Bare lie, what to do...

[tball88]

First of all Yoda, I'm excited about your website. I haven't had a chance to get back to Marietta, but I've got all the notes from my lesson, and still read them all the time, besides playing with the dowels and badmitten racquets. Anyway, came across a shot on Friday on the 18th hole and had no idea what to do... bare lie, had to carry a bunker, with about 15-20 feet of green to work with before getting to the pin. I thought about a lob shot, but was scared to death I couldn't get under the ball and would thin it long, anyway decided on a punch chip, decelerated and hit it into the bunker, walked away with double bogey.

What do you guys recommend doing when you have a bare lie and have to get the ball up quickly and stop it relatively quickly.

Take care Yoda and best of luck with the site(Thomas Ballard)

[12 piece bucket]

First of all Yoda, I'm excited about your website. I haven't had a chance to get back to Marietta, but I've got all the notes from my lesson, and still read them all the time, besides playing with the dowels and badmitten racquets. Anyway, came across a shot on Friday on the 18th hole and had no idea what to do... bare lie, had to carry a bunker, with about 15-20 feet of green to work with before getting to the pin. I thought about a lob shot, but was scared to death I couldn't get under the ball and would thin it long, anyway decided on a punch chip, decelerated and hit it into the bunker, walked away with double bogey.

What do you guys recommend doing when you have a bare lie and have to get the ball up quickly and stop it relatively quickly.

Take care Yoda and best of luck with the site(Thomas Ballard)

This may sound goofy, but you can intentionally hit the shot fat. Hit it like a bunker shot.

Another thing I was goofing around with the other day with my little boy at the park may be an option too. When he goes to the park he skips the jungle gym and goes straight to play in the dirt. I took an old sand wedge and a few balls to mess with while he was playing army men and stuff.

I drew a line in the dirt vertical to what would be my plane line about where my ball position would be. Then with my right hand only setting up the Right Forearm Wedge, I tried to make sure to take divots in the dirt after the line. After doing that for a while I dropped some balls and hit some right hand only shots keeping the Wedge in its proper alignment. You would be amazed at how crisp you can hit shots off of bare lies doing this. Seemed good for the game to me anyway. You can hit different shots by directing the thrust at different aiming points.

That's my 2 cents.

Bucket

[tfdanos]

First of all Yoda, I'm excited about your website. I haven't had a chance to get back to Marietta, but I've got all the notes from my lesson, and still read them all the time, besides playing with the dowels and badmitten racquets. Anyway, came across a shot on Friday on the 18th hole and had no idea what to do... bare lie, had to carry a bunker, with about 15-20 feet of green to work with before getting to the pin. I thought about a lob shot, but was scared to death I couldn't get under the ball and would thin it long, anyway decided on a punch chip, decelerated and hit it into the bunker, walked away with double bogey.

What do you guys recommend doing when you have a bare lie and have to get the ball up quickly and stop it relatively quickly.

Take care Yoda and best of luck with the site(Thomas Ballard)

Try this-

Zero out #3 Accumulator

Ball position just before Low Point (left shoulder)

Zero pivot

Square clubface

Lots of loft, little bounce on your wedge


Hit procedure (Stage 2 Motion) with Vertical Hinge

Aiming point is back of ball.

Steady Head PLEASE!!!!

Let me know how you do,

[dclaryjr]

This is a shot I face all the time but with one addition--the ground may not be officially classified as hardpan, but it's pretty damn close. There is very little margain for error. I went to one of our local munis today because they have a chipping green that is slightly elevated (all of my home course greens are elevated). You can hit anything from a chip just off the green to a 60-70 yard pitch shot. I wanted to practice for similar situations as TBall--chipping over a bunker OR one of the many mounds that surround our greens. What I found worked very well was using the PUSH stroke (10-3-C) with a lob wedge. HOWEVER, those shots were with pretty decent lies and with turf that gave a little. I then moved over to the side of the green where I found some packed-dirt lies. Now this was a lot closer to the green so I couldn't hit it as hard as I was doing earlier. I found it very difficult to make consistent clean contact on that surface without hitting the ball WAY past the hole. If there isno bunker or mound in the way, I'd probably just bump it up with my 31º hybrid!

[JohnThomas1]

I can't wait to see Yoda comment on this shot. My present tactic is conservative, sand or lob wedge with impact alignments and just pinch the ball of the hardpan. Ball back a bit and hands foreward. If you catch it well the ball will hopefully bite a bit but i don't get cute.

[Martee]

You didn't mention how far you had to carry the ball to reach the green.

After playing years of desert course I discover that trying to manufacture a special shot for these types of lies which were infrequent wasn't very successful.

Finally I resolve to do one of two things

a. Play it like it was a normal tight lie. Hit the ball first and follow through (which seems mentally a hard thing for a lot of us to do)

b. Always play to the largest part of the target, no cute stuff with trying to land 1 foot on the green to stop in the next 5 feet to get close, especially when there is trouble between you and the target.

c. Last resort, say it is green surounded by water and bunkers, either elect to place the ball in a safe area setting up a chip and one putt or put it in the bunker, but don't short side yourself.

This obviously isn't an agreessive Phil/Tiger approach, but then again I am happy with a par, worse case a bogey instead of dropping a couple of strokes, especially if this isn't the last hole.

But for the most part, hit the ball first and play a your normal shot. The ball should be gone before the clubhead strikes the ground. I think Homer mention this in 7-6 and this might give some ideas on how to handle it.

[jim_0068]

Jimmy's Tight Lie Special
patent pending

-First thing to do is to pick your wedge with the lowest amount of bounce and/or thinnest sole. Remember if the wedge "says" 6* of bounce but has a VERY WIDE SOLE the effective bounce is much higher. So pick something that is low bounce and/or thinnest sole wedge you have. Avoid the PW however

-Now take your NORMAL grip (i'm assuming its a neutral grip)

-Now take your stance and position the ball just foward of middle of stance.

-Now rotate the face open A LOT (experiment until you find how much), this is important now, WITHOUT CHANGING YOUR GRIP. You should now have an extremely bent left wrist and turned forearm.

-Next open your stance, you are going to have to experiment with this until you find your optimum open stance line.

(One thing to note before going on is that you have to open your stance and open your face accordingly. If you really throw a wide open clubface you have to open your stance a good amount. Again you have to experiment and see the results)

-Now you will notice from your stance that that ball is more towards the back of your stance because you are open, thats ok, leave it alone.

-Now all you have to do is use a hitting right arm motion and swing along your new open plane line. But how do you do this without thinning it? Here's the neat part i should patent:

What you'll notice is that from this rotated face/bent left wrist position your #3 PP is now more UNDER the shaft instead of BEHIND the shaft which is no good. IF you use that #3 PP you are going to be DANGEROUSLY close to lagging the hosel instead of the sweetspot. So what do you do? YOU RE-POSITION YOUR #3PP TO THE "NEW" AFT POSITION OF THE SHAFT. Then you use your "new" #3pp to drive into the back of ball of the ball and don't be afraid to hit down hard.

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Do all of the above right and you'll hit this high floater off the thinnest lies with no issuse at all.

I figured this shot out in my 6.5' foot basement with a lob wedge and hitting it over my couch using tight ass carpet as my thin lie.

Any questions?

[tball88]

Martee, in response to your question, I probably had about 6-8 yards of carry over the bunker to get to the edge of the green, then another 15-20 feet to the pin. I agree that I didn't want to get cute, I just didn't know what to do with the bare lie. If I just had a little bit of grass to work with, I'd of hit a regular lob or pitch, but my lie was just hard dirt. If I chip it, I'm sure I'm going to run it off the green, but with no grass, I'm scared to thin a lob or pitch.

It's not a shot I have a lot, but it seems dead pan lies give me fits. I can tell you this much. I will not miss left on that approach shot again.

[jim_0068]

tball88....i know EXACTLY what you need to see.

Email brian and ask him nicely to re-upload the small video short he had with him in a bunker made of dirt, LOL, with a 7 iron hitting that shot.

That pretty much SHOWS what i explained a little easier. I did make a few modifications though.