Seve Ballesteros
Imagination…all the great players have it, an ability to create a shot to get out of trouble. Just a few weeks ago we lost the master at this art Seve Ballesteros.
I had the privilege to play with Seve in 1983 before he won the Masters. Seve had been suspended by the PGA Tour for not playing the minimum events required the year before. He was however eligible to compete in our majors over here.
To prepare for the Master Seve played in a mini tour event in Lake City, Fla. the week before. Its not to often someone like me playing the Mini Tour gets to play with the No. 1 ranked player in the world in an event. It just does not happen. It was an honor to say the least. However the story ends about five latter at the Westchester Classic in new York. I am hitting balls on the range and Seve walks up to me and shakes my hand and asked me how I had been. It stills gives me goose bumps writing about it today. Not only was he a legend he was a great guy.
Golf will miss him.
In honor of Seve I would like to share with you a little known short game escape shot that will help you get out of some very difficult situations.
You’re near the green and you need to hit a high lob shot that will land on the green and stop. To add to the difficulty of this shot your ball is resting on hard pan with very little grass if any. For whatever reason putting is not an option. Your normal pitch is not going to work here and you fear blading it over the green. What can you do?
Take your Sand wedge or lob wedge. Place the toe of the club on the ground, the heal of the club will be in the air, as shown first (Figure A).
As we address the ball in order to keep the toe of the club on the ground we will need to stand in an upright position. The hands will be close to the body and the shaft will have no angle it will be straight up and down. (Figure B)
Once in this position we are going to make a putting stroke hitting the ball on the toe of the club. This simple motion will hit a very soft floater like shot that will land on the green and stop. What we have done here by using the toe of the club we greatly reduced the chance of the club bouncing off of the hard pan.
+ Work with this till you get the hang of it. If its not working your using your hands to much (putting stroke) For the good player this becomes another option. For the average player with any lie around the green your going to see this this is a lot easier than hitting a flop shot. In fact it just might become your “go to shot”