Do this 50,000 times if you struggle with bad contact, says PGA Tour player

If you're flipping, scooping or throwing the club at the ball, hit lots of punch shots.

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Every time a player, coach, or any golf expert in between does a social media Q&A, it usually yields some interesting results. These guys know so much about golf that they toss off interesting bits of information like it’s nothing.

Byeong Hun An and his recent Ask Me Anything provides the perfect example. There was this tidbit about a mistake he sees amateur golfers make too often…

…and this one regarding some solid pace of play advice for juniors.

But my favorite was his simple advice for players who flip, scoop, or chicken wing at the golf ball. It’s a common mistake and one that usually yields dreadful results. When you attempt to scoop the ball up, your arms will bend along the way. You’ll have trouble getting the ball in the air and hitting the ball solid in the first place.

Which is why he recommends hitting punch shots. Lots of them.

The 50,000 comment may have been made in jest, but it’s an important point: by practicing punch shots, you’ll be forcing yourself to make an aggressive, descending blow into the golf ball. It’ll straighten your arms at impact, lean the shaft forward and create a more crispy strike on the ball.

It’ll help your game, plain and simple, so hit more punch shots! The difference between pros and the rest of us? They’re disciplined enough to actually do it.

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Luke Kerr-Dineen

Golf.com Contributor

Luke Kerr-Dineen is the Game Improvement Editor at GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. In his role he oversees the brand’s game improvement content spanning instruction, equipment, health and fitness, across all of GOLF’s multimedia platforms.

An alumni of the International Junior Golf Academy and the University of South Carolina–Beaufort golf team, where he helped them to No. 1 in the national NAIA rankings, Luke moved to New York in 2012 to pursue his Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University. His work has also appeared in USA Today, Golf Digest, Newsweek and The Daily Beast.