[eropiereetuekm]

What do you consider your all-time best recovery shot?

Mine was lucky. Stymied behind a tree in the rough about 150 away. Did what I do best......pull hooked it around the tree. Not enough on it. Hit the rocks surrounding the lake in front of the green. Bounced 30 feet into the air and landed 2 feet from the pin.

[Thorwaywhobia]

I have said it a few times on here somewhere.

374 yard par 4 at a local course here. Hit my drive about 250 and was in pine needles and the trees. Had to hit a low punch but still generate spin to have it hold the greens if I wanted a chance. There was no trouble behind the hole, but water in front of the green. Rather than pitching out (which I should have done) I went for it. Hit a "hooded wedge that hit the front of the green, then hit the stick, then kicked about a foot left but had right spin on it, so spun into the hole.

There were 3 groups on the next tee that saw it and were going crazy. I proceeded to double bogey the next two holes, but for recovery shots, that was truly my shining moment. A heck of an eagle too.

[Suvuseh]

I've gotten away with some funny stuff over the years but by far and away my most memorable up and down was about 8 years ago, I was playing Oakwoods Country Club in Wilkesboro NC one afternoon in the member-member tournment. I hit my drive about 20 yards into the woods left of the fairway and rough. My ball was lying on a bed of pine needles behind 2 trees with about 150 yards left to the hole. I punched my 7 iron with a hook runner that stayed airborne about 40 yards then proceded to roll all the way down the fairway and about 20 yards onto the green rolled right to left with the break of the green and dropped into the cup for a 2 and my first eagle of a par 4. It was truly a shot of luck and good fortune but one I will never forget.

[trilochana.nejman]

I don't know if this would qualify as my "best", but it was definitely my favorite:

I'm in the trees on the right side of a par 4. My ball is sitting on an almost bare lie in the middle of the tree line. According to my SkyCaddie, I have 184 yards to the center of a slightly elevated green (about 15 feet or so above my feet) and mostly trees between me and that target.

What I need to do is to hit a shot that will first go under the lowest branch of an oak which is about 40 yards away from me and then soar upwards high enough to go over a stand of mature oaks which are about 40 or 50 feet high and guard the green directly on its right front and then just have the ball "die" and fall onto the putting surface.

So the deal is that once the ball gets past the oak with the low hanging branches, there is a gap of about 90 to 100 yards of relatively open area (sparsely treed) before the stand of tall oaks near the green come into play.
There is a breeze of about 10 mph in my face which will actually help if I hit the shot I'm planning for.

So I decide that to do all of what needs to be done will require a very crisply struck 6-iron. I set the ball a bit farther back in my stance to make sure that I make ball-first contact and to ensure that the ball will fly out low to get under the branches of the first oak and I take a bit more backswing and I make sure that I hit the ball as solidly as I can.

The ball shoots off the clubface like a bullet, gets past the first tree and easily flies under those branches, then the spin begins to kick in and the ball catches the air (aided by that breeze) and starts to climb like it's on an escalator. It gets to the tall oaks and clears them by about 5 or 10 feet and then hits that 10 mph breeze head on and basically shuts its engines off and simply drops onto the green and ends up about 12 feet from the pin.

That shot is my favorite because I planned every move it made and not only did it work perfectly, but it was a nice payoff for all of those years of paying attention to ball flight at the driving range (even on the poor shots) and making mental notes of how to make the ball do certain things or what happens when I hit a ball a certain way.

I have a whole mental "Rolodex" of shots like that and this particular shot was special because I went through that Rolodex, selected the shot I needed for this situation and then put it into play. It was sort of like calling in to "Central Dispatch" and asking for a shot with a specific distance, shape and reaction to wind and "Dispatch" sent down something like "shot number 407 Low with extra spin".

Sadly, I missed that 12 footer for birdie, but I think that may have been because I was a bit too wrapped up in congratulating myself for that 6-iron shot, but even just a plain old par from where I was was fine with me!


-JP

[vansVoish]

Playing for the first time with some low handicappers for skins, I hit my drive too far on a hard dogleg left. I was stymied by a huge sycamore tree that stood halfway between me and the pin. The pin was back right and the tree stood guard at the edge of a creek between me and the green. I was going to need a big, swinging hook that landed the front of the green and released back to the far right corner to have any chance. This thing came of the clubface as clean as a whistle, turning perfectly around the tree. I couldn't see it land, but from the whistles and "wow's", I knew it was good.

It landed 10ft below and left of the hole, ground-hooked toward the hole and left me an 18" straight uphill putt for birdie, which I made. One of these guys said, "That was Tigeresque." Proudest moment of my awful golf career.

[Audi_z]

-Years ago I hit a really poor shot that with the help of few inanimate objects turned itself into a very "lucky" recovery shot. I had 170 to the green when I hit an absolutely first class slice. The ball was heading "OB", with someone's roof a likely landing area. I hit something on the roof which deflected the ball back towards the green. As the ball bounced off the roof, it hit top of a brick wall column, bounced off that, hit the fairway and landed on the first cut of the green. I chipped, and putted from there for a par. I say this was a lucky shot for obvious reasons.

As for a great recovery, I had a shot off of a concrete drainage ditch floor, that had about a 1/2" or so of water running in it. I holed out the shot for an eagle 3 on that par 5. I did not smell very good afterwards, but I did not care I had the same shot a few years later that I got away with par, on the same hole. Again, both were some what lucky, but my swing still had a lot to do with both of them.