Welcome to Shaving Strokes, a GOLF.com series where the game’s brightest minds share their tips to help you, well, shave strokes! Today, GOLF Top 100 Teacher Tom Stickney shares six shots that average golfer rarely practice.
It’s often said that we tend to practice only what we enjoy — and typically, those are the parts of the game we’re already good at. As a result, the average golfer rarely spends time working on the areas that need the most improvement.
Below are six types of shots that most golfers rarely practice. Give them a little time during your next practice session and you’ll be well on your way to shooting lower scores.
Most players I see are only practicing longer putts and short putts on relatively flat surfaces — typically with just a 1- or 2-percent grade. But the putts we three-putt most often are the ones that come after a poor lag putt on more severe slopes.
To fine-tune your feel on the greens, try practicing putts over big humps, onto and across shelves, and on putts with significant break. When you do, the flatter putts will feel much easier, and the more difficult ones won’t leave you with a 10-foot comeback for par.
Golfers often get into trouble in fairway bunkers when they swing too hard, which causes excess movement and leads to hitting behind the ball. The key to hitting solid fairway bunker shots is all about club selection and controlled movement.
First, choose a club that gives you enough loft to comfortably clear the lip of the bunker. Then, if possible, go with one club stronger than you would normally use. This allows you to make a smoother, more controlled swing — reducing lower-body movement and improving consistency at impact.
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Swinging at full power out of a bunker often leads to too much motion, making clean contact difficult. Instead, focus on a controlled swing and aim to strike the ball slightly thin. When you do this, you’ll typically make solid contact. Even if you do hit it thin, you’ll likely carry the green rather than chunking it 50 yards short.
A great drill to develop this shot is to visualize a stripe — like the one on a range ball — running around the equator of the ball. Take one or two extra clubs, aim slightly left, swing easy and focus on hitting that stripe. More often than not, you’ll catch the ball cleanly, and it will fly with a gentle left-to-right shape.
Most golfers only pay attention to the lie of the ball when it’s obviously poor, but understanding how uneven or hilly lies affect ball flight is essential for improving your game and achieving long-term success.
When facing a significant slope — whether uphill, downhill, or sidehill — it’s crucial to prioritize balance. One of the best ways to stay in control is by taking an extra club. This allows you to make a smoother, more controlled swing without having to overexert yourself, which can throw off your balance.
As a general rule, if the lie is even moderately to severely sloped, club up. Staying balanced and steady during your swing is far more important than trying to hit a full shot from an unstable position.
Fairway woods are among the toughest clubs for the average golfer to hit consistently. The combination of a tight lie and a large clubhead often creates the urge to help the ball into the air — usually leading to mishits and inconsistent contact.
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Choosing the wrong fairway wood for the lie only makes matters worse. It’s essential to select the club that best suits the conditions in front of you. If the lie is tight and the ball is sitting low — barely above the ground — consider switching to a higher-lofted fairway wood or a hybrid. You want the ball to appear more accessible, with the clubhead sitting flush to the turf. This visual cue gives you more confidence and increases the chance of solid contact.
The key to hitting fairway woods well is keeping the takeaway long and low, and focusing on clipping the penny through impact. That mental image helps promote a clean strike and a shallow angle of attack — both critical to making solid contact off the fairway.
Most amateur golfers rarely practice from the rough, which means they lack an understanding of how different lies affect ball flight and control. Without experience, it’s difficult to make confident decisions when faced with tough lies. Let’s break it down into three common rough lies.
Ball sitting up
When the ball is sitting up nicely in the rough, it’s a green-light situation. You can use your normal swing, and the ball will typically react how you’re used to — though it may fly slightly farther due to the grass reducing spin and adding “flyer” distance. Be aware that the harder you swing, the more this flyer effect increases. With this in mind, consider taking a little off the swing or using a slightly less-lofted club to compensate.
Ball half exposed
This is a tricky lie. Sometimes the ball jumps; other times it comes out dead. This unpredictability is why practicing from the rough is so important to your development as a golfer. The more exposure you get to this type of lie, the better your instincts will be.
To improve your chances of solid contact from a half-exposed lie in the rough, start by steepening your angle of attack to minimize the amount of grass getting between the clubface and the ball. One way to do this is by moving the ball back in your stance about one inch, which helps promote a more descending strike. At address, try hovering the club slightly above the ground to encourage a cleaner takeaway. Lastly, focus on making a quicker, steeper backswing to help deliver the club on a sharper angle into the ball.
Ball sitting down
This is a challenging lie that requires a decision: play it safe with a pitch out, or go for something more aggressive. Loft is your best friend here. It’s better to come up short with a higher-lofted club than to risk using too little loft and watching the ball barely get out.
When faced with a ball sitting down in the rough, start by moving the ball back one inch in your stance to promote a steeper angle of attack. Aim slightly left to accommodate the more upright swing path that this adjustment creates. On the backswing, pick the club up more sharply to set yourself up for a descending blow, and then “chop” down on the ball to minimize the effect of the grass. Expect the shot to come out with a lower trajectory and extra rollout once it hits the ground.
The fairway wood or hybrid is an excellent choice for getting up and down from just off the green, whether the lie is good, bad or tight. It’s especially useful when the pin is close to the edge of the green. As golf course architecture continues to evolve with collection areas around the green, you’ll see this shot used more and more on Tour.
Here’s how to set up:
By making a putting motion, you’re allowing the extra mass and length of the club to carry the ball onto the green. With practice, you’ll find that minimal effort is required to get the ball to the surface, so I recommend sticking with the same hybrid for consistency. This way, you’ll become familiar with how the club delivers the ball, making it easier to predict the outcome.
This technique is also effective on steep hills or in medium rough, where you just need to nudge the ball slightly and let gravity do the rest. A note of caution: only use this shot for very tight pin placements near the edge of the green. Longer shots require a different set of fundamentals.
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