The Flop and Punch Shots

Aim: to introduce these new shots added to LS99 and show that they are really just cases of extreme loft setups, which can be useful in strong winds to gain some extra ball control

The Flop and Punch shots are two extremes of loft setup which come with their own handy pre-set button in the club selection window, to the right of the wedges selections you'll see them listed....when you click on them, you'll see a mark on your ball as shown below....an upturned "V" for flop and an accent slash for the punch. A punch shot is the same as a loft setting of MINUS NINE clicks ! ( one click off the maximum ) and the FLOP is the old PLUS FOUR setting ( loft button right at the top)...Naturally enough, the punch shot is a low,running shot while the flop is a high, soft landing effort.Although these can be quite useful in their own right , their best use is for those windy days when everything is a struggle ! I never thought about these shots before I wrote this but in the name of research had a blast with them and found them to be very,very useful, both in the wind, and also for getting extra length but with less roll and spin.......Read on.....

The Punch Shot	The Flop Shot

This chart shows the effect of punch and flop on my club selection, bear in mind that as usual I used a flat fairway position on the second hole at Harbour Town, which first of all means you will have to think about the green speeds if you are hitting the green ( punch shots onto hard/fast or downhill greens...think extra yards, soft/slow and uphill greens with flop shots...think less yards will be gained by the shot than shown here)...by now you'll also realise on your own that the lie is important.....remember the flop is +4 loft ( the most you can actually apply through shot setup) so playing a flop with an uphill lie means the club distance is even shorter...so bear this in mind....similarly a downhill lie on a punch will increase the distance, bearing in mind the low flight means it might bump into an uphill entrance to a green, or hit an uphill sloped fairway and actually NOT go further..so do be careful.....bearing this in mind, there are two main motivations for the use of either shot in calm conditions.....

FLOP SHOT
Here you're thinking distance control, and no roll....best used with the shorter clubs to flat greens, especially for harder/faster surfaces where you want the ball to go a certain yardage and then stop quickly ( because its landing angle is close to vertical)...and note the effect of a flop on the long clubs is not very large, but it can be used to trim that vital few yards off when you are between clubs...also be aware that in any case the 1W and 2W go less from the fairway than on a tee..

PUNCH SHOT
Here the general idea is longer distance without the spin, or a traditional "links-style" shot where you want to bump and run up to a green. For longer distances there are situations where you want to run the ball up the green up a (swail ?) large front entrance rather than try and carry a bunker or hazard and then try to stop the ball close to the flag....by using a shorter club you'll find the error in snap is less severe and by using this shot you are keeping the ball low and over the safe line where it can keep running onto the green.....BUT the best use in my opinion comes when we look at the short clubs.......if you need a shot of 120 odd yards up to 150/160 especially to a soft, uphill sloping green a punch shot can be used to hit a lofted club in low and avoid a lot of the backspin problems you'd get with a normal lofted club, possibly lofted in the setup....

It's clear then that the punch and flop aren't massively useful here with no wind, but try a few out and see if they suit your game and style...I am certainly warming to punching the shorter clubs in low and flopping the longer irons.

No Wind Chart

No wind chart notes : Driver tested at default to check effect of fairway roll for longer clubs ....default was 278 for 1W, an asterisk (*) indicates data which looks inconsistent and may be the result of the fairway kick etc etc...or the fact that very long clubs aren't so sensitive to these shots

Right, here is the windy chart...have a look through the numbers, and then refer to the notes below this table, again you must bear in mind that there may be some differences in your results as it's hard to detect slight changes in the wind as your shot is in progress, and the effect of lies and fairways will come into play also.

Windy Chart

Windy Chart Notes: Where one number is shown, that shows the ball didnt bounce on, maybe the fairway was flat to slightly uphill, so although the effect will be similar on a green, if it slopes towards you it may spin back a lot (especially short clubs) but it can kick on some more on downhill sloping green (and h/f greens)...quite nice to have a long club stopping almost dead though as these will not have a lot of spin on them and so shouldnt roll back....also bear in mind the distances for some of the longer, lower ball flight clubs may be affected by the "bump" into the fairway....you can see some inconsistencies with the long woods, but the wind also flickers slightly..and it's the best I could do at the 2nd hole of Harbour Town.

Before I discuss this area, it looks quite frightening doesnt it?, for the par3s over 220 yards...when the wind is in your face, you'll have to hope the driver will get there because other than that you dont have much hope ! ( I will add data here for the driver off the tee into wind )...Right, lets have a quick look at the two shots in action in the wind

FLOP SHOT:
Clearly with the wind at your back the flop can be a useful trick to try and minimise the distance gained by the wind, in particular for the shorter clubs where the flop loft ( equal to +4 remember ) more or less cancels the wind, meaning the shot can almost be played as if with no wind...but my main use for the flop is to actually invite the wind onto me, and play a flop into a headwind...although the effect on distance is dramatic, you can see that the roll is almost negligible ( beware green slopes / speeds ).....so even with a longish shot into the wind, I actually have changed my tactics to try this, so taking a bigger club and actually flopping it into the wind and thus, if you have the right distance the ball drops like a pudding, and because it's a long club, the spin is negligible and no backspin occurs, though you may get a slight rollback on sloping greens ( and one or two greens will give big rollbacks still, especially if soft ).....something for you to think about is those annoying shots of 130 yards or less, hard to stop backspin and my usual method was to hit a half-shot with anything from a 6iron to 9iron......for those of you that prefer to keep to your 12 and 6 o'clock timing ( not a bad idea at all ) you can use the flop to cover those sub-100 yard shots in particular with a flop to increase the winds effect in stopping the ball

PUNCH SHOT:
You might be surprised to see the helping effect of a wind with a punch shot is increased, so the obvious use of this shot (lie and fairway upslope at target area permitting) is to get even more yards with the club if you are lucky enough to have a storm behind you....Look at the enormous distance I covered with the pitching wedge in punch mode !...which leads to one very obvious use...unless you are having a pop at the green ( unlikely on a par4!) you can play two short iron shots instead of driver wedge...you know a wedge is less likely to deviate with a bad snap than a driver so it makes sense if you have a 400 yard hole to drive with a punched short iron....you'll then have a similar shot again ( for straight holes, try halving the distance, playing that off the tee and using that distance as a read for your similar second shot !)...very handy at champ level where I have a lot of trouble with the driver....If I can cover a 430 yard hole with two punched 8 irons, then I am a lot less likely to miss the fairway and green than if I hit the driver ( ~300-320 yards) and then leave a tricky 110-130 yarder into the green, assuming I have hit the fairway with the driver ! ( I have a success rate in that area of ~66%...mind you I do play windy all the time !)...perhaps if I think about it, this is the most useful trick with these kind of shots, even more so than.....
hitting a punch into the wind...clearly we are hitting it in low under the wind and lessening the effect of the wind in our face., again with the shorter clubs this shot can actually equal or beat the wind, with the wind winning by 10 yards at about 6iron and by about 20 at 3iron...longer woods still shorten by 25-30 yards but that is a lot prettier than the 40 odd yards they were losing with default loft setting...

Final warning : I can't emphasise enough how much you need to be alert to whats going on with every shot.....and look at the lies and slopes involved in the shot and how they are lining up with your selected shot setup....are they increasing the overall effect, or decreasing it ? How is my angle and height of attack going to be affected by the shape and slopes of the greens and the entrances to greens......am I actually gaining anything from this shot, or would I be better to play a normal shot......by the time you get to this section, I am hoping you will have come a long way towards making this a natural, subconscious process...

Top Tips:
Don't use the flop and punch for the sake of it, use it to your advantage
Be aware how the lies and slopes of the shot will enhance or diminish the shot type
Do use punches to gain yards with the wind helping, and to reduce the effect of a headwind
Do use flops to calm down shots with the wind, and to hit "glue" shots into the wind which stop on impact
Make tactical use of the shots eg...to drive with punched short iron with wind helping to improve fairways hit% ( good at champ!)
Remember (again) that shots to the green will have an extra factor depending on their speed/hardness

 

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