With summer coming, here’s a shot you’re going to face sooner or later, the tight lie. Whether your region is experiencing an extreme drought, or you happen to be playing on a course where the sprinklers are broken, it helps to know how to play this shot. When you hit from dry grass, accuracy is one of the most important characteristics to maintain, since you will usually be hitting from the fairway to land on the green. So let’s look at how you can hit accurately from these lies.
Normally, when you have a nice fluffy lie, the grass acts as a natural tee, giving you a margin of error in terms of the elevation of the club head at impact. On dry grass, however, you don’t have that margin of error, making it more important not to hit the ball thin and skull it. Focusing on hitting the ball from the correct height will keep you from scuffing the ball, but it also helps maintain the ball’s accuracy.
One great drill for practicing a dry grass shot is to practice hitting off of a driving range mat. Try getting the feeling of picking it clean. The short, buzz-cut-esque artificial grass is a perfect replica of stubby dry grass, and it will help you to ensure reliable shots and accuracy from a bone dry lie.
image: dailysparkstribune.com