The Punch Shot Made Easy

Honma Custom Fitting Specialist and PGA Pro Luke Peterken breaks down the punch shot with these simple tips

The Punch Shot Made Easy

In the video above, we're joined by Honma Custom Fitting Specialist and PGA Pro Luke Peterken at North Hants Golf Club for some tips on how to play the punch shot effectively.

Luke is faced with a shot of 155 yards with the pin placed towards the back of the green, so the punch is an effective one to play in this instance as the ball will hopefully run out up the green and towards the flag. If you can master the technique, this can be an invaluable shot - here's what to do:

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'If we use our stock iron shot as a benchmark to work from, so 155 yards is a stock 7 iron for me.

I'd take my length of swing and my swing speed of my stock shot and then dial it down a bit, so I wouldn't swing back as far and I wouldn't apply as much clubhead speed.

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Both of those already would change my trajectory quite a bit.

And especially with this shot where the pin is right at the back, we've got lots of green to work with so actually this is quite a nice shot to employ because those effects that we're going to have on our trajectory will mean that the golf ball will roll out that little bit more.

So it's a nice shot to play if there's no danger in front of the green.

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I'm going to club up a little bit to counter the fact that we've dialed down the swing speed and swing length.

A couple of set up changes - I would take my ball-to-target line and then work a little bit left of that.

Feet slightly left, we're already kind of pre-setting our hips into our impact position because we're not using as much speed so it gets us delivering the club in a consistent way.

In other words, I can keep my clubface much more stable by keeping my hips a little bit more open with this shot that we're choosing.

Shoulders are kept parallel to the target line itself, it's just the hips to give me the space to then not get into those type of habits where we're flipping the hands over.

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So slightly left, my ball position will be slightly back of centre as well but that's about it.

Shorter swing and less speed, and then it will chase up there.

So we're able to cover a yardage of 155 yards but in a very controlled, repeatable way.'

This shot is incredibly useful but it does require practice. Devote some time to this on the range, think about the technique and use Luke's pointers above to give you the framework for the shot. The more you practise it, the better you should become at reducing the flight - ideal for this sort of scenario out on the golf course!