You’ve been in this situation before. You just came up short of the green and/or desired direction of choice and your ball settled comfortably against an obstacle. Now, the question remains, what is your next move?

The conservative approach would be to casually hit it backwards, accept the one-stroke penalty and move on with your round after perhaps a curse word or seven. While this is probably the smart approach, it’s also the least likely, ESPECIALLY if you’ve been consuming that evening.

The aggressive approach is to say “to hell with this obstacle,” and attempt to clear it with your favorite loftiest wedge. Most of this time this fails, perhaps resulting in a hazard or another obstacle-blocked shot. Every once in a while it works, however, and when it does oh is it awesome.

Our latest featured shot proves there is indeed another option.

Although you rarely (if ever) cut the ball when chipping out of a surface other than fairway, you can indeed get yourself out of some sticky situations if you do. Houston’s Mark Stenmark showed us that when he was put in the situation described above.

He pulled back to C, used the exact amount of required force, and the results are a shot that would make most pool trick shot artists stop dead in their tracks. Worth a try if you’re ever stuck in this same situation, although you may not have the exact same results.