Saving Par: How to Hit the 40 Toughest Shots in Golf

Drop strokes from your golf game with these proven techniques for confronting and solving tricky lies, deep rough, sand bunkers, and other devilishly challenging shots that can make the bogeys mount.

What are your options when you encounter a fluffy lie in the rough near the green? How do you execute a super lob to a tight pin on an elevated green? What should you do when you're facing the perils of hitting through, under, or over trees; swinging with little or no backswing; taking opposite-hand shots; or hitting blind?

You play like a champ. With the right frame of mind, and the right technique, a delicate pitch over a bunker can become as routine as a 3-foot putt. The key is preparation. Saving Par gives you the skills you need to hit the 40 most difficult and demanding shots in golf. As author and PGA pro Todd Sones says, "In every one of us there exists the capacity to respond with strokes of genius." It's time to find yours.

TODD SONES was ranked one of the top 100 PGA teachers in the United States by Golf Magazine, and his noted clients include PGA Tour players Scott McCarron and Robert Gamez. He operates the Todd Sones Impact Golf Center in Vernon Hills, Illinois, and is director of instruction at Ironwood Country Club in Indian Wells, California.

JOHN MONTELEONE has collaborated on two previous golf books, with T. J. Tomasi, Ph.D., on The Little Book of Putting and with David Glenz on Lowdown from the Lesson Tee. He is the author of several books, among them What Makes a Boomerang Come Back and The Louisville Slugger Ultimate Book of Hitting. He lives in New Jersey.