Golf Tip from Paige Spiranac: How to Approach Hitting from Uphill and Downhill Lies

In this video, Paige Spiranac shows us a training aid that helps reinforce proper swing technique for hitting out of both uphill and downhill lies. See what approach she recommends for improving your game in these areas!

 

 

Paige Spiranac:
Hey, everyone. It’s Paige, and we are back for another video tip today. We are in Myrtle Beach, and I’m at the Dustin Johnson Golf School. They have this really cool contraption that will simulate different lies. So you have an uphill lie, downhill, sidehill, which is really great because when you’re on the golf course, you’re going to get a different lie every single time and that’s really difficult because most of the time when you practice on the range, it’s flat. And so you get out there and you’re like, “I don’t know what to do.” So we’re going to talk today about how to approach an uphill and a downhill lie, and how you should do that when you’re on the golf course. So first one today is when it’s a side slope. It’s more of an uphill lie. So you want to set your body along the slope line.

If you lean forward on an uphill slope, you’re going to come in steep and probably hit it fat. So you’re going to lean back. The only thing is when you do this and you’ve set yourself along the slope, you’re adding a little bit more loft to your club and so it’s going to go higher and probably shorter because you’re adding more loft and if you have a more lofted club, it’s obviously going to go shorter. So you want to lean yourself against the slope. It’s going to be open and then you’re going to want to stay back on your back leg a little bit more. If you again lean into it, you’re going to probably end up chunking it and just go straight into the slope. So you’re going to want to stay back on it, just slightly. Stay really, really still. Don’t have any movement here that even if you dip backwards, you’re going to hit behind it.

If you come forward, you’re probably going to get steep on it. Just stay really still from this position and then it’s going to go higher. So what I recommend is taking one to two more clubs and swing maybe a little bit easier so you don’t feel like you have to muscle it there. You’re going to add a little more loft since you are playing the slope. It’s going to go shorter. So if you grab more club then you won’t have to hit too hard. You’ll feel good about everything.

And on the opposite side, when you’re on a down slope, it’s the exact same thing. You just want to set your body to the way that the slope is going. So as you can see, I’m actually going to shift my weight to make sure I’m along the slope line because if I lean back this way, you’re going to see me. I’m going to probably hit behind it.

But here I’m along the slope line and it’s really simple but it’s opposite. So when you’re on uphill, obviously you’re adding loft. You can go higher. On the down slope it’s going to go lower so keep that in mind. So if you have water in front of you or something you have to carry, chances are you’re probably not going to get it up fast enough to be able to carry what you need to. So either lay up short or grab a little bit more club so you carry what you need to because it’s going to come out much lower since your club is more delofted and it’s on the down slope.