Instruction
The difference between a pitch shot and a flop shot on Trackman
One of the best feelings in golf is executing a delicate flop shot over a bunker; take a mighty rip and watch the ball rise quickly, fall slowly toward the ground, land near the pin and stop dead. It’s an unbelievable sense of accomplishment, but few people actually know how to hit this type of shot, or how they happen.
In this article, I’m going to show you information you’ve probably never seen before so you can understand how to actually hit the “flop” and channel your inner Phil. Let’s look at what a pitch shot with my 58-degree wedge looks like on Trackman, and compare it to a flop shot with the same club.
Pitch Shot
- The path mirrors my normal swing with an in-to-out club path of 2.3 degrees.
- The face angle is slightly left of the path (but right of the target) at 0.3 degrees.
- This ball carried 34.2 yards with a spin rate of 6195 rpm.
- The peak height of this shot was 18.4 feet with a landing angle of 38.3 degrees.
Flop Shot
- The club path changes to excessively out-to-in at -7.4 degrees.
- The face angle is right of the path AND right of the target at 0.7 degrees, giving us an excessive face-to-path ratio of 8.1 degrees.
- Clubhead speed was much higher in the flop versus the normal shot at 51.2 mph versus 44.1 mph, as was the dynamic loft at impact at 57.3 degrees versus 46.4 degrees.
- The ball carried only 27 yards versus 34.2 yards on the normal shot, but only had 3702 rpm of spin.
- The height of this shot was 25 feet with a landing angle of 51.4 degrees. The steeper landing angle helps the ball stop more quickly on the green, despite the reduced spin.
Now that you understand how these two shots differ, let me give you my six simple keys that will help you execute flop shots more effectively.
- Use your highest-lofted wedge to execute the shot.
- Aim your body left of the target so you can shift your swing direction and swing path more out-to-in.
- The face should be open at address relative to your body alignment; it should point at your target, or just a little right of it depending on how high you want to hit the shot.
- Allow the swing to follow the alignments of your body so that the club moves up and away in the backswing, and then cuts across the target line through impact.
- STAY in your posture through impact and keep rotating through the ball so the handle does not raise through impact. Doing so can cause shanks and “wiped” shots, because the more the handle lifts the more the hosel is pushed toward the ball and the more the blade opens.
- Allow the rotation of the right shoulder to ensure that you keep “moving” through impact. You don’t want to stop accelerating, because you’ll end up chunking or blading the shot. Be confident and aggressive!
The LPGA Tour is kicking off its 2026 season this week at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, and the pros are dealing with something most Florida golfers rarely face: freezing temperatures.
“It’s colder here than in the UK at the minute, which is a first,” said England’s Charley Hull during Wednesday’s media day at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions.
Even Lydia Ko, who lives at Lake Nona, seemed surprised by the cold snap. “We’re pretty much getting to below zero in celsius here, which maybe in other parts of the country they would be thankful, but when you’re in Florida it is a little bit of a surprise,” she said.
If the world’s best players are adjusting their games for cold weather, recreational golfers should, too. Here’s how to play smart when the mercury drops.
Understand What Cold Does to Your Game
Before you change anything, you need to know what you’re fighting against. Cold air is denser than warm air, which means your ball won’t fly as far. Period.
Hull noticed this immediately during practice rounds at Lake Nona. She mentioned hitting a gap wedge into the 18th hole during a previous win but needing a 4-iron during Tuesday’s practice round. That’s a difference of four or five clubs for the same shot.
Action item: Expect to lose 5-10 yards on every club in your bag when temperatures dip below 50 degrees. Plan accordingly and don’t be stubborn about club selection.
Layer Up Without Restricting Your Swing
Hull admitted she wore three pairs of pants during practice. While that might be extreme for most of us, staying warm is critical to playing well in cold conditions.
Your muscles need warmth to function properly. When you’re cold, your body tightens up and your swing gets shorter and faster. Neither of those things help you hit good golf shots.
Action item: Wear multiple thin layers instead of one bulky jacket. Look for golf-specific cold weather gear that stretches with your swing. Keep hand warmers in your pockets between shots. And don’t forget a good hat because you lose significant body heat through your head.
Take More Club Than You Think You Need
This is where ego gets in the way of good scores. When it’s cold, the ball doesn’t compress as well off the clubface. Combined with denser air, you’re looking at serious distance loss.
The pros at Lake Nona are dealing with a course that measures 6,642 yards but plays much longer this week. If they’re adjusting, you should too.
Action item: Take at least one extra club on every approach shot. In temperatures below 40 degrees, consider taking two extra clubs. It’s better to fly the ball to the back of the green than to come up short in a bunker.
Adjust Your Expectations on the Greens
Cold weather affects putting in ways most golfers don’t consider. The ball is harder and doesn’t roll as smoothly. Your hands are cold, making it harder to feel the putter. And if there’s any moisture on the greens, they’ll be slower than normal.
Ko mentioned that she still sometimes reads the greens wrong at Lake Nona despite being a member for years. Cold weather makes that challenge even tougher.
Action item: Hit putts more firmly than usual. The ball needs extra speed to hold its line on cold greens. Take a few extra practice strokes to get a feel for the speed before you putt.
Embrace the Mental Challenge
Hull said something interesting about cold weather golf: “I like the mental toughness of it.”
That’s the right attitude. Everyone on the course is dealing with the same conditions. The player who stays patient and doesn’t get frustrated by the extra difficulty will come out ahead.
Action item: Lower your expectations by a few strokes. If you normally shoot 85, accept that 90 might be a good score in 40-degree weather. Focus on solid contact and smart decisions rather than perfect shots.
Warm Up Longer and Smarter
This might be the most important tip of all. Cold muscles are tight muscles, and tight muscles get injured easily.
World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul revealed she’s been protecting a wrist injury that bothered her late last season. Cold weather makes those kinds of injuries more likely if you don’t prepare properly.
Action item: Spend at least 20 minutes warming up before your round. Start with stretching, then hit easy wedge shots before working up to your driver. Keep moving between shots on the course to maintain body heat and flexibility.
The pros at Lake Nona this week will adapt and compete at the highest level despite the cold. You can do the same at your local course by following these tips and keeping a positive attitude.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “Playing Through” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
Brooks Koepka is back on the PGA Tour, and whether you love him or hate him, the guy knows how to win when it matters. After his LIV Golf stint, the five-time major champion returns this week at the Farmers Insurance Open.
What makes Koepka fascinating? He doesn’t fit the mold. His swing isn’t textbook. He doesn’t obsess over mechanics. Yet he’s won three PGA Championships and two U.S. Opens, regularly making it look easier than guys with prettier swings.
So, what can average golfers learn from someone who treats the game so differently? Quite a bit.
Stop Overthinking Every Shot
Koepka describes his approach as “reactionary” rather than mechanical. While most tour pros grind over swing thoughts, Brooks sees the target and hits it. No mental checklist.
This might be the most valuable lesson for weekend golfers who’ve watched too many YouTube swing videos.
How to actually do this:
On the range, hit five balls where you stare at the target for three seconds prior to addressing the ball. Don’t think about grip or stance. Just burn that target into your brain. You’ll be shocked at how pure you hit it when your brain focuses on where the ball is going instead of how you’re swinging.
Next time you play, give yourself a rule: Once you pull the club, you’ve got 15 seconds to hit. Koepka is one of the fastest players on tour because he doesn’t give his brain time to sabotage him.
If you feel tension in your hands at address, you’re trying to control too much. Koepka’s grip pressure is famously light. Loosen up until the club almost feels like it might slip, then add just enough pressure to hold on. That’s your swing thought: soft hands, see the target.
This approach works better under pressure. When you’re standing over that shot with water left and OB right, the last thing you need is a mental checklist. See it, feel it, hit it.
Play to Your Strengths (Even If They’re Not Pretty)
Koepka uses a strong grip that wouldn’t pass muster in some teaching circles. But he’s built his game around what works for him, elite driving distance and recovery skills. He doesn’t try to be someone he’s not.
Here’s how to build your game like Brooks:
Look at your last five rounds and figure out where you’re actually gaining strokes. Bombing it off the tee, but can’t hit greens? Lean into it. Play courses where distance matters more than precision. On tight holes, grip down on your 3-wood instead of trying to thread a driver through a keyhole you’ll miss seven times out of ten.
Koepka knows he can scramble, so he’s not afraid to miss greens. If you’re deadly from 50 to 75 yards, start leaving yourself those distances on the par 5’s instead of going for them in two every time.
Know when to take your medicine. Koepka in the trees at the PGA? He’s punching out to 100 yards, not trying to bend a 6-iron around three oaks. You’re in the rough with a flyer lie and water short? Hit your 8-iron to the middle and move on. That’s not playing scared, that’s playing smart.
Save Your Best for When It Counts
Here’s a wild stat: Koepka’s putting average in majors is often more than a full stroke better per round than in regular events. He elevates when pressure is highest.
How does an amateur tap into that gear? It’s not about trying harder, it’s about caring differently.
Here’s what actually works:
Decide which rounds matter to you. Club championship? Member-guest? That annual trip with college buddies? Circle those dates and treat them differently. Koepka doesn’t care much about regular tour events, but majors? That’s when he locks in.
Two weeks before your big round, change your practice. Stop beating balls mindlessly. Play nine holes in which every shot has consequences. Miss the fairway? Hit from the rough on the next hole too. Three-putt? Twenty push-ups. Koepka’s practice intensity ramps up before majors because he’s rehearsing pressure, not just swings.
Develop a between-shot routine that resets your brain. Koepka is famous for his blank expression after bad shots. Try this: After any shot, take three deep breaths while walking, then find something specific to notice, a tree, a cloud, someone’s shirt. That’s your reset button. By the time you reach your ball, the last shot is gone.
The Bottom Line
Brooks Koepka’s return reminds us there’s no single path to success in golf. His “substance over style” approach proves that results matter more than looking good.
You don’t need a perfect swing; you need a reliable one that holds up under pressure. You don’t need to hit every shot in the book; you need the shots you can count on. And you don’t need to play great every time; you need to play great when it matters.
Welcome back, Brooks. Thanks for the reminder that golf is ultimately about getting the ball in the hole, not winning style points.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “Playing Through” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
Blades Brown made a big impression last week in the California desert, and not just because he’s only 18. He put up numbers that would catch any weekend golfer’s attention. Most of us won’t hit 317-yard drives or find 86% of our greens in regulation, but there’s a lot to learn from how Brown managed his game at The American Express.
Here are three practical lessons from his performance that you can use on your own course this weekend.
Step 1: Give Priority to Accuracy Over Distance Off The Tee
Brown’s driving stats are impressive. He averaged almost 318 yards off the tee, ranking 12th in the field. More importantly, he hit 76.79% of his fairways, tying for fourth place in the tournament.
Think about that ratio for a second. Brown could have swung harder, chased more distance and tried to overpower the course. Instead, he played smart golf and kept his ball in play.
Your Action Item: Next time you’re on the tee box, ask yourself a simple question before pulling the driver. Do you need maximum distance here, or do you need to be in the fairway? If there’s trouble lurking or the hole doesn’t demand every yard you can muster, take something off your swing. Grip down an inch. Make a three-quarter swing. Do whatever it takes to find the short grass. Brown’s approach illustrates that fairways lead to greens, and greens lead to birdies. He made 22 of them last week, along with an eagle.
The math is simple. When you’re hitting three out of every four fairways like Brown did, you’re giving yourself legitimate looks at the green with your approach shots. That’s when scoring happens.
Step 2: Commit To Hitting More Greens
This is where Brown really separated himself. He hit 62 of 72 greens in regulation, an 86.11% clip that tied for first in the entire field. Read that again. An 18-year-old kid tied for the lead in one of the most important ball-striking statistics in professional golf.
How did he do it? By keeping his ball in the fairway (see Step 1) and giving himself clean looks with mid-irons and wedges.
Your Action Item: Start tracking your greens in regulation. You don’t need a fancy app or a statistics degree. Just mark down whether you hit the green in the regulation number of strokes. Par 3s in one shot. Par 4s in two shots. Par 5s in three shots.
Once you know your baseline, set a goal to improve it by 10%. If you’re currently hitting five greens per round, aim for six. The beauty of this approach is that it forces you to think strategically about club selection and shot shape. Brown’s strokes gained approach number was positive (0.179), meaning he was better than the field average. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be on the dance floor more often.
When you hit more greens, you eliminate the need for heroic short game shots. Brown only had to scramble 10 times all week, and he got up and down 70% of the time. That’s solid, but the real story is that he rarely put himself in scrambling situations to begin with.
Step 3: Minimize Mistakes And Stay Patient
Here’s the stat that jumps off the page: Brown made only three bogeys all week. Three. In four rounds of professional golf against the best players in the world.
He also made just one double bogey. That kind of clean card doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when you play within yourself, avoid the big miss and trust that pars are never bad scores.
Your Action Item: Before your next round, decide that you’re going to play boring golf. No hero shots over water. No driver on tight holes just because you can. No aggressive pins when there’s a safe side of the green.
Brown’s performance shows us that consistency beats flash every single time. He didn’t lead the field in any single strokes gained category, but he was solid across the board. That’s how you post numbers and cash checks.
Give these three steps a try. Your scorecard will thank you.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “The Starter” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
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McDuff
Mar 8, 2016 at 10:20 pm
Thanks, this is very accurate and relevant information that most people don’t know…..you should see people trying to flop with no idea how to do it, it’s quite funny….don’t know why people ‘shank’ the article but offer no insights at all….
Tim
Feb 16, 2016 at 7:20 pm
@Rich IMO the pitch is great up until about 40% of the full swing distance of my lob wedge (or if I’m inside that, but have a lot of green to work with). Inside of that, the roll out is often too great because I have to swing too slow to generate the required spin. That’s where I switch to the flop to use the height to get the ball to sit. So, I’m not sure the numbers showing the two shot types carrying the same distance tells me anything useful to bring onto the course.
steve
Feb 13, 2016 at 8:00 am
I love how he edits the comments. Nice removal of comments
Zak Kozuchowski
Feb 13, 2016 at 4:03 pm
Steve,
It’s our moderating team that removes comments, not authors. Please read our rules and terms to better understand why we removed your comment: http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/?app=forums&module=extras§ion=boardrules
Steve
Feb 13, 2016 at 8:15 pm
The most open, honest, friendly, and most respected golf site on the web.
How can you have a open and honest website when you delete opinions that are opposite of your agenda
Zak Kozuchowski
Feb 14, 2016 at 10:58 am
What agenda? Your comment was a personal attack of one of our most respected contributors. We’re all for discussion and even disagreements — please talk about why you don’t like Trackman-based teaching all you want — but complete disrespect will not be tolerated.
Steve
Feb 14, 2016 at 2:21 pm
Complete disrepect? Saying that all the articles he writes are about trackman data? That a kid could tell us the data?
And by looking at the reviews of this article I am not the only one, shank.
tony
Feb 15, 2016 at 12:24 am
I can’t believe the Trackman Master (1 of only 60 worldwide) spends his time writing articles related to the Trackman.
tom stickney
Feb 15, 2016 at 1:32 pm
Steve–
I have no problem with disagreements; I’ve been wrong before! You have no basis for your comments as you have never taken a lesson from me nor have you spoken to me personally so let’s change that…
I’d be happy to discuss my thoughts with you and if you have issues then you can at least be better educated as what I am all about.
Email me at tomstickney@vidantagolf.com and leave me your number and we can discuss.
Andy
Feb 11, 2016 at 5:32 pm
From a clean fairway lie this makes sense. From the rough the flop can be more effective in certain situations because the spin of a pitch would be less from a non fairway lie. The flop is stopping the ball with trajectory and the pitch is a combo of spin/trajectory. I think a lot of players would benefit with more trackman type information about the different short shots that are available. Learning how to play shots that run/don’t run in certain situations really helped my game.
teaj
Feb 11, 2016 at 4:37 pm
I don’t trust these numbers. Usually a pitch is higher than a flop
Dev
Feb 12, 2016 at 3:51 pm
What.
emb
Feb 11, 2016 at 1:08 pm
just wondering how the flop shot can have a – or left spin axis with such a + face to path relationship. You’d think this ball would have a + spin axis or what most would refer to as “cut spin”
tom stickney
Feb 11, 2016 at 4:02 pm
The ball starts mostly in the direction of the face…with the path so far left it is influenced a touch leftward. Remember that with a spin-loft this high the face to path won’t affect the ball as much
tom stickney
Feb 11, 2016 at 12:34 pm
I don’t know if I’d rely on the roll out distances of these shots as they are not predicted on landing on a green just a fairway.
Philip
Feb 11, 2016 at 12:58 pm
That explains it, and thanks for the insightful information. I realized after reading your article that I have been taking the in-to-out concept just a bit too far. Whenever I just stepped up to a ball and tried a flop shot I would execute it flawlessly, yet every time when I think through the shot I would shank or blade it because my thinking approach was to execute a flop shot with an in-to-out path. This will give me back my flop shot option :o)
larrybud
Feb 11, 2016 at 12:15 pm
The difference in spin rate is the most surprising to me. Would love to see a high speed closeup of impact, the ball must skip across the face like crazy on the flop shot.
Rich
Feb 11, 2016 at 9:15 am
Would be interesting to see the two shots at similar carry distances. They both rolled out about two yards, so from the outside looking in, there’s no good argument to attempt the riskier flop. If your pitch shot rolled five yards when the distance was reduced to match the flip shot, then there’s a good reason.