Golf Tips 3-4

03 HOW TO GET OUT OF JAIL

BY TIGER WOODS

There are no get-out-of-jail-free cards in golf. When faced with a shot from trees so thick you need a flashlight or a lie in rough so deep you can't see your shoes, you need two things: an active imagination and a total absence of fear. I've always been taught that bad lies are part of the game and certainly nothing to fear if you're prepared physically and mentally to deal with them. That's the rub: You must have the strength to hit from the hay and the concentration to execute the shot under the most extreme pressure. Several years ago, I decided to bulk up and add muscle mass to handle difficult lies without injuring myself. When I dig the ball out of the deep stuff, I really fire my right side through the shot toward the target. That takes pressure off my left side through impact and allows me to get a lot of force behind the ball.

In the trees, you have to be creative, which is the fun part of practice and competition. It helps to have a mental picture of the ball flight, trajectory and how the ball will react when it lands, and the best way to achieve that is through practice. I rehearse this by practicing huge cuts, low hooks, flop shots and hitting from buried lies. Make a game of it on the range. You'll be surprised how much your confidence will grow when you're prepared for almost any situation.

But if you don't have the courage to play the shot, you'll fail every time. That's the difference between those who execute difficult shots successfully with amazing regularity and those who don't. After weighing the odds, have the guts to go for it.


04 HOW TO HOLE A DOWNHILL-LIE EXPLOSION SHOT

BY PAUL AZINGER

Lee Westwood called it the best bunker shot he’d ever seen. All I know is I had to hole it. It was the 18th at The Belfry in the 2002 Ryder Cup, I was 1 down to Niclas Fasth, and if I lost my match, we’d lose the Ryder Cup. The ball was on a little downslope, sitting kind of heavy in the sand, and I was into the wind. My technique is to let the club release. You don’t want to guide it, which is the biggest faux pas the best players make under severe pressure. I knew if I hung on to it, the ball wouldn’t get there. I read the green like on a putt. The ball just came out great, trickled down the slope and into the hole. Even though we still lost, it was a thrilling moment.