Golf Dom
Blog Home / Play Better Golf / How to Hit a Stinger

How to Hit a Stinger

When it comes to links-style golf, we hear a lot about hitting creative shots and flighting the golf ball down to keep it out of the wind. And in our latest Play Better Golf segment, Mark Blackburn, director of instruction at Graystone Country Club and Titleist brand ambassadors, shows us the fundamentals of the “Stinger”.

Mark Blackburn: This is Mark Blackburn, director of instruction at Graystone Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama and we’re going to talk a little bit about the stinger. Most people struggle with the stinger in that they don’t start the ball far enough left and they’re not able to cut it consistently because they don’t set up right. And the key for a stinger, much like a fade, is that we need the club path left of the target and the face right of the path. When we match those two things nicely, we get a golf ball that starts left, launches very low and will run very very hard when it lands.

Again this is going to be when the trouble sort of down the left or you’ve got to hold that fairway, keep a good round going, build that momentum. Going to tee up on the right side. We’re going to make sure here when I get into my setup, I’m going to get a little bit closer to it that’s going to steep and help me steepen the angle of attack a little bit. I’m going to have the ball back in my stance now from here this is going to be more of a three-quarter abbreviated swing weight moving forwards. I’m really going to hold this angle on the way through to get that low launch and low run down the fairway.

Setup is key. Make sure we get in there, aiming far enough left, ball position in a good spot. Then from here good distance just go ahead and swing and then that ball takes off very very low and runs like a banshee when it lands.