The Shank

I don’t know if there’s a lousier shot to hit than the shank. Maybe the only one worse is a complete whif!

Hosel hitting golf ball = Shank

For those of you who don’t know what a shank is, it’s when you hit the ball with the hosel of the club causing it to go way to the right for right handed golfers and the opposite direction for lefties. It feels bad to hit one. It sounds bad to hit one. Everyone watching can immediately tell what happened. Most of you probably know the feeling. The shank is one of those really bad shots that we expect “pros” not to hit…guess again.

My dad and I scored 2 tickets to the Champions Tour US Open last year that was held at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We’re standing near the ropes on the 17th hole when a tee shot comes bouncing up right in front of us and ends up in the first cut of rough. Great shot! A few minutes later the player approaches who hit the tee shot and begins talking yardage with his caddie. Now I won’t mention any names here but this gentleman is a prominent player on the Champions Tour. He proceeds to pull a 6 iron out of the bag and begin his pre shot routine. He addresses the ball, takes a few waggles to get comfortable and makes the swing.

Would you like to guess what happens next?

He shanked the ball. It flies off way to the right, over a few trees, across a road and into the front yard of someone’s house. Wow! My dad and I looked at each other stunned. Didn’t expect that to happen. We immediately turned our attention back to the player to see his reaction. He is looking at his caddie and laughing because he is as stunned as we are.

Now here’s the amazing part. He calmly grabs another ball, drops it in play, goes through his same routine and hits it to 3 feet! The putt is made and he saves bogey on the hole.

There are 2 lessons to this story.

1. EVERYBODY hits bad shots. If a player of this guy’s caliber can shank one out of bounds from a perfect lie, you and I should expect to hit some funky shots as well. It’s called golf and it happens to everyone.

2. The best way to handle a terrible shot is to laugh it off, forget it ever happened, regroup and play on.

So, next time you hit a terrible shot on the course, laugh it off and be thankful there aren’t 1,000 people standing around watching!! Your bad shot probably won’t end up in someone’s blog like this guy’s did.

Thanks for checking in,

Mike Snyder

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