Top Five Most Rewarding Shots in Golf

By Michael Geiger -- 2nd Swing staff writer

Golf is a difficult game, and it often feels like the good days on the course are a little more infrequent than the bad ones. But no matter how bad the round is going, a terrific shot is always just one swing away. If you’ve played enough golf, you’ve hit your share of great shots and it’s exactly what keeps bringing you back to the golf course. 

At 2nd Swing, we do our best to help golfers hit more of those great shots and enjoy this game we love so much. Here are the five most rewarding shots to hit in golf.

5. The great escape from the trees

Most of the time, when stuck deep in the trees after a wayward tee shot, a variety of routes that are presented to the golfer. Typically, the percentage play is taking your medicine and chipping out sideways into the fairway. However, every now and then a window presents itself through the trees with access to the green. With just one bold swing, par is back in play, and you’re back in business. 

4. The solid approach from a fairway bunker

Between work and family obligations, amateur golfers only have so much time to practice. And during these precious practice hours, golfers rarely spend much time practicing fairway bunker shots. This makes this type of shot all the more intimidating when faced out on the golf course. Forced to hover your club above the ground and dig your feet into the sand, the fairway bunker shot never fails to feel a little foreign and awkward. But a clean strike that puts you in birdie range is one of the coolest, and most rare, sensations in golf. 

3. The high, soft lob shot

You’ve committed the cardinal sin. After being constantly reminded to avoid short-siding yourself, you took the hero line at the pin and missed in the worst spot imaginable. There is almost no green to work with, and you’re left with only one option: the super flop. This shot requires a decent lie, a little bit of talent, and most importantly, a ton of courage. But you ignore the odds, open the face, and do your best Phil Mickelson impersonation. A confident, aggressive swipe at the ball sends it soaring into the air before dropping near the pin like a butterfly with sore feet. This kind of miracle up-and-down builds more confidence than almost any other shot in golf.

2. The perfect drive

“What other people may find in poetry, I find in the flight of a good drive.” These words remain as true today as the day Arnold Palmer said them. No other kind of golf shot sends the ball flying as high or as far as a well-struck drive, and seeing that little white circle get smaller and smaller as it arcs through the sky is a truly wonderful sight. Of course, this feeling is only magnified when the tee shot earns you some bragging rights as it airmails your playing partners’ drives.

1. The winning putt

There is no way to replicate the feeling standing over a putt that truly matters. Whether the putt is needed to secure a state amateur spot, to win the third flight of your club championship, or just to take a few bucks from your buddies, the moment produces nerves no matter the stakes. Your hands tremble and you struggle to replicate your usual pre-shot routine.  The four previous hours on the course had been building up to that moment. The chips are down, and you have the chance to rise to the occasion. But once that ball finds its way over the lip and into the hole, that feeling of pressure is replaced with pure euphoria.