tight or hardpan lie not much green to work with...

[Mr Inconsistent]

What dod you guys do or how do you play this shot, when the lie doesn't have any grass under the ball and there's no room on the green in front of the pin. And let's also say that short of the green there is some kind of bunker or mounded grass so an easy bump and run is not an obvious option.

 

[shootin4par]

guard against making a bad situation worse

 

[puttmad]

...

What dod you guys do or how do you play this shot, when the lie doesn't have any grass under the ball and there's no room on the green in front of the pin. And let's also say that short of the green there is some kind of bunker or mounded grass so an easy bump and run is not an obvious option.

Mr I,

I got this shot from Seve if I remember correctly. have used it to good effect a few times.

Use a PW or any wedge you can open the blade wide, but not have the back of the sole of the club hit the ground first when you swing, i.e. if you open a SW wide and then sit it on the ground, it will be sitting on the tail of the flange of the club. That's no good.
With a PW or other wedge you should be able to open the blade, but the club will sit on the ground with the leading edge of the flange. Perfect.

Anyway, the technique is this:

The objective is to smack the underside flange of the club into the ground right behind the ball. Because you are hitting the ground with the flange the club will then slide under the ball. Bit like a mini flop shot, but be aggressive when you hit the ground.

The angle you hit into the ground should not be too shallow.

With the blade well open (and your stance, setup etc - like a bunker shot) the ball will pop almost straight upwards.
Practice it sometime to get an idea of backswing length etc etc....

 

[GolfVn]

Just play it back to the fairway.

 

[puttmad]

....

Just play it back to the fairway.

If your score that day is not life-or-death, it doesn't hurt to experiment now and again...that's how you grow, in golf, or in fact, life...

Playing safe all the time is not the way..

They say a ship is safest when it is in the harbour, but then, that is not what ships were built for.......

 

[speedracer68]

My best advice would be to find a hardpan lie and keep practicing until you can't miss the shot..=)...once you have confidence with that shot you can do almost anything around the greens..=)

 

[jbrunk]

Mr I,

I got this shot from Seve if I remember correctly. have used it to good effect a few times.

Use a PW or any wedge you can open the blade wide, but not have the back of the sole of the club hit the ground first when you swing, i.e. if you open a SW wide and then sit it on the ground, it will be sitting on the tail of the flange of the club. That's no good.
With a PW or other wedge you should be able to open the blade, but the club will sit on the ground with the leading edge of the flange. Perfect.

Anyway, the technique is this:

The objective is to smack the underside flange of the club into the ground right behind the ball. Because you are hitting the ground with the flange the club will then slide under the ball. Bit like a mini flop shot, but be aggressive when you hit the ground.

The angle you hit into the ground should not be too shallow.

With the blade well open (and your stance, setup etc - like a bunker shot) the ball will pop almost straight upwards.
Practice it sometime to get an idea of backswing length etc etc....

No offense to Puttmad, but I live in West Texas, where hardpan was invented and that shot is verrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyy risky. If I can't belly a wedge or putt it, I take my medicine and move on.

 

[otto6457]

No offense to Puttmad, but I live in West Texas, where hardpan was invented and that shot is verrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyy risky. If I can't belly a wedge or putt it, I take my medicine and move on.

LOL!!!

A fellow West Texan!!

Hard pan is a way of life for us. The funny part is that I finally play at a course where hard pan lies are rare (Rawls Course, Texas Tech) but they cut the fairways so short (3/16-1/4") that hard pan techniques still come in handy.

My suggestion is a 60* wedge with low bounce, and maybe a little heel grind. When I run into a hard pan lie, I play the ball a bit behind center, open the face up just a little, and keep the arms moving. I used to practice this shot at the range out of other peoples divot patches. At the far end of the range, there was a bare spot where the ground had baked out like concrete that I used when I was feeling lucky. The ball still comes out lower than you want, but if you get it clean on the way down, you can get some good spin, so it will stop pretty quickly. A nice sharp spin mill helps a bunch.

If you don't have much green to work with, a bunker between you and the green, and a hard pan lie.......I will pray for you my son.

 

[Mr Inconsistent]

After screwing around with this shot at the practice green I'd have to say the best option is what you just said there Otto, 60 degree wedge with as low a bounce as possible and playing a normal to low trajectory pitch shot. I also think keeping the face pretty square is a good idea. When the face is opened it just brings too much bounce into playeven if there is very little bounce on the club. A pitching wedge, nine iron, etc. has too much bounce when opened to hit off a hardpan, brings blading it way too much into play. Another option I consider that worked pretty well to get it higher and stopping faster was to take ideally a 60 degree with no bounce and with a square face play it like a sand shot from a buried lie. Nailing the hardpan behind the ball with the leading edge can produce a sand shot like loft and spin, but it only works on a hardpan that is hard but not concrete like. I tried this repeatedly from a concrete like section and the club jsut couldn't dig in there enough despite me chopping at it like John Daly, there were sparks flying off my wedge.