# Hitting the famous stinger



## cbwheeler (Apr 9, 2007)

You've all seen the Tiger stinger. More and more players are adopting this shot. It's really useful for tight courses because it's actually very easy to control.

This works with any club, but is obviously most useful with a low lofted club, a 2 or 3-iron, or 3 or-5 wood. Essentially you are delofting the club at impact to hit the ball on an extremely low boring trajectory. This also drastically reduces the amount of backspin on the ball so the ball will roll a LONG way.

I do it with a 3-iron and sometimes with a 3-hybrid or 3-wood if I have to carry something. The ball rolls forever in the summer, sometimes 100 yards or more. It's pretty sweet hitting a 270 yard 3-iron.

Here's how you do it in the most simple way possible.

Take your normal stance, but put the ball back a few inches. I play it just slightly forward of center with a 3-iron. Now you are going to take your normal swing, but as you are approaching impact, you are going to bow your left wrist. Tiger explains it like he feels as if his glove logo is pointing at the ground. It's a little exaggerated, but it is pointing down a bit, rather than forward. Now abbreviate the follow through. Act as if you were going to stop when the club is pointing at the target. You won't be able to do it, but that is the image you'll use. This will get the ball going really low and straight.

Disclaimer:
Don't swing any harder than usual. Let the club do the work. Most of all, be careful. It will put a little more shock on your hands than normal because of the blow to the ground. It also takes quite a bit of strength to hold the finish so if you are not very strong, don't try it. If you hurt yourself, don't blame me. I warned you!

Skilled players: Practice this and you'll be able to pick it up pretty quickly. This is an extremely useful shot.
Less skilled players: You can try, but if you can't get it after 10 balls or so, don't bother. This is not one for the weak, or anyone with an out to in swing.


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## GolfKid22 (Apr 17, 2007)

sounds like it could be useful..next time im at the range im gonna try it.


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## golfermatt91 (Jul 14, 2006)

Thanks for the detailed instruction... It really isnt that hard of a shot to do... but yes your right if your not stronger or have wrist problems then i would try this also if your a beginner because you dont want to mess with your swing if you already have some trouble hitting it normal.


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## cbwheeler (Apr 9, 2007)

Yea it really is. The beauty of it, is that it will add 30 yards to any club. So instead of teeing off with a 3-wood that you can control 75% of the time, and goes about 230, you can tee off with a 5-iron, that is much easier to control, fly it about 170, and let it roll 60 yards to get you 230. The key here is minimizing potential error. Practice it a lot and you'll have yourself a serious weapon to get in the fairways.


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## golfermatt91 (Jul 14, 2006)

Yea this course by my house is tight fairways and you have no room for error because you got about 20 yards of fairway then about 5-10 yards of rough then you got houses on both sides... so this shot definitley comes in handy.


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## cbwheeler (Apr 9, 2007)

Try it with a driver next time you have a fairway that slopes downhill. You'll see some bullets flying about 20 feet off the ground that will roll for days.


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## 300Yards (Jan 23, 2007)

Yep, it is a useful shot. I seem to use it a lot these days. Really comes in handy on those snakey Par 4s..


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## Golfbum (Oct 14, 2006)

cbwheeler said:


> Yea it really is. The beauty of it, is that it will add 30 yards to any club. So instead of teeing off with a 3-wood that you can control 75% of the time, and goes about 230, you can tee off with a 5-iron, that is much easier to control, fly it about 170, and let it roll 60 yards to get you 230. The key here is minimizing potential error. Practice it a lot and you'll have yourself a serious weapon to get in the fairways.


Of course there is no mention of the fact you can not roll a ball 60 yards on well maintained soft fairways!


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## cbwheeler (Apr 9, 2007)

It all depends on the day obviously. It's still quite useful the few and far between soft fairway day. You'd be suprised how the ball skips on the grass. The point is to get the ball in fairway to begin with. Fact is, on those soft fairways, you're obviously not going to get very much roll with any shot, so the only way around that is to carry the ball a long way, which is a lot more risky and requires a much harder swing.

Either way, I don't know of many courses that keep their fairways soft, especially in the summer. Unless it's one of those goat ranch courses that only mow the fairways and greens every three days.


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## Foster4 (May 2, 2007)

well before everyone that views this post and starts going to try to hit the shot...beware of your fairways...if they dogleg beware of running through the fairway...this is a very good shot if you are having trouble hitting your woods ...which is why tiger had to hit this shot alot back in the days cuz his driver was so bad ...i think he hit something like 50% of fairways during his 1997-2002 but it didn't matter cuz none of the courses were trying to tiger proof atm so he could get away with it. But now his driving accuracy has risen to around 65% which is one reason you don't see him hit it so much excluding the us open where he didn't not wanna miss fairways. And if you wanna see this lesson of how to hit the stinger go to youtube.com and type in tiger woods clinic. theres 2 parts one of them has the stinger and how to hit it in there. But the videos are very good lessons on different shots.


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## cbwheeler (Apr 9, 2007)

I'll have to see that, never saw the video, just read the article.

I hit this shot all day today, even once with the driver, hit 5 of 7 fairways and shot 37. Missed one fairway by just a few yards and missed the other b/c I didn't hit the stinger, heh. Wow is it ever cool to hit a driver stinger.


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## golfermatt91 (Jul 14, 2006)

Wow congrats on the fairway hits and the 37 not to bad not to bad.


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## cbwheeler (Apr 9, 2007)

Yea thanks. Now if I could only get my swing in order where I don't have to rely on it.


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## golfermatt91 (Jul 14, 2006)

yeah... I prefer hitting a normal shot rather then a stinger myself.


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## cbwheeler (Apr 9, 2007)

Yea me too, but I guess if it works, why not eh? Even we instructors lose our swings from time to time.


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## mstram (Jul 11, 2007)

While the "stinger" is certainly a useful shot, it's nothing new.

Most golfers would just call it a "knock-down with a draw" ... but I guess "stinger" sounds cooler .. and is less to say 

Mike


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