Instruction
The difference between a pitch shot and a flop shot on Trackman
One of the best feelings in golf is executing a delicate flop shot over a bunker; take a mighty rip and watch the ball rise quickly, fall slowly toward the ground, land near the pin and stop dead. It’s an unbelievable sense of accomplishment, but few people actually know how to hit this type of shot, or how they happen.
In this article, I’m going to show you information you’ve probably never seen before so you can understand how to actually hit the “flop” and channel your inner Phil. Let’s look at what a pitch shot with my 58-degree wedge looks like on Trackman, and compare it to a flop shot with the same club.
Pitch Shot
- The path mirrors my normal swing with an in-to-out club path of 2.3 degrees.
- The face angle is slightly left of the path (but right of the target) at 0.3 degrees.
- This ball carried 34.2 yards with a spin rate of 6195 rpm.
- The peak height of this shot was 18.4 feet with a landing angle of 38.3 degrees.
Flop Shot
- The club path changes to excessively out-to-in at -7.4 degrees.
- The face angle is right of the path AND right of the target at 0.7 degrees, giving us an excessive face-to-path ratio of 8.1 degrees.
- Clubhead speed was much higher in the flop versus the normal shot at 51.2 mph versus 44.1 mph, as was the dynamic loft at impact at 57.3 degrees versus 46.4 degrees.
- The ball carried only 27 yards versus 34.2 yards on the normal shot, but only had 3702 rpm of spin.
- The height of this shot was 25 feet with a landing angle of 51.4 degrees. The steeper landing angle helps the ball stop more quickly on the green, despite the reduced spin.
Now that you understand how these two shots differ, let me give you my six simple keys that will help you execute flop shots more effectively.
- Use your highest-lofted wedge to execute the shot.
- Aim your body left of the target so you can shift your swing direction and swing path more out-to-in.
- The face should be open at address relative to your body alignment; it should point at your target, or just a little right of it depending on how high you want to hit the shot.
- Allow the swing to follow the alignments of your body so that the club moves up and away in the backswing, and then cuts across the target line through impact.
- STAY in your posture through impact and keep rotating through the ball so the handle does not raise through impact. Doing so can cause shanks and “wiped” shots, because the more the handle lifts the more the hosel is pushed toward the ball and the more the blade opens.
- Allow the rotation of the right shoulder to ensure that you keep “moving” through impact. You don’t want to stop accelerating, because you’ll end up chunking or blading the shot. Be confident and aggressive!
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Instruction
Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!
Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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Instruction
How a towel can fix your golf swing
This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.
For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.
Setup
You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.
While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.
Get a Better Shoulder Turn
Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.
In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.
Stay Better Connected in the Backswing
When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.
Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.
Conclusion
I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.
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Instruction
Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks
You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!
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McDuff
Mar 8, 2016 at 10:20 pm
Thanks, this is very accurate and relevant information that most people don’t know…..you should see people trying to flop with no idea how to do it, it’s quite funny….don’t know why people ‘shank’ the article but offer no insights at all….
Tim
Feb 16, 2016 at 7:20 pm
@Rich IMO the pitch is great up until about 40% of the full swing distance of my lob wedge (or if I’m inside that, but have a lot of green to work with). Inside of that, the roll out is often too great because I have to swing too slow to generate the required spin. That’s where I switch to the flop to use the height to get the ball to sit. So, I’m not sure the numbers showing the two shot types carrying the same distance tells me anything useful to bring onto the course.
steve
Feb 13, 2016 at 8:00 am
I love how he edits the comments. Nice removal of comments
Zak Kozuchowski
Feb 13, 2016 at 4:03 pm
Steve,
It’s our moderating team that removes comments, not authors. Please read our rules and terms to better understand why we removed your comment: http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/?app=forums&module=extras§ion=boardrules
Steve
Feb 13, 2016 at 8:15 pm
The most open, honest, friendly, and most respected golf site on the web.
How can you have a open and honest website when you delete opinions that are opposite of your agenda
Zak Kozuchowski
Feb 14, 2016 at 10:58 am
What agenda? Your comment was a personal attack of one of our most respected contributors. We’re all for discussion and even disagreements — please talk about why you don’t like Trackman-based teaching all you want — but complete disrespect will not be tolerated.
Steve
Feb 14, 2016 at 2:21 pm
Complete disrepect? Saying that all the articles he writes are about trackman data? That a kid could tell us the data?
And by looking at the reviews of this article I am not the only one, shank.
tony
Feb 15, 2016 at 12:24 am
I can’t believe the Trackman Master (1 of only 60 worldwide) spends his time writing articles related to the Trackman.
tom stickney
Feb 15, 2016 at 1:32 pm
Steve–
I have no problem with disagreements; I’ve been wrong before! You have no basis for your comments as you have never taken a lesson from me nor have you spoken to me personally so let’s change that…
I’d be happy to discuss my thoughts with you and if you have issues then you can at least be better educated as what I am all about.
Email me at [email protected] and leave me your number and we can discuss.
Andy
Feb 11, 2016 at 5:32 pm
From a clean fairway lie this makes sense. From the rough the flop can be more effective in certain situations because the spin of a pitch would be less from a non fairway lie. The flop is stopping the ball with trajectory and the pitch is a combo of spin/trajectory. I think a lot of players would benefit with more trackman type information about the different short shots that are available. Learning how to play shots that run/don’t run in certain situations really helped my game.
teaj
Feb 11, 2016 at 4:37 pm
I don’t trust these numbers. Usually a pitch is higher than a flop
Dev
Feb 12, 2016 at 3:51 pm
What.
emb
Feb 11, 2016 at 1:08 pm
just wondering how the flop shot can have a – or left spin axis with such a + face to path relationship. You’d think this ball would have a + spin axis or what most would refer to as “cut spin”
tom stickney
Feb 11, 2016 at 4:02 pm
The ball starts mostly in the direction of the face…with the path so far left it is influenced a touch leftward. Remember that with a spin-loft this high the face to path won’t affect the ball as much
tom stickney
Feb 11, 2016 at 12:34 pm
I don’t know if I’d rely on the roll out distances of these shots as they are not predicted on landing on a green just a fairway.
Philip
Feb 11, 2016 at 12:58 pm
That explains it, and thanks for the insightful information. I realized after reading your article that I have been taking the in-to-out concept just a bit too far. Whenever I just stepped up to a ball and tried a flop shot I would execute it flawlessly, yet every time when I think through the shot I would shank or blade it because my thinking approach was to execute a flop shot with an in-to-out path. This will give me back my flop shot option :o)
larrybud
Feb 11, 2016 at 12:15 pm
The difference in spin rate is the most surprising to me. Would love to see a high speed closeup of impact, the ball must skip across the face like crazy on the flop shot.
Rich
Feb 11, 2016 at 9:15 am
Would be interesting to see the two shots at similar carry distances. They both rolled out about two yards, so from the outside looking in, there’s no good argument to attempt the riskier flop. If your pitch shot rolled five yards when the distance was reduced to match the flip shot, then there’s a good reason.