How to Hit a Golf Ball From Any Sort of Lie

Sam Snead

• Publisher: Paeroa House
• eBook ISBN:
  9781779797001
• Year: 2026

There are moments on the golf course when the ball settles into a position that feels almost personally offensive. Buried in a divot. Perched on a bare patch of hardpan. Nestled deep in the rough where the grass grips the club like a fist. In those moments, most golfers do one of two things: they panic, or they guess. Sam Snead never did either. One of the most gifted ball-strikers the game has ever produced, Snead played from every conceivable lie across every conceivable course in every conceivable condition, and what he learned along the way was not just technique but a kind of quiet mastery that separated the truly capable golfer from the perpetually frustrated one. This book is that mastery, distilled and placed directly into the reader's hands. Written at the height of Snead's dominance in professional golf, this instructional work goes far beyond the tidy, flat lies that only ever seem to exist on the practice range. Snead walks the golfer through the messy, unpredictable reality of the actual game, addressing the hanging lies on hillsides, the tight fairway lies that punish any hesitation, the deep rough that demands a complete rethinking of the swing, and the sand conditions that shift from course to course and day to day. His tone is direct and unhurried, carrying the confidence of a man who has stood in every one of these situations and found a way through. There is warmth here too, the sense of a master craftsman who genuinely wants to pass something real along, not theory but hard-won, road-tested knowledge built across years of competitive play at the highest level. What a golfer gains from spending time with this book is something no amount of range time alone can provide, which is the mental framework to assess any lie quickly, commit to a shot selection with genuine confidence, and execute with a technique that is actually suited to the conditions rather than applied blindly. Snead understood that golf is played on imperfect ground, and that the golfer who thrives is the one who stops fighting that imperfection and starts working with it. Practical, grounded, and loaded with the kind of insight that only experience can generate, this book remains an essential companion for any golfer serious about building a complete and resilient game.

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• FOREWORD
• HOW TO GRIP A GOLF CLUB
• THE STANCE
• THE WOODS ARE THE CLUBS FOR DISTANCE
• A WOOD FROM THE TEE
• BRASSIE LIES IN THE FAIRWAY
• SPOON LIES IN THE FAIRWAY
• DON’T USE A WOOD CLUB FOR THESE FAIRWAY LIES
• WOODS ARE SELDOM USED IN THE ROUGH
• HOW TO CONTROL WOOD SHOTS IN THE WIND
• HITTING WOODS FROM HILLY LIES
• SOMETIMES YOU WANT TO SLICE OR HOOK
• THE GENERAL USE OF THE IRONS
• SOME TEE SHOTS REQUIRE AN IRON
• THE USE OF THE LONG IRONS
• THE USE OF THE MEDIUM IRONS
• THE PLAY OF THE SHORT IRONS
• MANY IRON SHOTS MUST BE PLAYED FROM HILLY LIES
• PLAYING IRON SHOTS ON WINDY DAYS
• AN IRON WILL GET THE BALL OUT OF TROUBLE
• HOW TO GET EXTRA HEIGHT ON A BALL
• HOW TO KEEP A BALL LOW IN THE AIR
• OCCASIONALLY YOU WOULD LIKE TO PUT A CURVE ON AN IRON SHOT
• THE PITCH SHOT
• PITCH AND RUN SHOT
• THE CHIP SHOT
• THE CUT SHOT
• THE RUN-UP APPROACH
• APPROACHING FROM SHORT GRASS JUST OFF THE GREEN
• WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FULL-IRON AND A HALF-IRON SHOT?
• THE PUNCH SHOT
• SOME LIES REALLY ARE UNPLAYABLE
• ON SOME SHOTS YOU CANNOT GET A FULL SWING AT THE BALL
• PLAYING TO A HIGHER OR A LOWER LEVEL
• BACKSPIN WITH THE IRONS
• TWO FAULTS: UNDER-CLUBBING AND OVER-CLUBBING
• PLAYING A BALL OUT OF WATER
• THE GENERAL CONDITIONS OF TRAP PLAY
• HOW TO GET OUT OF DEEP, DRY SAND
• PLAY TRAP SHOTS FROM WET SAND
• PLAYING TRAP SHOTS FROM VERY SHALLOW OR HARD SAND
• PUTTING OUT OF TRAPS
• PUTTING IS A BIG PART OF THE GAME
• GREENS DIFFER GREATLY IN PLAYING QUALITIES
• YOUR MENTAL APPROACH TO GOLF
• CAUSES AND QUICK CURES FOR COMMON FAULTS
• YOU CAN CHOOSE A SET OF CLUBS FROM THIS LIST