Side Hill Golf Shots

It is critical to develop a mechanically strong golf swing if we are to ever reach our potential as golfers and shoot good scores. This is done by implementing solid fundamentals through the use of good instruction. When we are developing a strong golf swing, most of this work is done on the practice tee, in an ideal setting. Usually we are on a perfectly level piece of turf of a mat. There is no concern for the uneven lies that we will encounter on the golf course. This is an area of the game that many of my student have many questions about.

In this article, we are going to discuss two common lies. How to address the ball above your feet and below your feet. The first thing to understand is that the ball will generally move in the direction of the slope. This means if the ball is above your feet, then the ball will move right-to-left. If the ball is below your feet, then the ball will move left-to-right. The greater the severity the slope, the greater the movement of the ball will in that direction.

In both of these situations we want to use our same fundamentally solid golf swing, but we need to make a few adjustments in order to pull off these shots. Let's begin by looking at a shot in which the ball is above your feet. In our setup, there are a few adjustments we need to work in. First of all, we know the shot is going to move right-to-left off the slope so we have to aim ourselves to the right of the target. Remember, how far to the right we aim depends on the severity of the slope. The next thing we need to do is make sure we stand nice and tall at address and we might even need to choke down on the club a little bit. We are now ready to hit this shot. The only adjustment we need to do in the swing itself is to feel as though we are swinging around us, on a flatter plane. Visualizing a baseball swing may help. If we execute the few fundamentals, we should have no problem hitting a nice shot off this lie.

The second type of shot is one in which the ball is below our feet. Again, we need to make a few adjustments in our setup to hit this shot solidly. First of all, we know that the ball is going to move left-to-right, so we need to aim ourselves to the left of the target. Next, we are going to have to make sure we have some extra flex in our knees in order to reach down to the ball and stay down through the shot. Now we are ready to execute this shot. The one thing we need to feel during the shot itself is that our swing should be a little more up and down motion .If we perform these few moves, our shot should start left of the target and move nicely to the right into the flag.

So remember, we don't need to be afraid of these shots and we only need to make a few adjustments to perform them correctly. In fact, learing how to do this successfully can be quite fun. I hope these tips help you hit great shots from sidehill lies and bring your score down. Maybe even win your next big match.


Copyright (c) 2009 Dave Wesley