the flop shot technique.

Another flop shot golf tip example could be an uphill lie, close to the green. This green shows to be fast and downhill to the hole. In this situation, I won't stand as wide in my stance, as in the other shot, because I'm closer to the hole and standing at address uphill. This naturally forces me to squat lower in my stance and remember to keep the lower body quite. My stance is again slightly open at address and you can see the club face is pointing upwards. Club selection is important on this lie, because an uphill stance produces more loft on your club, this affect takes place as you're tilting backwards to swing, the loft then changes as you return to the ball. A golf tip to remember on any given golf shot for that matter. I need to send this ball straight up and back down without much action, especially knowing it's going to roll downhill, too. The back of my glove hand and the palm of my right hand move fairly straight, back and through the shot, and never turn over. If they do, I'm changing the loft of the club and that changes the trajectory, putting spin on the ball. The key golf tip here is to keep that club head open and low through impact, and you can see I've done that, getting the desired result. As the ball climbs upward, my club needs to continue accelerating forward, until I feel it's aiming at the pre-determined spot on the green, allowing a natural flow of energy in the follow-through. This is the area on the green I chose in the pre-shot routine, where I wanted the ball to land, which is above and left of the hole. I picked that spot because the green breaks left to right and the ball will run quickly downhill towards the hole. Look at where my shaft is pointing, the position of my hands and the direction where the clubs face points even after impact. My left shoulder does not rotate around left of my intended target line, but rather tilts up towards the clouds to allow the arms and club face to travel on a straight swing line. This is important to avoid turning the club face off line and pulling the ball a different direction, resulting in a lot more ball speed. If you're not very confident yet in this particular shot, it's not a bad idea to write down some of the flop shot golf tips in this golf instruction and practice them out on the practice range. Stay relaxed and allow the clubs swing weight, to control the tempo. You're going to make some bad shots before you start making consistent ones. The most important observation is to know this will be the process and practice it until you become confident doing it at a moments notice.

After allowing the weight of the club head to determine the swing tempo and the acceleration has been accomplished, this particular golf tip demonstrates the flow of my swing carrying me to this finished position. The shaft and club head are pointing at the exact spot on the green, which I picked out previously where I wanted the ball to land. You are looking at an opened faced, half swing, from the nine o'clock position of the back swing. I use more of my upper body in this type swing, keeping the lower body quiet. The movement of my right knee is to insure I maintain good balance and weight on the left side before and during impact of the ball. If you attempt too much wrist in this length shot, you will likely see a low skulled or bladed trajectory shot. That is because you have led the impact with the heel or the hosel of the club head, resulting in an impact to the ball with the leading edge. Think of the club face sliding underneath the ball, sending it up to the clouds, and use a more tilting of your shoulders to swing back and through. If you rotate your shoulders while swinging, you will change your swing plane and will close the club face at impact. That results in a chunked shot, which usually skids across the green and over into more grief. Another flop shot golf tip here is to keep your head looking down at where the ball was resting before impact. You're not swinging so hard you can't find the ball, so maintaining a clean finish is paramount in consistent shot making. Although I'm providing you some good fundamentals as a foundation towards a successful golf swing technique, the ball flight needs to be performing from the result of that technique. The type ball you use has an effect on that result as does the golf club equipment you use. There are several good brands and models out there, and I usually recommend what I feel, in my opinion from experience, provides the best advantage and easy of play, no matter what level of play you are at. The best complete playable ball right now would be the Callaway Tour i 4 Piece Golf Ball,matched with a set of the dynamic Callaway X-22 (4-PW,AW) Irons – RH Steel.They simply help you play better. Before we move to the next photo, I want you to see the height of this flop shot, so you will see that when done correctly, the ball should simply drop into a dead ball effect. It's high enough with very little forward momentum to release and run, so it lands quite and trickles towards the hole.

Even though you may consider chipping onto the green from here, you need to realize the ball will have too much top spin… add that to a downhill slope to the flag, and you will more than likely end up 25 feet past the hole. If you try chipping onto the fringe to slow the ball speed, make sure you're comfortable with the type of grass you're chipping onto, because it usually hangs up in the first or second cut. From there, you're putting across rough or attempting another chip shot. This golf tip would be to teach you when the proper time and place is for the chip shot — and this wouldn't be one of those times. Instead, you need the ball to land softly on the green and trickle to the hole. The flop shot is the golf swing technique that is the best choice. This is a very do-able shot you can learn, and there is no substitute for practice. If you are not comfortable with practicing this at the practice range, spend a half-hour a day in the backyard, because it pays dividends out on the golf course. I will recommend you start in the backyard or Local Park, with a bag of plastic wiffle balls, to enable you to get the foundation for this particular swing established, then start after a week or so and work into the range balls. Try these White Wiffle Golf Ballsfor the yard and these Wilson Sponge Bob Golf Ballsfor the living room, as long as you have some safe swinging room. It is a very important shot that once learned, you'll be using it a lot to help get close to the flag. Once again, before we move on, let's remember the set-up and swing tempo to do this shot correctly. Set-up with your ball position in the center or bottom of your swing. Choke down a couple of inches on the grip and use a slightly open stance. The key factor on this tip is to point the face of the blade towards the clouds, because that's the direction of the ball flight. Your hands are to maintain a back and through motion with out turning over the club face or making the big release. The club face stays low in the grass through impact and with good acceleration, depending on how far the ball needs to travel. The tempo is maintained by the feel of the weight in the club head. Allow the club to do the work and remember, too much wrist action is not your friend. I try and maintain a long swing arc on those longer flop shots and a nine o'clock swing on the shorter shots. This example next to the green is about an eight o'clock swing. That means you need to practice different swing lengths and speeds, to get a proper feel for this shot.