Learn the golf flop shot: wide-open face, full swing, high risk. With rules check on fair striking, milestones, a practice plan and wrist protection.
The flop shot is an extremely high, soft shot from a short distance: you open the clubface wide, swing fully through, and the ball climbs steeply, lands softly and hardly rolls out. It gets you over an obstacle when you have hardly any room to the pin.
The honest answer to “Should I learn the flop shot?”: only if you already play the normal lob securely. I found no study on the flop shot itself; the statements below rely on the rule book, on findings on practice and imagery and on injury data. The flop shot is what golfers call a “risk shot”: when it works it looks like magic, and when it does not, you have fired the ball far over the green or placed it two metres in front of you. That is coaching practice, not a study.
Under the rules: you must strike the ball fairly, with only momentary contact between club and ball. Pushing, scraping or scooping is prohibited [1]. The flop shot brings exactly this temptation: to scoop under the ball with an open face.
All descriptions are for right-handers, left-handers mirror them.
The flop shot is not a trick but a swing with trust in the face.
The flop shot only works if the ball sits loosely on the grass. On hard ground or deep in the rough it becomes risky. Decide beforehand where a miss may land, and only play the flop if you can accept that. Milestone: you can justify in one sentence why the flop makes sense here.
First open the clubface (the face points far to the right), then you grip the club. That way the face stays open. The ball sits further forward in the stance, the hands are about level with the ball. This is coaching practice. Milestone: you build the stance five times identically (phone video).
You swing fully through. The flop needs speed because the clubhead is supposed to glide under the ball. If you hesitate, you scoop, and exactly that is prohibited by the rule [1]. Milestone: ten swings without a ball at an even tempo and with a high finish.
The clubhead slides over the ground and under the ball. With the open face it bounces off the sole. For that the ground must be soft. Milestone: seven out of ten balls climb steeply and land within about 5 metres of the target.
Do not stubbornly repeat the same flop. In a study with 29 adolescent golfers, varied practice improved attack angle, face angle and dynamic loft in pitches from 20, 35 and 50 metres more than repetition [4]. Add mental imagery: 32 golfers improved their bunker shots over six weeks more with training plus imagery than with only one of the two [5]. Milestone: you play ten flops at changing targets and picture trajectory and landing before each shot.
The flop shot stresses hands and wrists when the club hits the ground hard. Hand and wrist injuries are more common in professionals than in amateurs: over a lifetime they were about 3.3 times as prevalent [2]. On hard ground or with stones in the way you skip the shot. Also make sure nobody stands in the area in front of you, because a miss can fly far. Stop if your wrist or back hurts. This guide explains and motivates, it does not replace supervised training or a coach.
Practise the flop with a towel first. Put a towel a hand's width behind the ball. If you touch the towel, you slide in too early. This is coaching experience, not a study.
An extremely high, soft approach shot with a wide-open clubface and a full swing. The ball climbs steeply, lands softly and hardly rolls out.
When you have to get over an obstacle and hardly any room is left to the pin. It is a risk shot: with a chip or lob the margin for error is usually larger (coaching practice).
Yes, as long as you strike the ball fairly. Under Rule 10.1a you must strike the ball with the clubhead so that there is only momentary contact, and you may not push, scrape or scoop it [1].
With changing targets and distances instead of always the same repetitions. In adolescent golfers, variable practice improved attack angle and dynamic loft more [4]. Mental imagery helps in addition [5].
It stresses the hands, especially on hard ground. Hand and wrist injuries are common in golfers, in professionals about 3.3 times as prevalent as in amateurs over a lifetime [2]. Soft ground and a warm-up help.
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