What is your favourite “unconventional shot“, and where have you played it?

[John Chilver-Stainer]

By “unconventional” I mean, a shot you wouldn’t practise on the driving range.

A couple of my favourites that I always try when the opportunity occurs.

A slightly faded 3-iron, off a downhill lie, to a green which is angled at 2 o’clock.
I start it off left of the target, the Df (Deviation of flight) is about 15 yards, and try and gradually curl the ball along the line of approach.
I don’t always pull it off, but when I do it’s so cool to see the ball change direction and roll down the axis of the green.
I used to try this regularly at Leuk G.C. in Switzerland

The other shot I like doing is a punch shot half swing 5- or 6-iron into the wind, where an 8- or 9-hasn’t a chance.
The last time I tried this successfully was at the 14th Machrihanish Dunes, the wind was very strong coming off the sea. I started the ball outside the right hand side of the green and watched it blow approximately 20 yards to the left and land next to the pin (for a very satisfying birdie).

Let’s hear your favourites.

[Bill_McBride]

Standing in a bunker with the ball in the grass about two feet above, choked down well into the metal, just hoping not to hit yourself with the ball.   Then you suddenly wish you were a lefty or vice versa.   

[Sven Nilsen]

Three wood where the ball is a foot or more above your feet.  Almost feels like you're swinging at a baseball.  Every once in a while you catch one that jumps off the club face and clears the top of the klondyke by a couple of feet before trundling down to the green.

[Ronald Montesano]

Bill...what's the vice-versa?

[Philippe Binette]

every shot at North Berwick... or just about

[CJ Carder]

The first one that comes to mind is my 5-iron from 100 yards out on the 1st at Royal Troon.  Flushed it to 12 feet.  I also pulled off a pretty nifty bump and run with a hybrid from behind the 3rd green at Ballyneal.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Dearie me! What an incompetent I am! A putt that goes in the hole is unconventional by my standards.

Both my sons have a wonderful ability to hit a low, punch shot into the wind or below trouble and I saw (on the television) Retief Goosen and others playing exactly that shot this afternoon in the Africa Open. It was a joy to behold!

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Hamburger – Falkenstein calls, but these Hamburg shops may delay you. The Lord has clearly decided that you should part with your money before getting to the course:







Psalm 51 comes to mind with the last one, ‘Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.’

[Mark Johnson]

pitch from  pile of leaves in the winter.   Open the club and play like a bunker shot.

Have holed two of these in my career.

[Joel Zuckerman]

I like to putt with the 21 degree hybrid from 30--60 yards short of a green that accepts a run-up shot.  That distance is a little tricky with the wedges, at least for me, and I find that smacking the ball towards the pin, bouncing in along, usually ends up with an acceptable result. 

Good technique in the UK, at BD, and up at Secession Club in SC, where I play with some regularity..

[Bill_McBride]

Bill...what's the vice-versa?

Lefty or righty, depending on which side of the bunker the ball stops.  The shot I described, nearly impossible for a right hander, is a piece of cake for a mollydooker - and vice versa.

[Jason Topp]

The Cory Lewis Swing and Jump  

Last fall, I watched Cory set up with his feet hanging over the right side edge of a fairway bunker, hit the ball and then jump in on the follow through.  I have copied him a couple of times and it has worked.  

[David Royer]

Jason, Do you have video?  Reads unusual.

[Pete_Pittock]

driver off the deck out of the right side forest, cutting it back to the center. Among other places during the Dixie Cup at Mid Pines.

[Howard Riefs]

Bill...what's the vice-versa?

Lefty or righty, depending on which side of the bunker the ball stops.  The shot I described, nearly impossible for a right hander, is a piece of cake for a mollydooker - and vice versa.

Learn something new every day: today it's the term "mollydooker."  Thought this mollydooker would have come across it by now. Clearly I need to get to Australia soon.

http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/mollydooker/

[Cory Lewis]

The Cory Lewis Swing and Jump  

Last fall, I watched Cory set up with his feet hanging over the right side edge of a fairway bunker, hit the ball and then jump in on the follow through.  I have copied him a couple of times and it has worked.  

What course did I do that on?  I guess it says alot about my golf game that I saw nothing unusual about that shot!

[Brett_Morrissy]

Two that come to mind:
Just in the fringe of the Marrum grass LHS FW of Barnbougle Dunes #18, bunted a 3 wood about 130 yards onto the green.

And my favorite shot for a flop or pitch type qround the greens is-  a fully extended swing but with little to zero power, just lift the club up and let the weight and momentum bring it thru without deceleration. Hardly hanging onto the grip.

[Wade Whitehead]

After striking a power line that ran directly across the hole immediately in front of the tee I once played my second from the gravel lot of the used car "dealership" that ran along the first at Holston Valley Golf Course in Bristol, Tennessee.

That's my favorite unconventional shot.

WW

[Sam Morrow]

The Cory Lewis Swing and Jump  

Last fall, I watched Cory set up with his feet hanging over the right side edge of a fairway bunker, hit the ball and then jump in on the follow through.  I have copied him a couple of times and it has worked.  

What course did I do that on?  I guess it says alot about my golf game that I saw nothing unusual about that shot!

I don't remember that shot, of course as fast as Cory plays.......................

[Adam Clayman]

My new fav is wen I have to brace the shaft against my forearm. It's great because of all of the pontificating socialist dictators who think there is only one way to swing a club.

[Chris Johnston]

AC

I think I witnessed that shot! 

Adam is the best I've seen taking the alternate approach. Belongs in the Hogwarts Hall of Fame!

[Lou_Duran]

When Adam was made, the mold was destroyed.  I like recovery shots along the ground, and when I was younger and much stronger I could make the ball turn L-to-R at pretty sharp angles.  Probably the most unconventional shot I've played was at Adam's prompting.  I think it was the 14th at Black Mesa and I had hit a long drive with a brisk wind that caught the greenside bunker on the downslope of the green comlex, short siding me from the pin.  I looked and looked to find a way to get the ball on the green from 30' out, and finally caught Adam making wild gestures at me that seemed to point up the slope nearly 150* away from the pin and into the rough.  There is absolutely no way that anyone could have seen a shot there, but the combination of firm ground, whispy rough, the slope, and the wind conspired to allow my sand shot to barely trickle onto the green and nearly hole-out.  It was a one in a thousand shot and Mr. Clayman acted as if nothing unusual happened.     

[Jason Topp]

The Cory Lewis Swing and Jump  

Last fall, I watched Cory set up with his feet hanging over the right side edge of a fairway bunker, hit the ball and then jump in on the follow through.  I have copied him a couple of times and it has worked.  

What course did I do that on?  I guess it says alot about my golf game that I saw nothing unusual about that shot!

I am guessing at the first course.  You announced it before the shot and then hit it well.

[Jason Topp]

Anyone had success using the toe of the putter on a bunker shot buried in the face?  I have tried it a couple of times without success.

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Some great shots in there.

Noone’s mentioned the choked “5-iron” hit hard into a steep bank green side.
The ball hammers into the bank and springs almost vertically up in the air to make a soft landing on the green and roll towards the hole.

I look out for this shot a lot. It especially comes into play if there’s a downhill lie and not much room on the green to the pin.

The last time I used it I played from a downhill lie in the grass on the outside of a bunker,  struck it hard over the sand, it bounced up from the grass on the inclined front of the bunker and thankfully landed on the green softly and not back in the sand.

My playing partners were not impressed as much as I was. They claimed I'd mishit and fluked it!!!!!

My most memorable of this kind of shot was at the Road Hole on the Old Course.
I was on the path so chose to strike the ball with the leading edge of my sand wedge horizontally into the low bank. Sure enough the ball sprang in the air and descended on to the green. Yes!!!

I’ve yet to sink one of those though