The beauty and difficulty of golf comes with the various challenges an individual golf course provides. No two golf courses are the same and you must be prepared to deal with different situations during a round of golf. There is not a single 18-hole golf course in the world which is completely flat and during a round of golf, even when on the fairway, your ball could be in an awkward lie because of the slope. Therefore, you must know how to approach and play a shot when the ball is on a downhill lie and today’s tip will help you do just that.
The problem is, most golf course driving ranges are flat and you do not have the opportunity to practice playing shots on a downhill slope. So, the first thing you will need to do, is find a downhill slope to practice on. Any field where the grass is short enough for you to practice and you have permission to use is fine. When you address the ball, your back leg needs to be higher than your front leg.
The key aspects of playing a downhill lie, is where your body weight should be at the set-up and the direction of the club at follow through.
Firstly, the ball needs to be in the centre of your stance. You may feel tempted to position it further forward because it appears the ground is too close to you when you look down but for this shot to work, you must have the ball in the centre of your stance. Try and place slightly more of your body weight towards your front leg, not too much but enough for it to feel you are putting a little more pressure on your leading leg.
The angle of your shoulders should match that of the angle of the ground. So, for a right-handed player, your left shoulder should be lower than your right shoulder and vice-versa for a left-handed player. The backswing should be the same as it would be for a standard shot with the club you are using, you do not need to change anything because your stance has compensated for the downhill slope you are on.
Having contacted the ball, make sure you resist the temptation to pull and scoop up on the follow through. The follow through will feel low but that is exactly how it is supposed to be, you do not need to force the club upwards at the end of the shot. The ball will fly lower when playing this shot, so you must take that into consideration and therefore, you may want to select a higher lofted club than you would normally take when playing a downhill shot.
