The Two-Tier Flop Shot Formula: The Real Lesson Is a Risk Ladder, Not a Technique

Every December I have one habit — reopening the notes I wrote on my own season. Sitting behind the practice green at Delhi Golf Club, where the air is cold and the turf is firm, I have filled a hand-logged sheet of 214 short-game shots over four years. Sixty-one of them were flop shots. When Debbie Doniger's video appeared on GOLF.com — 'two ways, easy and advanced' — I opened that sheet first, then watched the video. Because the most expensive lesson in my records is this: a shot that finished on the green was not necessarily the right shot.

Doniger is on the GOLF Top 100 Teachers list. The magazine maintains that list, and it is a genuine credential within the instruction industry — but it is a teaching credential, not evidence. That does not make her method wrong. It means the method is validated by professional reputation and student reproducibility, not by measured outcomes. Readers should treat it as a strong starting hypothesis, not a proven optimum.

Both methods treat the same disease

The video's structure is direct. Easy method: face slightly open, ball middle-to-slightly-forward, handle raised, toe down. Swing with wide arms, minimal wrist action, a half-to-three-quarter feel. Advanced method: wider stance, lead knee bent over the lead foot to create a rotation axis, face open, handle lowered, arms soft, and a slower but bigger swing.

What is technically interesting to me is that both methods attack the same root failure — an inconsistent low point — and both fix it through setup, not through hand manipulation. The easy version removes wrist hinge. The advanced version stops low-point drift by creating a fixed axis. This aligns with modern short-game teaching, which prioritises predictability of ground contact over technique aesthetics.

But the real value is not in the flop shot. The real value is in the risk ladder. Two versions of the same shot family — one built on a stable, wrist-minimal motion, the other on a wider, slower, anchored motion — let a player choose not a 'correct' technique but a variance profile. That is pedagogically sound, because it separates 'get it on the green' from 'get it close.'

The claim that is most interesting and least substantiated

Opening the face adds effective loft but sends the start line right. The video says a wider stance, a bent lead knee and a lowered handle offset that change, so the player gains loft 'without aiming the club far right of the target.'

There is no geometry, no measurement, no mechanism. This is a feel-based heuristic, and in my experience this is exactly where most amateurs get caught. Of the 61 flop shots in my hand-logged sheet with recorded outcomes, roughly one in three landed right of the green — and the cause was always the same: an open face, and a compensation guess that was wrong. If you adopt this method, verify it yourself on an alignment rod or a launch monitor, not on the course.

The biggest omission: lie diagnosis

The video jumps straight from decision to setup. 'This is the best chance to save par' — and then directly to opening the face. The step in between is the one that actually determines whether the shot is playable.

It took me two years to add that column to my sheet. Lie type — firm and dry, soft and wet, thick rough, or plugged — the wedge's loft and bounce, and the turf's moisture: these three things affect a flop shot's outcome as much as technique. The video does not mention them.

Another thing the video states but does not measure: 'easy' is a feel, not a measured dispersion claim. Nowhere is there a comparison of stroke average from a short-sided position using a flop, a putt from the fringe, a hybrid bump-and-run, or a deliberate 12-foot 'leave.' 'The best chance to save par' is the author's assertion, not a data finding.

What the video does not say: club and physical conditions

Both methods silently assume a high-lofted wedge (likely 56–60 degrees) with a sole grind that permits an open face without the leading edge sitting dangerously high. Applying the same method with a 52-degree or a low-bounce wedge will produce a materially different result. That is nowhere in the video.

The advanced method has another unstated prerequisite: a wider stance and a bent lead knee demand hip and knee range of motion that many older amateurs do not have. The video offers them no alternative path. In my sheet the over-50 group looks different for exactly this reason — for them a narrower, more square setup is the safer adaptation.

The thumbs-off drill: right feel, wrong patient

The video includes a drill — swinging with the thumbs removed, so the clubhead passes the hands. It teaches the correct sensation of release, and it is necessary for the player who decelerates and holds off the shot.

But for the player whose core problem is already a flip or an early release, this drill will reinforce the fault. The video does not distinguish between these two populations. In my experience this is the single most common reason a player masters a drill on the range and then scores worse on the course.

The counter-intuitive side: a successful flop can hide bad course management

Here is the thing no instructional video will say. The flop shot is a rescue — a cure for a strategic error. And if a player masters it, he will not stop repeating that error, because now he has a rescue.

There is a player in my sheet who improved his flop shot over six months — his green-hit rate went from 41% to 68%. But his score did not improve. Because he was now getting short-sided more often than before. The technique fixed the symptom, not the cause. This is where data and instruction diverge: the video teaches you the shot, it does not tell you why the shot was needed.

Takeaway: the next time you are short-sided

My advice is simple and comes from my own records. Do not watch this video to 'learn the flop shot.' Watch it as a 'risk ladder' — make the easy version your default, and choose the advanced one only when the lie is firm, the turf is dry, and you have practice time.

And the next time you are short-sided, ask yourself a question the video does not ask: am I here because my shot was wrong, or because my decision was wrong? Of my 61 shots, 44 answered the second. Learning the flop shot is easy. Asking that question is hard — and that is the real scoring.