Mike Woods, Head Golf Professional at Haggin Oaks in Sacramento, recently talked to Eileen Javora at KCRA Channel 3 on how to choose the correct golf club when making short shots around the course.
The Fringe
How often have you considered using your hybrid to chip around the greens? Hybrids are round and big on the bottom and according to Woods, when you are hitting little shots, the club “glides through the turf. When it hits the turf, it doesn’t stick at all.”
To practice, simply bring your hybrid to the putting green, set it up like a putter, choke down on it and then practice hitting chip shots with it. Woods predicts, “You’ll be amazed at how easy that club glides through the turf, when the grass is real short.” The next time you are on the fringe of the green, bring your hybrid or fairway wood with you as well as your wedge and give it a shot!
The Long Grass
Mike advises bringing a sand wedge when the ball is nestled low in long grass. The key on the sand wedge is the bounce (the fat part of the bottom of the sand wedge). Woods explains, the sand wedge “is designed so that when the club goes down and hits the ground, it bounces back out.”
To practice, open the face up on the sand wedge so that you have a lot of bounce, and then take a good size swing. The ball will pop right out of the long grass. The key here is to use the bounce to get the club to glide through the grass.
Click HERE to watch Mike’s appearance on KCRA and learn more about these lesson tips.
