The Weekend Golfer

 

Lessons - Heavy Rough Shots

If you find yourself in heavy rough, the most important thing is you do not get bogged down and take ten shots to get out of there. If need be, take an extra shot just chipping out onto the fairway instead of being overly ambitious and going for the green over some trees hitting from deep rough. Your game mentality is important here as well. You need to be able to concentrate on getting out of the rough, not on the fact that your last shot went into the rough. As usual the first step is visualizing the shot. Determining the best course of action. Remember you will often be able to recover from the rough. However , if you are in deep rough, take the safe option, and chip out. It is always more advisable to take the safest option, as risks in golf, such as hitting through trees, rarely pay off.

Your stance here should be slightly further apart than usual. This will give you a more stable stance than usual. You will need more stability due to the shots you will be playing here.

Punch

A mid iron is the best club to use for this shot, something like a five to a seven is acceptable. This shot is mainly used in two situations. The first situation it is used is when you are in extreme deep rough, for example knee height grass, you would probably have to use this type of shots to "hack" the ball out onto the fairway.

The technical side of this shot is very simple. You club face should be fairly closed. Fully swing back and sharply come down on the ball in a stabbing type motion. This will kick the ball out of the rough, and hopefully onto the fairway. One common problem with this shot is, getting the ball out of the rough but having it run onto the next fairway. This leads to the typical zig zag golf game, going from one fairway to the next in a zig zag motion all the way up the fairway, it sucks believe me I have been there. The other time the punch is used is when you are in the second stage of the rough. There is usually the first layer of rough which is usually about one to two inches deep. Different shots are played from this surface. Tips for those shots can be found in our Light rough Shots section. The second rough is grass about five inches deep. The punch shot is used because the grass tends to get caught up on the club, ruin the swing and the rhythm, cause a huge decrease in power, and a bad shot. The punch shot is the most efficient way of getting any distance out of this type of grass. The shot is played in exactly the same way. Closed face, come down on the ball and no follow through swing. You will notice this shot is very low and will skid along the ground. Take this extra distance into account as the ball can skip and roll for quiet a considerable distance.

Chip

For this shot a pitch or sand wedge is used. This is mainly used when you are in the second layer of rough, but it is not appropriate to punch the ball out. For this shot, your stance should just be normal width. Open up the club face, and and settle your club behind the ball. Usually only a half swing is required here. A common problem here is people tend to mess up this chip because they are not concentrating. They think this is just a little shot, and it does not matter where it goes. I agree, in this situation, the most important thing is getting the ball out but you cannot afford to take two shots getting out when one would suffice. It is imperative that you still concentrate fully on this shot. If not you can expect to hit the ball with the edge of your club and to only knock the ball forward a foot or so. Remember, mistakes are not bad, but not dealing with them is.

The Normal Shot

If you are in the deep rough but have a good lie, it is possible to hit as you would on the fairway. One important point here is to make sure you are holding the club tight enough The longer grass can easily catch the club, and distort you swing sending the ball into deeper rough.

• Light Rough Shots
• Fairway Bunker Shots