8th Hole Guideline

Hi, my name is Billy Downs. I'm the head PGA professional here at Greathorse. On behalf of myself and my staff, we want to welcome the participants in the third annual member-guest tournament.

Today, we're out here on the eighth hole at Greathorse, and we're going to talk a little bit about the clubs we're going to use, from the driver to possibly a fairway wood and our iron into the green. Our other PGA professional, Kyle Hash, will be playing the hole together and stopping along the way to give some instruction as we go.

We're just going to talk a little bit today about setting up to the driver and what I like to think about when I do that. Now, we're going to take our normal grip, but what I like to do is play the ball off the inside of my left heel. Normally, with an iron, we'd have the ball farther back in our stance. So, when setting up, I want my left hand even with the front of the ball, the ball in the middle of my stance, and my posture to be as tall as possible. With the driver being the longest club in the bag, I want to create all that room to start so I can fully extend and get the most yardage. When swinging the driver, I'm thinking about making as good a full turn as I can and making solid contact.

Here we find ourselves in the middle of the fairway on the eighth hole, faced with a few options. Club choice is a big decision here. There are maybe 200-210 yards left to a bunker out there that I'm looking at, and from there, I'll be able to hit a wedge in. So, I'm going to lay up with a 5-iron to that bunker. When hitting an iron, the ball position is in the middle of your stance, unlike the driver, which is more forward. Take a good full turn.

I've had a good drive here and am kind of in between yardages. I can't really get it to the green, but if I want to be a little more aggressive and leave myself an easier shot into the green, I'm going to take my 3-wood or 5-wood and play it out to the right to leave me a better angle to the pin. With the fairway wood, think of it similar to the driver: tall, a little more forward in my stance, and make a nice rhythmic, easy swing to catch the ball first and stay level through the shot.



We are about 20 feet from the hole after our wedge shot. I pulled the shot a little bit, but we have a 20-25 foot birdie putt here. We're almost full high, so let's go through our putting routine. First, place the ball back in front of the marker. Align the ball to your target line, put the marker in your pocket, and get behind the putt to see which way the green may break. This one is a little uphill and will slide to our right, so I'm going to play it outside the left side about a foot.