Virgil Herring on the Flop Shot (Video)

Here's an interesting video from GC by instructor Virgil Herring on how to make a flop shot. I'm including it because he has a couple of interesting images that might help you get the ball up quicker.



The images are:

• Imagine the wedge's face is a mirror and make sure you can "see your reflection" all the way through the swing. Since you have to open the face a lot to make a flop shot, this basically means your lead wrist is pretty much FLAT all the way back and then CUPPED from impact to finish. It sounds a bit awkward to me, but the flop shot requires a lot of wrist action and this image may work for you.
• The other image is to imagine that you have to sling the clubhead under a waist-high rope strung between you and the target. This one seems to use a less exaggerated motion, but that may just be me.

The idea in both cases is to get you to flip your wrists at impact to make a fairly flat, short followthough. That should cause you to automatically use the bounce on the wedge, rather than the leading edge. If you're having trouble getting consistent results from your flop shots, one of these images might be just what you need.

Of course, don't forget to (a) use your most lofted wedge and (b) put the ball forward in your stance if you want to make a flop shot. If you put the ball back in your stance like you would for a chip shot, you'll never get it up in the air.

Yeah, I know that's basic stuff. But it's usually the basic stuff that trips us up.