Winter golf comes with its own unique challenges. As golf courses get wetter, fairways usually take distance off drives, bunkers often become more compact, and greens tend to get slower, therefore it's important we adapt our game in the right areas to keep playing at our best. In this video, Dan Parker is joined by Golf Monthly Top 50 coach Adam Harnett talks through seven key shots you need in your armory to save your game this winter. He'll cover everything from identifying certain lies, how to strike the ball in wet conditions, and how to get your putting pace right on slower greens. Work on getting these techniques right, and I'm sure it will save your game in some vital situations this winter.
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00:00Now you may have already noticed that temperatures are dropping and golf
00:03courses are getting a little bit wetter and that can only mean one thing, winter
00:06is coming. Well in this video we've been joined by Golf Monthly top 50 coach Adam
00:11Harnett who's going to talk us through seven shots that you need to save your
00:15game this winter. We've also partnered up with PING in this video, I've kitted
00:19myself and Adam out in their latest autumn and winter apparel to keep us
00:22nice and warm and nice and dry out on the golf course. We're at West Hill today
00:26let's get started!
00:30Right Adam, so we're gonna look at a couple of shots here that you're gonna
00:36need in the winter and that is out of some differing lies. Now before we get
00:39into the shot itself let's talk about identifying a lie, how important that is
00:44and how not a lot of golfers actually identify the lie before they go and hit
00:48their shot. I see that so often it's probably the biggest mistake amateurs
00:51make is not looking at their lie before they pull their club so they might get
00:55their yardage, they'll pull their club and then they'll hit the shot
00:58and they won't actually look at how the ball's sitting. It's probably the most
01:01important thing to do, you never see a good player not look at their lie before
01:05they hit it. Listen I'm criminal of this as well so you know we're not alone.
01:08We've pulled out two lies here that we're gonna get a lot in the winter.
01:11Let's start with this one on the left hand side, a flyer lie. Now let's talk
01:16about how to identify a flyer lie first and what it actually means. Okay so a
01:20flying lie is when the ball's kind of sat in the in the semi rough and it's
01:24sitting up slightly, it's almost like it's on a tee and what that does that
01:27reduces the spin on the ball so when you strike the ball it's gonna actually
01:31fly a little bit further. So in the winter that's actually quite a favourable
01:33lie to have. Where the ball's sitting up a little bit we've got to be a little
01:36bit careful that we don't go underneath it. Okay. So you know we're not
01:39necessarily trying to change too many things here but one thing we can't do is
01:43be too steep and kind of chop down on this flying lie. So we'll be a little bit
01:48careful with the ball position, we may have the ball position even slightly
01:51forward of normal. Okay. Imagine the ball's on the tee we kind of can sweep it
01:54up a little bit so on this kind of lie that's really helpful. Right so I'm
01:58gonna get you to hit that in just a second. Let's talk about this lie on the
02:01right and you'll get this a lot in the winter. It's not as wet at the minute but
02:04it's sort of a bare lie. One of the key things of this different to the flying
02:08lie is this one we actually need to hit a little bit more down on. We want to
02:11definitely get ball turf strike with this one. So two things I see golfers do
02:16that really you need to avoid. Number one is trying to kind of help the ball up
02:21off the ground just through fear of hitting the ground and fatting it. So
02:25there's kind of a bit of a we call it a missed radius where the radius of the
02:28swing shortens and then we end up thing and topping it. The other one is kind of
02:32been on our back foot again trying to help the ball up in the air and kind of
02:36avoiding that muddy lie and avoiding the fat shot. Both of them actually cause
02:40problems more than they help. So certainly this one here where it's
02:45slightly muddy underneath making sure that we're moving forward aggressively
02:48onto our front foot is really really key. I'd say that's the most important
02:52thing to focus on when you swing through these shots. Let's give it a go.
03:04I nearly had him. You can see how little spin that came out with and how much
03:07that sort of dug in. Comes out really hot again in the winter. That's brilliant. We
03:11want our ball flying further so this lie is actually quite a nice thing to have.
03:19Okay Adam, fairway woods and hybrids are really important to use well over the
03:23winter. Can you explain why a bit more carry distance through the air is so much
03:26more helpful and then how to use these clubs more efficiently this time of year?
03:30Yeah so you know when we're faced with a situation where we've got a long iron in
03:35our hand or a long iron yardage in the winter when the grounds a bit softer one
03:39of the great things that the hybrids and fairway woods have is a much kind of
03:44wider flatter sole to the club. Okay so that helps with that softer ground it
03:49glides through the ground much easier so where we might normally take a four or
03:53five iron in the winter months we know the ball isn't flying quite so far so
03:57it's a good idea to take out your hybrid or your fairway wood and we can make a
04:00few adjustments for for kind of replacing a fairway wood for a long iron
04:04in our setup and hitting our shots. So the key thing the first thing I would
04:09say is it's actually not a bad idea to slightly grip down the club so we might
04:16slightly grip down our hybrid or fairway wood just for a little bit more control
04:21now it also takes a little bit of yardage off yeah so if we're not trying
04:25to hit let's say our four iron normal distance and our hybrid normally goes
04:29further than that just gripping down gives us a little bit more control and
04:33also just helps it not fly too far through the air.
04:40Right so the next shot Adam is gonna save golfers out there this winter might
04:46sound really obvious we're not reinventing the wheel here it's quality
04:49of strike yeah now from this range for 150 yards yep and in this is a really
04:54important scoring area so how do we have better strike in the winter and can you
04:58give us a drill that people can go away with and practice at home on the range
05:01and on the course? Absolutely I mean when the grounds wet one of the things
05:04golfers don't like doing is hitting the ground because their relationship
05:08with the ground normally isn't a good one so we need to make sure we're
05:12hitting the ground in the right place okay we kind of we all know that we're
05:15supposed to be hitting the ball and then the ground okay ball turf contact is what
05:18we're looking for so a really simple drill for this would be making some
05:22practice swings before you hit the ball which enough you know many golfers don't
05:25do anyway yeah but focusing on where you're making contact with the ground so
05:30as I'm making my practice swing I'm trying to make contact with the ground
05:34forwards of the golf ball any particular distance in front do you pick a spot in
05:38the turf? Not particularly I'm just making sure that my contact is anywhere
05:42from the golf ball up that's gonna ensure you know that the downward hit
05:46we're looking for and it'll really stop golfers kind of backing up or lifting or
05:49trying to scoot the ball off the wet ground sometimes I might lay a towel
05:52down on the range yeah you know you might lay just a towel behind here and
05:57swing through and try to miss the towel effectively yeah hitting the ground
06:01forwards and then yeah you can you know bring that into your practice swings on
06:04the golf course and then you can bring it into your real shots when you're
06:07actually playing that's a really good tip and you know we've said this already
06:09but quality of strike is so important in the winter you can get away with a
06:13scabby one in the summer can't you yeah it might run yeah but you know like in
06:16this hole uphill bunkers in front yeah you're gonna need that quality of strike
06:20so think about that when you're on the course and when you're practicing at the
06:23driving range
06:28okay so working our way up the hole now and an important shot to save you this
06:33winter is that 60, 70, 80 yard pitch shot that when the ground gets really soft
06:38it's actually really hard to hit a lot of people start fatting them so can we
06:41talk about how to avoid the fat shot and to get these scoring shots as tight as
06:46possible absolutely the most common thing I see with this type of shot with
06:49a with a wedge in our hand is golfers that get kind of very very narrow
06:52meaning the club sort of comes in towards them the shaft gets quite
06:56vertical and then they kind of come down to steep and chunk that's where that fat
07:00especially the ground soft and wet and horrible absolutely it's going nowhere
07:03so we want to try and create more width with this shot one thing I would always
07:07say is never make a full swing an absolute full swing with a really lofted
07:12club and the reason being is when we're making a real full swing it's easy for
07:17the club to come in too narrow and come down too steep so I always think a
07:20three-quarter swing is absolutely a must when we're playing these shots if
07:23that means you've got to change wedge then and do so okay but a way I really
07:27like a nice feeling or a drill if you like or a nice feel is that when we make
07:31our backswing we should have enough enough width in the clubhead here that
07:36if we take our right hand off we can't reach the clubhead okay to me that shows
07:40we've got a nice amount of width so from there we can come in kind of shallower
07:44and and kind of pick the ball off nicely using the bounce on the club yes and
07:48avoid that kind of leading edge digging into the ground
07:56right now that we found ourselves in a bunker which you might do in the winter
08:00and the summer but a difference in the winter is the lie yeah a lot more
08:04compact a lot less sand most of the time when it's wet let's talk about
08:07identifying the line how to play out of it when there's not a lot of sand in the
08:11ball when it's compact and hard like this it's very different to when it's
08:14sitting fluffy okay when it's sitting fluffy we want to use the bounce of the
08:18club right which is the which is the sole kind of the rounded bottom of the
08:21sole is the bounce and that stops the club from digging into the sand okay
08:25now of course when it's hard like this if we have too much of a bounce angle on
08:29the club we're gonna bounce up off that hard pan into the middle of the ball and
08:34it's gonna it's gonna thin yes okay so it's the common shot I have in these
08:37sort of situations so the things we need to change first of all we need to make
08:40sure we've got a wedge in our bag that has a low bounce so that's gonna be a
08:44number like a six or an eight okay degree of bounce yeah and that's going
08:47to keep the leading edge down in the sand it's gonna stop it from coming up
08:51too high to prevent those sort of thin shots in this scenario we actually want
08:55to encourage the leading edge to dig a bit any setup changes for when it when
08:59it's compact and yeah absolutely so in it with a normal bunker shot we would
09:03normally set ourselves up and have the the ball bit forwards face a little bit
09:08open and of course when we open the face we expose more bounce sure we definitely
09:13don't want to do that in this scenario interesting so having the ball maybe a
09:16little bit more central and squaring the face up squaring the face up how it's
09:21the leading edge kind of getting to the sand much easier yeah you know an
09:25opening club is always going to expose more a closing club is almost like a bit
09:29of a digging tool yeah see what actually useful in this situation absolutely and
09:33we want to get the bounce going down or the leading edge up sorry going down
09:36into the sand brilliant so really useful tips there
09:44okay we're in the bunker I don't talk about bounce when I out of it we'll talk
09:47about it again with these two different chip shots yeah so we've got a buried
09:52lie in the wet rough yes and a tight lie but the ground still pretty wet yeah
09:57let's talk about again how we identify what bounce to use in what situation so
10:01what I'd say is you know whenever we're out now we're on the grass we're on soft
10:04ground right so we no longer need to dig we don't want to dig no so we're
10:08trying to avoid using a wedge with with low bounce very different to when we're
10:12on that hard pan bunker shot out there especially out of this lie we've picked
10:15here which is a bit buried down in some wet rough yeah you do want to interact
10:19with the ground yes it's going through it and not digging into it exactly so we
10:23still need a little bit of a downward angle because the ball sat down in the
10:27grass right so we've got to get down to the bottom of the ball but we don't want
10:31low bounce at the same time because as coming down we're just gonna we're just
10:35gonna dig right so with a bit of bounce on that club at a steeper angle we won't
10:40dig in but we will pop the ball out okay so that's a shot you're gonna need in
10:43your bag definitely over the wind so let's move to this light here you know
10:46we're not far off here yeah but it's almost a different shot entirely right
10:49yes a tighter lie but we've still got some wet ground yeah how would you say
10:53people go about this one so again again high bounce we want to use the bounce of
10:57the club but one thing I like golfers to try and get comfortable doing on
11:01these sort of shots is getting comfortable hitting the ground and
11:05feeling how it's gonna interact okay all right so I've just made a little swing
11:09there I've hit the ground but because I've hit with the the back of the
11:12underneath of the club it hasn't dug in so if you're comfortable hitting the
11:16ground knowing that it's not gonna dig yeah then the bounce will work for you
11:20you'll slide through and you'll be able to hit decent shots in the wet condition
11:23okay now I like especially on this shot here it's a decent way away but nothing
11:27to go over off a thin lie yeah maybe getting something like an eight iron out
11:30but can you just chat about the bounce if there is any on here and how that
11:33might interact differently with with this yeah sure so with a flatter face
11:36club on this kind of lie we really want the club working very much shallow like
11:41almost like a putting stroke in a way we want to get away from any steep angle
11:45that's going to potentially dig that into the ground now our irons typically
11:48we want to take a bit of a divot in a full swing right right but when we're
11:52around the greens like this we don't really want that so keeping that moving
11:56nice and level with the ground if you catch it slightly thin that's better
12:00than catching it slightly fat definitely okay because we're trying to get the
12:03ball out low and rolling
12:09right then last but not least Adam we made it to the green finally yeah and
12:14come winter and especially coming out of the summer the greens are really quick it
12:18can be tough on these long putts to get yourself to hit it hard enough or get
12:22the pace right when they're a bit slower a bit wetter less firm so what
12:26kind of tip can you give us to get better at these sort of lag putts in the
12:29winter yeah so what I see a lot of golfers do when the green start to get a
12:33bit slower and they've got longer putts uphill in the winter is they tend to try
12:37to accelerate really fast and kind of add a hitting motion okay okay now to be
12:43a good putter and control your distance we want the putter moving at a nice
12:46constant speed all right so we don't want the club coming back and then
12:49suddenly accelerating and that's a real temptation when the greens are a bit
12:53slower right so to combat that I want golfers to be a little bit more aware of
12:57the length of their stroke okay so we want the backswing and the downswing to
13:02kind of be the same tempo the same speed we don't want to be going back slow and
13:06then really accelerating it's really easy to over egg it then with that
13:11sudden rate of acceleration so we want a nice constant speed and the way we're
13:16going to do that is matching up the backswing length with the length of putt
13:20we've got effectively
13:29cozyed up nicely have a look for us I say that's a give me on the way back so
13:36a great tip there matters really think about that putting stroke even more in
13:40the winter on these long putts on wet green massive thanks to Adam for joining
13:44us in this video some really really useful advice there but for now from
13:47West Hill we'll see you next time