Golf Terms: Shanking

Video Transcript

"Okay, shanking the ball. Even the top pros do this every now and then and it's one of the inexplicable things, that when you hit it, you don't know how to fix it but generally it's from a lack of tempo or a bad tempo. So I wish on the pro tour they wouldn't edit out all the bad shots the pros make because I think that would make them seem more human to us, regular players. So what a shank is, is you're lined up and you're expecting to hit this nice shot but somehow you kind of come across the ball and usually it's not quite a slice it's just kind of a combination of thin hit, with a slice on it and maybe a little too much turf and it a lot of times can go out of bound or put you in a really bad position for the next shot. So you can't let it discourage you but that's what a shank means. It's really just kind of a really bad hit. It's not quite a slice, it's not a hook, it's not a fat hit, it's not a think hit. It's kind of a combination of all of them, but that's when your people say "I shanked it" that's what they're saying. That's what they mean."