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Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

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The Punch Shot

The punch shot is a way to hit a 3/4 swing that flights the ball lower. This is useful for shots into the wind, when you don't want a lot of spin, or when you want something that has a little more control than your stock full swing. There are a few major adjustments that you will have to make, but the general principle is that it's similar to your distance wedge technique.

  • Ball position will move slightly back in your stance
  • Shoulders more level
  • Quiet either the hips or the wrists
  • Lean forward during the backswing and have the hands moving more down and left through the shot

Playlists: Fix Your Flip, Fix Your Chicken Wing (Bent Arm @ Impact), Specialty Shots

Tags: Speciality Shot, Impact, Follow Through, Intermediate, Beginner

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In this concept video, we're going to discuss the punch shot.

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So I've got my seven iron here with the loft tool, and we're going to use this shaft

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to represent the ground, because before we get into the mechanics of how we're going

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to hit this punch shot, I want you to understand essentially what we're trying to do

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and why.

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So it's hard to understand a punch shot, unless you talk about a concept called spin

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loft.

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Now spin loft is essentially the difference between the dynamic loft and the angle of

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the tech.

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So if this is the ground right here, and let's say this is straight up and now like so,

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let's say this is pretty close to how I hit my normal seven iron.

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You'll see that there's an angle formed between the ground and the club face.

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That's going to be the dynamic loft.

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Now if we include the angle of the tech, so a club coming down like this would have less

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spin loft than a club coming down like so.

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So what ends up happening in a punch shot, we're going to try to get it to launch low

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and with a little less spin.

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So to help it launch low, we're going to move this back.

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Now that will cause us to have a little bit more or a little bit less dynamic loft

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like so.

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But the problem is if we increase the angle of the tech by about the same amount, we don't

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really change the spin loft profile until we end up getting about the same amount of

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spin.

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So what we're going to have to do is even though we're playing it back, we're going

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to try to come in shallow as shallow as we can.

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It's virtually impossible.

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We're going to increase our angle of the tech by moving the ball back.

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But we're going to make some stance adjustments and some swing adjustments to help create

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this downward spin.

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So let's go through the technique of what we're going to do in order to maximize

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or to decrease this spin loft and maximize the distance that we can get with a really

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low launching club.

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So now that we have a basic understanding of this spin loft concept, let's talk about

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what we're going to do with this punch shot in order to apply that.

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Now there's three major keys that we're going to cover with this punch shot.

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One is going to be set up, which is basically just going to be shoulders a little bit

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more level, ball a little bit more back.

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The second is going to be the follow-through, which helps kind of shallow out this steep

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set up that we've created.

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So the second one, the shallowing out is going to come largely from having the stance a

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little bit open, as well as having the hands work a little bit more left through the shot.

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And the third thing is we're going to minimize or take away one of our power sources

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because by decreasing the spin loft we're going to get more roll out of it if we were

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to increase the speed will increase the spin and it may not necessarily end up like a punch

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shot it might just be kind of a low stock swing.

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So let's go over these three pieces.

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So the setup first, this is my full procedure, so I've got my grip, got my left foot turned

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out, and I've got my ball position somewhere off my left inner thigh, left ear, whichever

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is more comfortable for you.

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So for this punch shot, I'm going to play the ball a little bit closer to my right ear

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similar to what we do in the distance wedge.

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In fact, a lot of what we do with this punch shot is going to be very similar to a distance

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wedge just with a club that has less loft on it.

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So it's going to be a little bit more off this right ear right side, and then to account

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for the fact that I've got the ball position further back and then I'm going to be hitting

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down on it.

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I'm going to open my stance.

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One of your goals when you're playing around with this on the range is to figure out

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how far back can you go and still hit good shots, how open do I need to go with my body

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to still get it to fly straight, all those little factors.

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But that's my basic setup, upper body's leaning a little bit more level, ball position

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back, kind of looks just like so.

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So then the second piece is what are we going to do in the follow-through to kind of help

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shallow out the fact that we've set up with all these extra little steeps.

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So I've got my stance going left, ball position back.

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The big thing is I'm going to, if I was to make kind of my normal move, you could see

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that the club would be coming straight into the ground because of how I've kept my shoulders

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a little bit more on top of the ball, a little bit more in front and a little bit more

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level.

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So if I was to go like so, that club would just dig straight in the ground, which would

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give me a very small margin for air.

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So what I'm going to do is when I get into kind of the second stage of that release,

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I'm going to let my hands work a little bit more left and around and that left side

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is going to help by kind of raising up like so.

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So it'll look kind of something like that.

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Now the third piece is taking away one of my power sources.

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So in this case, I like to use whatever your dominant power source is and then take away

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whichever is kind of your least power source.

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So in my particular case, where I guess I should say, the two most common that I see are

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you're either going to quiet your lower body or you're going to quiet your wrist.

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You're still going to use your core and your trunk and your shoulders pretty much the same

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way you would in your stock full swing.

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So in my particular case, I would tend to quiet more the wrist.

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So I'd have a little bit shorter arm swing and a little bit less wrist set, a little

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bit less of this down clock, kind of more like the distance wedge swing.

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But I would still release my hands through the shot.

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They would just be covering a little bit smaller range of motion.

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The other option, if you're more of a upper body kind of spin type player, would be to really

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just quiet that lower body get a little bit more on top and then have your swing be upper

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body arms hands and kind of quiet the lower body.

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So I'll try and demonstrate those two.

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You'll see that one of them is a lot more comfortable for me, but that's why you want to

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know your pattern, know your swing and go out and practice it.

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So here's my good setup position and then there's my kind of dead hands model which

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is more of what I use so it had a little bit shorter arm swing, a little bit less wrist

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set.

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Now we'll try and do let me prep that upper body spin movement.

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So you'll see it's quite difficult for me to quiet my lower body but that's a little

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bit more of that kind of three piece upper body punch shot.

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Both of them work equally effectively as well.

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It's really just more is what your pattern of movement is and which you'd be more comfortable

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using.

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So practice both of them on the range see which one works best for you and then don't

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be scared to pull this on the course anytime you're trying to flight something a little

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bit low it shots into the wind or get out of trouble.

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