In this situation, I’ve pulled it left of the green, I’ve got a very severe downhill lie and I’ve got a little bit of a downhill line on the green, and then obviously I’ve got pond behind me.
So we need to hit a bit of a soft shot to land it on the green and keep it from rolling over out of a downhill lie. The setup changes a little bit in this situation where I need to be able to swing down the slope and allow the loft of the club to work for me. Now the slope itself is going to take loft of the club. And I still want to swing this club back up again on plane. So when I set up to the shot, I drop this right foot back, get my leg out of the way of being able to take it around the corner on the backswing.
Then I set the club up. Because I need loft, I’ll set this wrist up a little bit. Now I’m going to deliver the club, I call it down the plane line with my wrist release and swing down the hill with my club as my left knee straightens up. What that’s going to do is it should produce kind of a soft pitch that doesn’t go very high.
It lets me swing under the ball. Pitch it out there nice and soft. Give myself a tap-in for a par.
So notice I didn’t try very hard to get in the air. Our tendency in this situation is to want to back up and that’ll cause us to run into the ground too soon. So it’s critical that you stay over on your left side, let the club release down the slope, have it pitch right out there and roll right down the hill.
I hope this helps you conquer these lies.
