In this video, Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Ged Walters looks at 7 Risk & Reward Scenarios... And How To Play Them!
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to the London Club. Now as we head into the main competition part
00:04of the golf season you are going to need to make some really important strategy decisions
00:08while you're out on the golf course and that's what this video is all about. We're going
00:12to take a look at the seven biggest risk and reward scenarios. We're going to talk you
00:17through some of the strategy involved and tell you how to take on the shot if that's
00:21what you decide to do. Now the advice comes courtesy of Jed Walters. Jed is one of the
00:25Golf Monthly Top 50 coaches. He'll talk you through the technique that you need to play
00:29all of these crucial shots. Now this video it's important to say comes in partnership
00:34with Nikon and the CoolShot 50i Laser Rangefinder. I'll be using this to provide us with all
00:39the key yardages that we need while we're out on the course. Now it features something
00:43called dual locked on quake functionality that helps you to identify the flag a little bit
00:48faster and a little bit easier. It also allows you to scan the horizon to help you differentiate
00:54between the flag and the background. Now the last thing I'll say about it is that it also
00:59has a magnet that allows you to attach it to the side of your golf cart. Right, come on
01:03then Jed, let's get started.
01:18Okay so this one is all about picking your line off the tee and again how aggressive are you
01:22with that line. And this is a great hole to talk about this on because it's a par five,
01:27it's reachable for the longer hitters but you've got a decision to make. You can either go down
01:30the right hand side of the hole, makes the hole much longer, probably plays it as more
01:34of a three shotter if you go down the right, or you can be aggressive, you can go down the
01:38left hand side to the left of those trees that you can see at the end of the fairway. That
01:41leaves you with a much shorter shot into the green but it's tighter, so it's trickier.
01:45So in a scenario like this Jed, what are you thinking, what's the thought process that people
01:49need to have? Okay again like all shots it's the shape of shot that you hit is the key isn't it. So
01:55if you're fading the golf ball then you would look at it and say well you know I want to be giving
02:00myself the greatest funnel. So you know faders would definitely tee up on the right hand side of
02:05the tee box. Drawers would probably tee up a little bit more over to the right hand side
02:10and be aimed a little bit to the right so they're again creating their bigger funnel. If you were
02:16going for the more dangerous shot, the risky shot but gives you the greatest reward you would definitely
02:24be more on this right hand side even if you were fading the old ball because you know if you tee up on
02:29the left hand side you're hitting a fade then you know your line is literally over these bushes here on
02:33the left and that's not a good place to start mentally. Give yourself sort of almost margin
02:37fair and then you can see the shot in front of you to be able to paint the picture for what the ball
02:41flight is going to do. Now the yardage that I've got here, so the tree at the end of the fairway that
02:45you need to be left of or right of is 282 playing 275. So that's the kind of distance that you're
02:51looking to hit it. But if you go for that left hand side what makes this tricky is it's slightly blind.
02:58So how do you play blind shots? How are you visualising that target and that ball flight when it's
03:03blind? It's the same as when you can see exactly what's in front of you and you know if you picture
03:09where the ball is going to finish and then if you drew your shot shape in your mind back to your point
03:15where you stood. So you're visualising then from the sort of left of the tree for me I'd be visualising
03:21pretty maybe a gentle draw all the way back down to here if you're a fader visualise the other thing
03:26and then from there it's just about trust. It's about trusting your process. So it's all about
03:31focusing on what you would have as a swing thought if you've got one or stuff that you've been working
03:37on with with your coach. Yes. So the impact is all about the process. Yes. So you try to make your
03:44swing. Which is a really good point because that becomes harder to do as the pressure mounts. It's
03:48very easy to get away from that process. Okay Jed, so go for it. I want you to have a go for the
03:52aggressive shot. The aggressive shot. I'm looking the tree maybe to sort of the left side of the
03:59tree sort of left side of the branches so from that point of view there just picking my line
04:05focusing now squaring my face just here just in front of that line I've picked out at. Now I can
04:12build my stance around the club face and then from that point of view it's just trusting my feeling there
04:19and then just committing to it just focus on what it feels like to swing the golf club.
04:27And there's that little draw at the tree and then just back round into the fairway. Perfect and
04:32you've I think you've got about 170 odd yards to the flag. You're a real birdie chance if you can
04:38pull off that. Eagle chance. Eagle chance. So it goes to show you you can do it but you need the thought
04:44process and then you need to be able to have the presence of mind not to get too caught up in
04:49anything else other than your normal process. If you do that you might just be able to pull off a few
04:53more shots like that one.
05:00Right so as you can see we have a tree in the way. Now this is a par five the 11th hole here on the
05:04international course of the London club and Jed it's one of these scenarios where you've got two
05:09options. You can chip it back out sideways. Yep. That's fine but in that scenario here you're still going to have
05:14about 250 odd yards left into the green. So you can take the more aggressive play up the right hand
05:19side but that is a little bit more dangerous. Now the Nikon is telling me that to the crest of the hill
05:26Jed you've got 150 yards which would leave you about 80-90 yards in which would be absolutely ideal. So
05:31the question is what do people need to think about before taking on the shot and then if they do take
05:36the shot on how do they do it? Okay lie, swing direction, your pattern are probably the first
05:44two things to think about. Okay. Can I hit the shot I want to hit? So can we get to the crest of the hill?
05:49Can we get it 150-160 yards down there? From this lie we've got here we can do. If we were here
05:55No way. No we've got no chance yet. You've just got to take your medicine there. And then understanding what
06:01shot you hit. So if you're a slice of the golf ball then you can't hit this shot. You're not going to just be able to
06:05turn it on and off otherwise you wouldn't slice it. So you've got to understand that if you're slicing it
06:11your swing pattern is this way then you're going to have to fade it around the tree. Well from this
06:16position here that's not the shot. If you're maybe over there yeah you can play that. If you try to
06:23play it from here you're bringing the tree. Yeah yeah so it's a tough one. Okay so then with this
06:28particular shot you need to hit the hit a slight draw. You need to keep the flight down because of the
06:33branches. Technically how do you do it? So the ball's going to start closer to where the club face
06:40points. So we don't want to point the club face at the target because there are trees there so the ball
06:44will start too close to it. And nine times out of ten you see somebody try and play this shot and
06:48he'll hit the tree. So we want to align the body a little bit to the right of the tree. So from here
06:54I'm looking at probably where the bunker is. Yes. Just there. So if I was to align the club face to the
06:59bunker and my body a little bit to the right of the bunker then I've now got the ability to swing
07:08the club normally but have the club face at impact slightly closed to the path I'm swinging on which
07:13is going to then help me do it. Yeah and I guess you should be able to look down at a dress and see
07:17that the face of the club is slightly closed to what you would usually see right without it being too
07:22exaggerated and bringing the tree into play. Yeah and then nudging the ball a little bit back in your
07:26stance than where you'd normally have it. So not loads we're not going to push it all the way back
07:30here. You know maybe a ball's width maybe a ball and a half's width back in the stance just to try
07:36and take a little bit of that loft off and just keep that initial launch a little bit lower.
07:45Yeah lovely shot Jed. I think it shows that you can develop the skills that you need to be able to
07:49hit these shots but it does take some practice. Right so we're on the par 312 on the international
08:00course at the London club and Jed this is a risk and reward scenario because the question that
08:04everyone will need to answer in a position like this is how aggressive are you with your line? How
08:09close to the flag do you aim? Now Jed what's the information that you need to gather in order to
08:15build a strategy in a scenario like this? Okay so the main problem that we've got is the water which
08:21we need to carry so whether we want to be aggressive and go at the flag I suppose it would just depend on
08:28where you were you know if you were in the club championships and you were into the back nine in
08:33the in the last round and you're going on a good score then you probably want to just going to stick
08:37this in the middle of the green it's almost like playing 12 Augusta isn't it on Sunday but you need
08:41to know what is it to carry the water at the flag at the flag and then also right I've got the slope
08:48on to help and it's 165 playing 152 to carry the water. Okay and what about the middle of the green?
08:55Middle of the green is 16 or 175 playing 160. Okay so there's not a great deal in it between those two
09:06so now the next number we need is the most important one what is it to the hill at the back of the
09:11the green? Here at the back is 179 so 190 playing 179. Okay that's the number right because we want
09:22to take the danger out the equation bear in mind that most golfers don't flush it all the time so
09:29if you miss strike it but you've got the club that's not going to hit it anywhere beyond that
09:34second number at the back of the green then you're going to be on the green yeah so if you hit an okay
09:38shot I'm on the green hit a great shot I'm at the back of the green. Okay go on there Jed okay you've
09:43got one task here got one task here to carry the water one task here to carry the water well I've got
09:48six iron because I know that well if I don't quite get it I should carry the water and if I hit it really
09:52solid well at worst case scenario I'm going to be back edge back edge yeah okay so but we are going to
09:58go for it you're going to go for it yeah it's a quite aggressive line I'm going to be aggressive on it yeah
10:02I've just pulled it a touch well you've just drawn it away from the flag it's fine it's good
10:11it's only just about made it over but it's I think goes to show that the thought process
10:16is exactly right figure out what it is to the safest part and then work from there
10:20okay so this is less of a risk and reward scenario more just risk as far as I'm concerned for me this
10:32would be and for most golfers I think this would be one of the hardest shots they could face the
10:35long bunker shot Jed have you got a safe way of playing this yes mentally and visually it's an
10:41intimidating shot the reality is it's quite straightforward okay the loft is the key to it
10:49right most people will come in here it's greenside bunker so they will immediately go in the bag and
10:53reach for their greenside bunker club long wedge generally for a lot of people 58 60 degrees some
10:58people will go sand wedge but it's still a lot of loft we've got I don't know what was it it looks
11:03like it's about 45 well laser is telling me it's 40 yards to the flag and then 60 yards to the bank over
11:08the back right okay so the key then is to play the shot in the same way but use less loft to play it
11:17so I've got two clubs here I've got my 58 which is my normal greenside bunker club but the shot I
11:21play this with is actually a pitching wedge right okay you know it's what 13 degrees of loft difference
11:28yes okay Jed so I'm going to ask you to play two shots play one with your normal lob wedge
11:32lob wedge to start with I'll take the wedge and I just want you to talk through the techniques what's
11:36the greenside bunker technique and then play it again with the wedge hopefully we should see the difference
11:40okay so I personally prefer a square setup you know there's a lot of people open the club face
11:48and aim to the left it's good because that engages the bounce but you can still do it in a slightly
11:53different way so me personally I prefer taking the setup and aiming at your target then create
12:00you with the stance ball position as you can see there's a little forward of center from here now I'm
12:06going to roll the club face in my hands a little bit so I'm opening the club opening the face that's
12:11engaging the bounce and taking the leading edge away yeah but then obviously that's off to the right hand
12:17side but if I then lower my hands that brings the face back to the target it tilts the loft back to
12:22where I want to go and that enables you to use your wrist a little bit more to create so I can make my
12:26normal swing in terms of direction a little bit more sort of wristy so feeling upward hinge and then
12:33downward hinge more now some people would be pick the club head up and throw it in the sand with your
12:39trail hand and then some might feel point the butt of the grip at the ground and then point it back at
12:44your torso quickly whichever resonates with the individual I would say more than anything but it's
12:49having that mental picture yeah
12:51yeah
12:55and as you can see you've made it into that
12:57well yeah yeah well you look at that if that was the green that would be a
13:01absolutely no problem so uh right let's have a go for the flag then okay um give you that and I'll
13:06give you that and give yourself half a decent life Jed I'm going to give you a chance right okay let's
13:11pop it there you go okay so same setup same routine same technique only this time I'm not
13:21rolling open 58 degrees it's a lot less so so you are opening it but yeah because it's left off to
13:30start yeah so just opened it there a little bit but then once I lower my hands I'm pointing it back
13:34more at the target and then just making the same motion and you've made the carry easily and it
13:46I mean you've made that look incredibly easy but I think it is one for people to practice
13:50yeah and just get comfortable with less loft yeah bunker shots are the ones that are hard to
13:55practice because there's not a lot of facilities to go out and just stand and hit shots but practicing
14:00them different lofts but the same technique seeing the different trajectories and distances that you're
14:05going to get yeah that's a simple way to do it
14:13okay so this is a real risk and reward scenario so you've got a long shot over water it's 165 to carry
14:19the water 180 to the flag Jed so it's a you know it's a long enough shot over the water to really get
14:25your attention you can play this up the right hand side and a lot of golfers would be well advised to do
14:30that pitch it on and make par that way yeah but I want to focus on going for it and hitting that
14:36long iron or that hybrid into the green and when I want to talk to about technique like what's the
14:40key to playing this shot well the biggest thing obviously we've got a perfect line because we're in
14:44the fairway the fairways here fantastic I think the biggest thing that we need to think about is
14:49making sure that the club makes contact with the ground in the correct spot okay yeah and for a lot
14:56of people you know ground contact is generally happening sort of back here so there's a lot of
15:03you know golfers hanging pressure backs moving the sort of arms away from the ground and or raising up
15:10a little bit to avoid hitting the ground here and that's why you know a lot of golfers pick it clean
15:15off the top hit the thin shots hit the fat shots it's top shots um and really if we want to strike the
15:21ball really nicely then we've got to hit the ground but we need to hit it in the correct spot which is
15:25always target side you go ball right ball first grab ground second exactly that's the order that
15:31you're looking for yeah so give us a tip or a drill to help people focus on that then I would say for
15:36most people they need to make sure that their weight is forward towards the target so whether you're going
15:42to go with hybrid or an iron so I mean you know for the distance that we have here 180 that's about my
15:49six iron distance okay um you know for there's plenty of golfers who you know might not even sort
15:55of hit that 160 carry with iron so yeah you know if you need to hit hybrid hit hybrid hit the club that
16:01is going to carry it the distance you need as always you know we know what it is to the flag we know what
16:05it is to the carry you know if we know what it is to the back of the green which I can tell you
16:09it's 195 to the back so you've got a bit of room there for every golfer there well we've we've got
16:1715 yards behind the flag so really what we need to do is pick our 190 club yes and hit that one okay
16:23so what's our what's our tip for striking the ground so from this one here so I'm going to go with iron so
16:27I'm going to give that there to you um and the key to it as I said is weight forward so from this point
16:32of view here for most golfers from the top of the backswing the pressure can shift into the trail side
16:40and then stay there so we have the ability to hit the ground here and to avoid that we raise up we
16:47early extend we separate the elbows flick it at the wrist so this is all raising the circle that the club
16:53is moving on away from the ground away from the golf ball what we actually want to do is feel that from
17:00the top of the backswing we shift towards the target so we shift the pressure more in for me
17:05the left if you're a lefty to your right and we maintain that movement constantly and maintain
17:12fairly straight arms so extended arms so the club will then want to hit the ground
17:16more over here well that's going to give you your ball turf strike that's going to give you the biggest
17:22opportunity to get that quality of strike yeah and if you start doing it you will immediately notice
17:27what a big difference it makes the quality of the contact huge difference and we can't just talk
17:32about this shot forever you should have to hit it for us so taking my aim
17:40squaring that face in there and then for me i mean i'm always a little bit more left side of pressure
17:48anyway into the the setup position so i'd probably be maybe i don't know 60 65 percent into my left side
17:54address anyway with irons um you know a lot of people maybe can drift you see a lot of it to the
17:59right so i'm going to be a little bit more into the left hand side try and stay nice and stable in
18:04the backswing and then shift the pressure try and get that ground contact over there
18:14i just started that fraction to the right drawing though yeah it's coming around yeah so nice and safe i'm
18:21on the green but a slightly longer um shot than ideally i would have liked but i've got an eagle
18:26putt yeah so i mean whatever you would do in this scenario whether you go for it or play it safe it's
18:30worth practicing this shot that jen is talking about here because again if you can develop that skill set
18:35it really can come in handy
18:42so we have a classic risk and reward scenario one that many golfers will face you know in the majority
18:48of rounds of golf they play and the question is how aggressive do you want to be how close do you
18:52want to pitch this ball to you to get it close to the flag what should people be thinking about here
18:57jed um don't try and keep it this side of the flag is what i would say right okay yeah you know hitting
19:06it to six feet to 10 feet is a good result but bear in mind there's still 10 feet the other side as
19:13well which gives you more room more room um the classic one is literally trying to sort of be too
19:19cute with it and dumping it in the bunker yeah um and that's why it is such a fearful shot for most
19:24golfers and i guess the key here is to assess the lie that's why we've got two golf balls obviously
19:29we've got one which is you know it's not lying too bad and it's very close to the edge but it's you know
19:34it's not a bad position to be in and then this one here you know this is really nestled down
19:39um so this is a very difficult one to judge in terms of how it's going to come out sometimes
19:44these come out sort of really dead other times they'll they'll fly on and release a lot um the
19:49key is just committing to how far you want the ball to fly through the air right so if we think of of
19:56a to b is where the ball is to where it lands and b to c is then out of your control okay so we
20:04concentrate on the length and the type of motion that's going to move the ball from its lie to the
20:11green and then you know if you get from that light especially if you get quite lucky it lands softly
20:16and it ends up close then great but you're better off with the putter in your hands than just keeping
20:20this wedge in your hands in your next shot definitely yeah definitely so um talk us through how you play
20:25it then so you assess the lie yeah you're trying to pitch the ball past the flag are you or on the flag
20:30um i would be looking at this and i would be looking at trying to sort of pitch it close enough to the
20:35flag um i'd be thinking of about maybe two or three feet short of the flag so try to carry it all the
20:43way okay so play this one for us so from here um this kind of lie here is it's a kind of lie where if
20:49you were a really good or skilled bunker player you could play like a bunker shot okay um and play that
20:54sort of flop shot which everybody likes to see um if you're not so skilled playing the bunker shot you can
20:59still play that type of flighted shot but just take all the risk out of it that's the shot i need
21:05to know how to play okay tell me that shot there is really just taking your setup to where your your
21:12target is there and then we're going to open the club face to give ourselves more loft so i've got
21:19my sand wedge here which is a 54 degree but now by the time i've opened it up that's getting closer to
21:2458 60. what i'm going to do now is i'm going to move around to my right so i bring my club face
21:32more to the target so from there you see the ball position from this angle actually looks like it's
21:39right in line with sort of the inside of my left foot but the reality is it's still quite central yeah
21:45so i've now got the club face pointed at target so i've got my loft preset i don't need to do anything
21:50i can literally just keep my arms nice and extended move them back and then just rotate the torso
21:56through just allow the loft to slide underneath and just pop it into the air yeah so it's the length of
22:01swing now for the distance that it needs to go okay and so from here now keeping the pressure of the
22:06body into the left hand side and then just moving arms back chest through and just committing to it
22:14you see how it just pops up in the air it's landed about a foot short it's run on it's probably about
22:22nine feet away but i take that every day yeah and i think it shows that you can get yourself into a bit
22:28of a fix here if you start to really get too aggressive having that mindset of getting the
22:34ball back in play giving yourself a putt for par it could make all the difference to your scoring
22:44okay so the final hole here on the international course at the london club it's a par five just
22:49over 500 yards jed i think for a lot of golfers they will have a hole at their home club where
22:54they know that if they get a really good drive away they might be able to get to the green in two
22:58whether that's long par four or par five on this occasion the crest of the hill that you can see
23:02over there in front of us i've lasered it's telling me it's about 235 to get over that crest of that
23:10hill so if you can do that jed you'll get up to the you'll have a good chance so how do you add a
23:14bit of extra distance to your drives without losing control i think the key is and modern driving rangers
23:21and all the gadgets that we can have now is we've got a lot more data about what we can do ourselves
23:27knowing your club head speed is an important one because relative to your speed
23:32your launch conditions are the most important things as well as where we strike the golf ball
23:37on the club face so if you're a slower swing speed player yeah you need a higher launch angle right
23:44and a little bit more spin then is not too bad okay as that club travels faster through impact then the
23:51launch will come down a little bit spin needs to come down so you can optimize your conditions to maximize
23:56your distance okay bear in mind if you miss the middle of the club face then that's going to cost
24:02you energy you're going to be spinning it up a bit probably aren't you so how do you how do you achieve
24:06those launch conditions then is that something you do at setup yeah so setup and again you know certain
24:11players when they've got a really fast speed they can add the ball a little bit further back in the
24:15stand so not quite hit it as up so hit it down but i would say generally for the majority of players who
24:19are swinging the club say under 100 miles an hour with the driver then a ball position which is a
24:26little bit further forward launching it a little bit higher and is key yes um it's like now so we're
24:31into a little bit of a breeze here um so a lot of people who want to tee it down well teeing it down
24:36it's going to lower your launch going to increase your spin actually has the opposite effect
24:39it makes it shorter into the wind than actually hitting it further yes okay so go on there show us
24:45what the correct address so so from here now i've got the ball teed up fracking higher than normal
24:51if you were to sort of address ball almost in line with sort of left foot there from here keeping the
24:57ball there and just opening the width of your stance okay so the ball now from especially from
25:02my perspective looks like it's sort of out here um and from there that's going to give me the
25:07opportunity then to have a little bit more upward angle of attack hitting the ball fraction above
25:13the center of the club face and then trying to optimize them launch conditions and i guess one
25:17of the keys here is to ensure that your upper body doesn't you don't end up trying to sort of
25:21um so your upper body's not getting leaning into it staying centered over your stance not leaning back
25:26but sort of staying centered right yeah it's almost trying to keep your your head stable keep your
25:31your centers aligned so your lower body is still going to drive forward your pressure is still going
25:35to drive forward but especially where the ball position is there you're behind the impact that's going
25:39to help you with that upward yeah delivery okay go on then hit it for us what a shot beautiful
25:57you've carried the cusp of that hill comfortably you'll be able to get up in no problem at all i think
26:03it goes to show just get those those basics right at address get the strike right you should be able to
26:08add a few extra yards so there you have it that's our look at the seven risk and reward scenarios
26:13that every golfer will face hopefully jed's advice there will help you think a bit smarter to ensure
26:17that when you do want to take on the risk involved in these shots you've got the technique and you've
26:22got the skill set to be able to do it because it could help with your overall scoring but that's it
26:26for now from the london club thanks very much for watching we'll see you next time