How to Hit a Lob Shot in Golf

"Hello! On behalf of expertvillage.com, my name is Bryan Pemberton and we are here at the Reserve at Spanos Park. Today we are going to look at the lob wedge. We are going to actually take a shot that is more of a specialty shot. It is actually a shot that is really locketed and sometimes you hear it called as a lop shot. It is lop shot that is actually intended to be very effective around the green when you have a little bit green to work with. You got a fly bunker, short shot but you can't hit a full swing but you have to actually land it 20 to 30 feet or 15 to 20 yards and you have to hit an extremely high shot so it can land on the green and actually stay close to the hole. It is really an effective shot and it takes little bit of modifying of the club and a little bit of practice. By opening the club face, it will actually get a much more lopped shot. What we want to do is also keep our hands extremely loose and actually feel like we are going to fall through. One thing that I always think about when I am actually hitting lopped shots, I feel like I am lifting the club face as I follow through and that gets a good release and gets the club looking in this position and again you are going to get a lot more lop. A lot of times this shot takes practice just because it doesn't go quite as far as you would expect, it just goes pretty high. Again with loose hands take the club back pretty far and hit the ball pretty high. Again you are going to see a ball take off straight up in the air. What they have now, instead I am using a 56 here, and I just open it up. What you will find now clubs and wedges that are 60 degrees or lob wedges that they are called and actually they basically will let you get the same lob without having to open or modify the club face. Again I will have an open stance here. I'll take a loose grip, pretty much a half swing and again, you are trying to create a lot of club speed getting the club underneath the ball. One of the choices you cannot play the shot is on a tight line. It becomes a little more difficult because you got to catch the shot and got to be able to land and sweep this underneath the ball. So anytime you are in a little bit of ruff or short grass, you want it on tight lines. If you are buried, not the easiest shots to use. In this particular shot, it would be very hard to execute getting the club underneath this ball. So again you really want to take this shot when the ball is sitting up a little bit . Okay we are talking about the lob shot. We've got a down the line view here. We've got a shot here that is probably 10 feet or so green to work with and straight down hill. What we are trying to do here is make sure the club is actually getting underneath the ball and try to lop this as high as possible. This is what we call a flop shot or a lop shot and again, it is going to take pretty much of a ¾ back swing. Again I am not trying to hit this really far. Trying to get the club to really sweep underneath it. So what you want to see in this particular shot is you want to release the club so that the club is actually passing your hands. Again a loose, loose grip will help. Again you will see the ball land really really soft. It just takes a little bit of practice and a little bit of touch in manipulating the club faces; you can see the club faces open, taking a pretty long swing and I'm just really trying to get the putt to come underneath the ball as much as possible. Let's get one good one here. You'll see the ball stop pretty short and actually get a much more effective shot when you don't have a lot of green."