How to Play Golf From Sloping Lies

Full Transcript

Hey everyone Danny Maude here head professional at the Canterbury Golf Club in Kent and I've got a question for you this week have you ever wanted to know how do you play slope Eli's you know we got downhill lights here we got uphill lives over there you know here we're at the 12th hole of Canterbury and there's so many slopes and this is a stroke you next one hole and I think part of the reason for that is because people struggle on this hole because of the slope in lies so in this week's training I'm going to show you how to set up two slope in lies and how to make it really very simple so you can repeat this process on a regular basis so let's have a look so if we're on a flat lie okay so this is a flat light here and this is you okay we're gonna stand pretty similar to this okay so the this is you here and this is the ground here now what we want to try and do okay is make this a similar on a downhill lie and an uphill lie as possible so what we simply do is is we don't do very much we stay this and as the ground slopes so do we so our downhill lie we look like this and on an uphill lie we look like this and we simply just move as to wherever the ground takes us so what this looks like when we're on on here now I've just chosen at the moment we're on a downhill lie here so where we're right foot here is higher than my left foot so what most people do here is if they try to set up as normally as possible so they're almost trying to hit towards a target they tend to lean back but what we want to do is a couple of things we want to set our body up now so it's leaning this way down the slope remember this okay the slopes moved this way so we're going to start body up this way we're also going to make one tiny alteration in the Bob's this we're going to move the ball slightly further back than normal so what if you wherever whatever club you've got in your hands if it's a wood in the balls towards your left heel just move it back a couple of inches if it's an iron in this towards the middle of your stance just move it back a couple of inches and that basically is the setup there's nothing more complicated than that we the ball slightly favors the higher foot on a downhill lie and our weight favors the lower foot on a downhill lie and that's the simplest way to remember it so what we're setting up here you can see look at my body now it's angled this way so that's the setup but it's nothing nothing more complicated now the tricky thing about these type of lies is we don't like the feeling a lot of the time so what tends to happen is we tend to try to help it we tend to try to return back to this weight distribution that's fairly even as it would be on a flat line and what you see a lot of the guys doing is they tend to lean back here and they start to thin the golf ball what we've got to do when we're on sloping light and in this situation our downhill I what I'd like you to do is simply keep the weight on the left foot and what we try to do with the golf swing is swing up the slope on the way back I'm going to swing down the slope on the way through so we're simply following the contours of the ground in exactly the same way you would do if it was flat as I just repeat myself here but what tends to happen we must golfers and one to struggle with this is that when they're on a slope they don't follow the contours of the ground on the way back and on the way through ie down here they try to lift it up towards the target one thing that can help you with this to kind of stop this is when you're not downhill lie if you would normally take let's say a 6-iron from 150 yards let's say start to increase a lot maybe take a 7-iron or an 810 and what that will insure is obviously on a downhill lie when I'm leaning forward here this six sign I'm also d lofting it so I'm turning the sixth sign more into like a 5-iron or even a four iron so if you go on a downhill lie move the loft up to maybe a seven or an eight I'm the other situation I have with this particular lie is is it's not just a downhill lie it's also a lie that where the ball lies below my feet now this is probably the trickiest one the balls below your feet and it were almost out of balance here we're almost reaching for the ball at time so what happens and when the balls below your feet the ball wants to tend for a right-handed golfer anyway he tends to want to curve to the right now the best way you can remember this is if I was to drop the ball here the ball is gonna roll away this way it's gonna work roll from left to right so that's the way the ball is going to want to drift or not on it when the balls below your feet so one of the things you want to do here is is and the ball is below your stands okay is why didn't your stance a little bit what that does is it sets the body a little bit lower to the ground the second thing you want to do is just when you get focus more unbalanced get your body a little bit more over the golf ball okay like this and then I think the main aim here when you're in these situations is just make a nice smooth swing and maintain your balance try not to worry about trying to hit your maximum distance you know you're off balance now full stop that you know we're on slopes the slope is taking us off balance if we start hitting it hard we're going to lose that balance very very quickly so one of the things I generally focus on when I'm coaching people so no any slope for their mallet is just swing within yourself almost half required of golf swings with the primary focus to make a swing which is stays in balance as best as you possibly can so in summary there the ball below the feet here okay we widen our stance just a little bit and we get our bodies a little bit lower to the ground and then what I do is I make some swings what I'm trying to do here it's almost quite technical term but I'm trying to calibrate with the ground I'm making a swing and I might start off with I might miss the ground a few times well that's fine I just keep swinging until I get a feel of a balanced swing and me brushing the ground and you'll notice here my swing is not very long it's correctly quite short okay so from this position here let me hit it off here so I'm here I'm holding my balance I'm going to swing up the slope on the way back and down the slope on the way down because also a downhill lie and away we go

and you'll notice my finish position here is very low I'm not swinging up here why because I'm off balance I want to follow the slope all the way down I don't want to lean back here all right let's move on to uphill wise now so here I am now on an uphill line this is pretty steep so we're going to house you can actually could see so what we're gonna do looking kind of keep the ball in the same place to help me a second so what we're gonna do now is I'm gonna just show you how similar this is to a downhill line what we tend to do with the boy so remember the basic analogy is is there's the ground here's us we do an are polite we simply move with a slight the slope drops we kind of go with it okay so in this situation here what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna leave my body back here okay and the ball is going to favor slightly the higher foot so it with the six sign my BOB which is usually a little bit ahead of center now what I'm going to do because you're not pal I'm gonna move it even maybe a couple inches even further forward so it favors the higher foot where does my weight favor the lower foot so my body now is starting to move into this position so I'm now going in a sense level without perpendicular to the slope and what am I gonna do the same principle I'm gonna swing down the slope and up the slope now so I'm going to fall a slope as much they possibly can I'm gonna swing down the slope on the way back up the slope on the way through and you'll notice here look at the similarities I can't have a very full an aggressive swing here why cuz I'm off balance see on those my back seeing is actually quite short and so with my finish through when I coming through here my also my follow-through is pretty short I can't get through okay so the same principles apply all what simply going to do is move our body with the slope the ball favors the higher foot the weight favors our lower foot and what we do in yours golf swings is we simply swing within yourself with some rhythm and balance and when we swing we swing back and we swing through with that in mind follow the same procedure in my practice things what I'll do is I'll do some swings and I'll just try to calibrate the golf club with the ground and what I mean by that is is when I'm swinging I might find on the first one I might go thud the club straight into the ground that's absolutely fine you know that just basically means that what I'm doing is as my weights moving from my right for them and almost trying to get back to where I feel comfortable this doesn't feel very comfortable so it's going to take a little bit of adjusting so what I do is I make some swings keep swinging until I get that brushing sound okay here with the ground once I've got that feeling two or three swings in the shot I go and through the show I go okay nice and shot nice and easy it'll it be a little bit longer than that but what I'm swinging here I'm seeing downslope fine up the slope I hope that covers slope in lies fear they're pretty straightforward once you know how to play them it's the key lies in the setup which we've gone through and also the fact that you need to stay and swing with imbalance then try to overcook the power okay if you've got any questions as always leave them in the comments box below and I look forward to hearing from you over the coming weeks May thanks have a great week.