OK, just had to share, hope this helps someone out there.

It’s the short high spinner displayed by Butch Harmon’s student in the video below. I see a great deal of conflicting information and lots of golfers who don’t know how to use this technique. We teach it to our students in our Golf Schools and once they add all the ingredients, they can do it on the course right away and love it.

This shot is truly worth some of your practice time to develop because it could save you heaps of shots during a round. I played yesterday on a course that had small hard greens, I realized that know one in the event was going to hit greens so I reminded myself how to hit this shot and got up and down 11 out of 13 times.

This shot utilizes the bounce of the sand wedge and gives the ball some stopping power, with some practice you can get good at controlling your distances. It doesn’t take any extra physical ability just an open mind for doing something that feels very different.

Here are the basic ingredients….

SET UP
Ball forward in stance
Weak grip
Body open to target
Club face open

SWING
You must remember that this is a steep swing and resist attempting to scoop the ball up in the air. Yes, you hit down on the ball not up. This goes against your instincts and is where most of us go wrong. You are not attempting to throw the ball high up in the air like a super high lob shot; this is a medium trajectory with lots of back spin.

You want the path of the club to feel as if its going left of target; don’t try to swing from the inside out like you might for a full shot. You ‘over the topper’ out there, just do what comes natural. You should own this shot.

The combination of having the ball forward and the face open will activate the bounce of the club; you might notice that you won’t make much of a divot, this is because the club is hitting the ground with the trailing edge instead of the leading edge.

EXTRA TIPS
Try level shoulders in set up, weight left, and head down through impact – although they are not mandatory ingredients, it might make is even sweeter and more to your liking changing trajectory and adding spin..

Once you feel you are getting something consistent, practice landing the ball at an intermediate target just in front of the hole, watch how the ball checks up for an easy 1 putt. Try various distances to develop the new shot and remember me in your will as you are going to love it.

Butch Harmon

I know the shot, would i be right n saying anything but a perfect lie is frought with danger, read same for firm fairway?

Hey Wasab – I find that with tight lies the trajectory is lower as the ball hits lower on the face of the club, this can make the ball run a little further.

I can do this with a 60 degree lob wedge, but anything else but a fluffy lie with the sand iron, it just just bounces and the ball rockets across the green about knee high. With me it’s all determined by the lie…...if it’s where the grass has packed down with heavy traffic I won’t even think about it.