Tip #42: Tackling Trouble Shots

I like trouble. In a perverse way, I actually enjoy finding my ball in a bad lie or a tough situation.

Trouble forces me to stretch my shotmaking skills, and that's part of the fun of playing aggressive golf. Besides, when I'm in a tough spot in a tournament, it's sort of fun to have the spectators gather round and speculate on how I'm going to escape.

The three qualities you must possess in order to play quality trouble shots are patience, realism and imagination.

Sometimes I'll kid around with them. Then if I play the shot successfully, they all go crazy and I get a big kick out of it too. The fact is, for the fan or the player, there's no greater thrill in golf than a spectacular recovery shot.

The other reason I like trouble is that it gives me a chance to do something big -- to turn the tide of a hole, to convert an apparent bogey or double bogey into a par or birdie. That type of swing in fortune can yield tremendous dividends both for one's score and one's psyche.

Throughout this book I've tried to stress an important theme regarding what it takes to play good golf: Attitude is more important than aptitude.

If you take the correct mental approach toward the game, the physical capability usually follows. Nowhere is that more important than with regard to trouble play. So try to view bad lies and tough situations as I do -- not as setbacks but as opportunities. If that sounds like a tough assignment, the following pages should help.

The Basics

Before you can become a good trouble player you have to become a good trouble thinker. That requires three qualities.

The first is patience. When your golf ball plops into deep rough or sails into the center of the woods, take a deep breath. Then forget that shot and start concentrating on the next one. I get angry sometimes too, but I've learned that in golf you can't channel such anger toward anything positive. I've also seen lots of players turn their anger into all sorts of negatives.

Some get despondent. They act as if they've been victimized and there's nothing they can do about it. So they give up. When they reach the ball, they take no time or care, they just swipe at it once -- sometimes twice or three times. If they don't get it back into play, they close the book on that hole. Sometimes such a predicament will ruin these people for the rest of the day.

Others get angry. They suddenly start to see the golf course as a mortal enemy. They no longer want to hit the ball, they want to hurt it. When this type of player knocks his drive out of bounds or plops it into water and has to play a second ball, he usually hits that second ball into trouble too. Anger blurs his ability to concentrate sharply and swing smoothly.

And still others get overly ambitious. They sense that after their bad shot they've lost a certain amount of ground, and they become determined to regain all of that ground on the next shot. From a thick lie in the center of a dense forest, this player will take out his 3-wood and go for the flag. That's usually the beginning of a very big number.

If you can keep your cool after hitting a ball into trouble, you'll have a big advantage over all these other types of players (three groups which, from my observation, encompass about 90 percent of amateur golfers). So whatever it takes, cool yourself down, put the bad shot behind you, and repeat to yourself, "Patience, patience." Later on, you'll be glad you did.

The second quality, which goes hand in hand with patience, is realism. It's important to be able to accept your fate and deal with it. Walter Hagen, the man who won four consecutive PGA Championships, once said that in a given round of golf he expected to miss at least five shots. That way, when his ball rolled into trouble, he was mentally prepared to deal with it. Hagen, incidentally, was probably the greatest trouble player of all time.

Be realistic about your next shot as well. Take a businesslike approach to the problem. You hit the ball in there, and you now have to hit it out. Your assignment is to evaluate the various options and choose the shot where reward most outweighs risk.

When your ball is 200 yards from a water-guarded green and sitting in eight-inch rough, the shot with the biggest reward may be a 5-wood, but from a poor lie, you'll risk smothering or pulling that shot, or hitting it into the drink. The risks are greater than the reward. An 8-iron layup won't reward you to the same degree, but the risks will be minimal.

The final quality for good trouble play is imagination. You have to be able to "see" all the shots, all the options available to you. Sometimes this is just a matter of keeping your wits about you and scanning the area for escape routes. I'll never forget the situation I found myself in at Winged Foot in the 1984 U.S. Open.

It was the final hole of the second round, and I had hooked my tee shot into big trouble in the rough of that long par-4. Bob Rosburg was following our group for ESPN at the time, and when he got to my ball, he made one of those dire pronouncements for which he is famous.

"Greg's absolutely dead," he said. "He has a solid wall of trees between him and the green, and there's no way through them. His only option is to chip out to the fairway."

When I got to the ball, I must admit, it didn't look promising. But when among trees I'm a strong believer in looking straight up, in search of a high way out. Sure enough, there was an opening up there. It was only four feet wide, but it was at the exact height for the path of my 6-iron, and a 6-iron was the club I needed to reach that 18th green.

When your ball plops into deep rough or sails into the center of the woods, take a deep breath, forget that shot and concentrate on the next one.

Charlie Earp, my first golf instructor and good friend from Australia, was caddying for me that week, and when I started peering up into the branches I could see him cringe. But I took out the 6-iron and told him, "I can get it through there."

And I did. The ball sailed straight through the center of that four-foot opening, landed on the green, and finished five feet from the hole. Rosburg couldn't believe it.

Actually, the shot itself was nothing fancy, just a solid, straight 6-iron. But hitting the shot wasn't the tough part -- seeing it was.

As I said, trouble makes me stretch my shotmaking skills, and a good portion of those skills are mental, not physical. I suspect this is true of most touring professional golfers. When we're in a difficult spot, we work harder, concentrate harder. And more often than not, we pull off the shot.

You may not have the physical skills of a professional, but there's no reason why you can't approach and evaluate trouble situations with the same mental acuity. In fact, to use these skills you need nothing more than a sophisticated version of your normal pre-shot routine.

I begin playing a trouble shot as I'm approaching the ball. Often you can see your situation better -- get a view of the big picture -- when you're 100 yards in back of it. You can see the actual height of the trees, the nature of the terrain the shot will have to cross, and sometimes you can get a better view of the pin position as well.

Once I'm at the ball, the first thing I do is inspect the lie. If it's in heavy grass, several shots are immediately made impossible. Likewise, if it's sitting on hardpan or some other tight lie, certain shots are eliminated. I also make note of whether the grass is wet or dry and whether it's growing with my shot or against it.

Next I take a look at what's in front of me. Let's say I'm in the rough, I have 150 yards to the green, and I have to hit the ball under the tree limb that's hanging about six feet off the ground. I begin to imagine what the ideal escape would look like -- some sort of punch that lands in the fairway and runs to the green.

This is when I start asking myself questions: Does my lie allow me to put the club on the ball for such a shot? (If the grass is very thick, the answer is no.) Can I find my way to the green with such a shot or does a bunker or water hazard block the way?

If the answers to the questions raise doubts about my first shot, I'll search for other options. This is when I look up into the trees for a possible high escape. I'll also consider whether a hook or slice shot would be possible from the situation. If no other option is available, I'll return to the question of the low shot and make my decision, either to go for the green or to lay up.

Once that choice is made, I'll match a club to the situation. In the case of the shot I've described, let's say I choose to go for the green. I'll next visualize the ideal shot once again, and that picture will automatically tell me the best club to choose, probably a 4- or 5-iron, which I would play back in my stance and hit with a short, crisp, punch swing.

If I make the more difficult decision -- to lay up -- I'll again imagine what the ideal shot would be. (This is something that amateurs often fail to do. Instead, they take a careless, cavalier attitude toward safe shots, and often chip the ball too short or clear across the fairway into further trouble.)

I'll decide the ideal point from which I'd like to play my next shot, then I'll visualize hitting my safe shot to that point. Finally, I'll choose the club that offers the best chance of executing that safe shot.

Adopt this type of routine and you'll be pleased with the results. You'll discover, just as the pros do, that the tighter the spot you're in, the tighter your focus of concentration will be, and the more impressive your shotmaking will be.

- Greg Norman