The Toughest Shot at True Blue

The hardest shot at True Blue Golf Club might not be what you are thinking. Stuart Clark from the Steve Dresser Golf Academy breaks down the most difficult shot on Mike Strantz’s award-winning design, and how a golfer should approach it.

Stuart Clark:
Even though it’s not as visually intimidating as some of the shots that we have here at True Blue, it is one of the toughest shots at True Blue.

Hi, my name is Stuart Clark, I am one of the instructors here at Steve Dresser Golf Academy at the beautiful True Blue and Caledonia golf courses. Today I’m going to go over one of the toughest shots here at True Blue. It’s hole number 15. Even though it’s not as visually intimidating as some of the shots that we have here at True Blue, it is one of the toughest shots at True Blue, personally to me. We have a 60-yard shot on a tight lie into the grain shot. We have a false front so that if the ball comes too short, it rolls off the green. If the ball carries too far past the pin, it rolls down another 30, 35 feet into a washout area. So this is a shot that demands a lot of respect. So how I’m approaching this shot, I am going to have a fairly normal stance set up, but I want about 60 percent of my weight on my, for me a right-handed player, on my lead foot, which is my left.

I want my sternum just a little bit left, so I can cheat a little bit on the shot because I want my weight forward. Often, too many times on this shot, we see our amateurs leaving their weight on their back foot, trying to help this golf ball in the air, and that is the exact opposite of what we want to do. We want to allow the loft of the club to get the ball in the air. So on this shot, we’re going to put a little weight left, our sternum left, and as we get through it, the biggest thing we need to make sure is, we’ve got to keep our body moving. Pivoting through the shot is crucial. If our body stops and our arms take over, it’s a fat or skull shot every time.

So as you can tell, that 70-yard shot, 75-yard shot I had was a little down wind. This ball actually hit one foot by the hole, and now you can see the shot that I’m forced to play now. Now I’ve got an uphill pitch to no green, and if I come up short again, the ball will roll back to me. So I could play the shot over and over and over. So now I came up a little short, the ball has rolled off to the front of the green again. So now I’ve got a tough pitch shot where, if I carry this ball another one or two feet too far, this ball goes off the back of green again. Or if I come up just a little short, it rolls right back to my feet. So once again, very tough shot.