![\"Website1\"](\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2009\/10\/Website1.jpg\")
Tim Mahoney Director or Education at Arizona’s Talking Stick Golf Club.<\/p><\/div>\n
Here\u2019s an ironic fact: the players who can successfully pull off these shots are also the least likely to need them.\u00a0 Sure, I can bury an approach in the sand, trickle my tee shot into a shallow creek, or spray a long iron into dense shrubbery. \u00a0But once I get there, I\u2019m the guy who might slash at the ball three times before using the Johnny United wedge– which is to say throwing my ball back onto the grass.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I\u2019ve consulted some of the West\u2019s best golf instructors, who offer the following advice on how to hit a few of these seemingly impossible shots.<\/p>\n
The only thing worse than having your mile-high wedge shot fall two feet short of the green and plug in a bunker (the well-known \u201cfried egg\u201d lie) may be to have it sail over the green and plug in the back bunker\u2014on a downslope.\u00a0 For a good visual of a golfer hitting an impossible bunker shot, consider Ernie Els\u2019s nearly mystical escape from a bunker beside the 13th<\/sup> green in the final round of the 2002 British Open at Muirfield.<\/p>\n For guidance on how to hit a plugged, downhill bunker shot I turned to Tim Mahoney, Director of Education for Troon Golf and an instructor at Talking Stick Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.\u00a0 Mahoney, who is a GOLF Magazine Top 100 Teacher, offers some general advice before getting to the specifics.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst and foremost, never hit two shots in a row from a bad lie,\u201d he advises.\u00a0 \u201cGet back to the grass.<\/p>\n \u201cSecond, never attempt a miracle shot after you\u2019ve hit a bad shot.\u00a0 Take your medicine and get back in the game.<\/p>\n \u201cTo hit this shot you need to understand how a sand wedge works.\u00a0 It\u2019s built like a shovel, and is the only club that has bounce.\u00a0 The worse a lie is the more sand you want to take with your shot.\u00a0 Here, to take a lot of sand, tilt the club up by closing the face at address or leaning the shaft forward, toward your target.<\/p>\n \u201cThen position your body to swing along the slope by setting your shoulders parallel to the slope.\u00a0 On a downhill lie, lean left and put more weight on your lower foot.<\/p>\n \u201cFinally, trust your shot.\u00a0 The golf ball will fly in the direction of the slope.\u00a0 And remember that there\u2019s no rule that says you have to fire at the flag.\u00a0 You can always go sideways or backward.\u201d<\/p>\n Mahoney adds that this is really an easy shot\u2014but that\u2019s why he\u2019s Troon Golf\u2019s Director of Education and I\u2019m the one who buried it downhill in the bunker to begin with.<\/p>\n Grant Rogers, a giant among golf instructors. Photo by Wood Sabold.<\/p><\/div>\n Golf was invented by the Scots, who happen to live in a landscape full of such unfriendly flora as heather and gorse.\u00a0 Now that golf has spread across the globe, endless varieties of malevolent vegetation have created some of the most difficult golf shots imaginable.\u00a0 Take, for example, ice plant, which looks lovely in a ceramic pot in my yard but acts as fierce as a jackal on a fresh kill when it gets ahold of a golf ball.<\/p>\n Possibly the most famous golf shot ever hit out of ice plant occurred at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro Am some years ago.\u00a0 Jack Lemon executed the shot on the 16th<\/sup> at Cypress Point, from the edge of a cliff above the ocean, with the help of Peter Jacobsen, Clint Eastwood, and Greg Norman, who formed a human chain the end of which held on to Lemon\u2019s belt as he somehow managed to hack the ball back to grass without falling into the Pacific.<\/p>\n Grant Rogers, a PGA Master Professional and golf instructor at Bandon Dunes Resort on the Oregon Coast, has found himself in a bit of ice plant over the years.\u00a0 In fact, he admits to playing a shot similar to Lemon\u2019s on the same hole at Cypress.\u00a0 His most vivid memory is of walking toward his ball and hearing his caddie scream a warning: sometimes there\u2019s no ground beneath ice plant.<\/p>\n Rogers describes the shot as \u201cpretty classic.\u00a0 It\u2019s right up there with hitting out of gorse.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t hit it perfectly the ball goes straight down.\u00a0 That\u2019s part of the fun.\u00a0 It\u2019s a deadly shot.<\/p>\n As for actually hitting it, Rogers says, \u201cTake a lot out of there with a really big swing\u2014hit the ice plant and the ball and everything around it.\u00a0 Use a big-faced club with lots of loft.\u00a0 If you\u2019re actually serious about hitting out of ice plant you have to THINK it\u2019s going to come out.\u00a0 Otherwise you could take endless swings and the ball will get tangled and harder and harder to move.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look up and the ball\u2019s not in view, try looking straight back down.\u201d<\/p>\n Rogers had so much fun talking about hitting golf shots out of ice plant that I decided to offer him one of our other challenges as well: hitting out of water.\u00a0 At the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie, Jean Van de Velde needed a double bogey on the last hole to win the tournament.\u00a0 After flailing on several shots he found his ball lying half drowned in the Barry Burn (creek) fifty yards from the green.\u00a0 Van de Velde removed his shoes and socks, rolled up his pants legs, and waded into the stream.\u00a0 As he prepared to hit the shot, a photographer upstream of his ball also stepped into the water, accidentally diverting the current enough to immerse Van de Velde\u2019s ball all the way, thus robbing viewers of the chance to watch a professional golfer execute what may be golf\u2019s toughest escape.\u00a0 Van de Velde made a seven on the hole and lost in a playoff.<\/p>\n Grant Rogers recommends only attempting this Houdini-esq maneuver if some part of the ball is visible above the surface of the water.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty gutsy to even think about hitting this shot\u201d Rogers muses.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s almost like an ice plant shot or a sand shot.\u00a0 It may cause chaos with your golf stance, but maintain your balance and get as ready as you can under the circumstances.<\/p>\n \u201cOpen the club face to give it more loft.\u00a0 A little swing won\u2019t work.\u00a0 You need to take your most lofted club, take a full swing, and hit everything– feel like you\u2019re going to hit the water behind the ball and move the water out of the lake or stream.<\/p>\n \u201cBreak your wrists really early in your backswing to get the club more upright and to give you a chance to blast down and really move the ball out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Grant](\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2009\/10\/GRogersIMG_4565.jpg\")