The Flop Shot: Debbie Doniger's Two-Tier Lesson and the Gap Amateurs Miss

On a late-autumn afternoon at a practice range near Busan, I stood behind the netting and watched an amateur in his sixties try a flop shot. He opened the face, played the ball slightly forward, and swung with real intent. The club dug into the ground before the ball; the ball shot across the green and rolled down a slope. He smiled awkwardly: “I opened the face.” The instructor pointed at his wrist: “You opened the face, but you did not release the club.” That moment brought back Debbie Doniger's instruction piece on GOLF.com. A GOLF Top 100 Teacher, Doniger divides the flop shot into two versions: an easy one and an advanced one. The real value lies in how she sequences the lesson, not in a promise that the ball will fly high and land soft.

A flop shot is a high, soft-landing shot played with an open face, usually when the player is short-sided — the flag is near the edge of the green, an obstacle sits in front, and almost no putting surface remains. For amateurs, it is a performative shot. It appears in videos, in practice-green arguments, in stories after a round. Its correct use is far rarer than the feeling it creates. A low, safe chip-and-run is often the better choice when there is room to work with. The flop is worth playing only when the terrain forces the ball up and requires it to stop quickly.

Based on my experience watching tournaments and practice sessions in Busan, Korean players tend to train their short games carefully, especially when greens become firm and fast in late autumn. In Vietnam, conditions are often softer and more humid, so the same flop may need less loft and less speed. The difference is not in the basic motion but in club selection and reading the surface. Vietnamese amateurs who learn from video often skip that part. They copy the motion but not the conditions. The result is a shot that looks beautiful online and fails twice on the course: the ball does not rise enough, or it rises but does not stop.

Doniger's piece is valuable because of its two-tier structure. The easy version targets players without much control. The advanced version is for players with a short-game foundation. The core lesson is to reduce variables before adding difficulty, not to teach a heroic shot for every situation around the green. Doniger does not start with the perfect flop. She starts with a lower-risk version and expands from there.

In the easy version, the face is opened slightly. The ball sits in the middle of the stance, a touch forward. The handle is raised so the toe sits down, and the arms are wide both ways. The feel is a half or three-quarter swing, with the club gliding through the grass rather than digging. Every detail is a variance-reduction move. A slightly open face preserves loft without demanding too much wrist rotation. A slightly forward ball position stabilizes contact. A raised handle and lowered toe change the club's presentation and help the sole avoid digging. Wide arms create a stable upper body and limit early wrist action.

The advanced version is the technically interesting part. Doniger widens the stance, lowers the handle, bends the lead knee, and uses that knee as an anchor. The face is opened more. When the face opens, the club's plane naturally aims right of target. Amateurs often miss this. They open the face, aim straight, and wonder why the ball goes right. Lowering the handle adds loft and changes the face presentation. The bent lead knee creates a more stable rotation axis. This is a real biomechanical solution, not a marketing trick. It explains why a good player's flop looks gentle yet still controls direction.

The thumbs-off drill is the most transferable instruction in the piece. Amateurs' dominant flop-shot failure is deceleration through impact. They fear the ball will travel too far, so they hold on. The club does not release, the face does not pass through the ball, and the leading edge digs. Removing the thumbs forces wrist action and makes the clubhead pass through the hitting area. It does not teach a harder swing. It teaches release at the right time. In the short game, release matters more than speed. A small swing with good release usually beats a big swing with a hold.

The article omits something important: wedge selection by bounce and grind. Bounce is the angle of the sole relative to the ground. Grind is the detailed shape of the sole. On tight, firm lies, a low-bounce wedge is often easier to manage. On soft, fluffy lies, high bounce helps the sole avoid digging. A flop from a tight lie with a low-bounce wedge can easily be skulled. A flop from a soft lie with a high-bounce wedge can easily be chunked if the player cannot control depth. Doniger gives the technique but not the equipment condition. A reader can make the right motion and still fail with the wrong wedge.

The contrarian point is the word “easy.” The easy version does not mean anyone can do it immediately. It means lower risk than the advanced version. Beginners often read “easy” and jump to the advanced version because it is described more attractively: higher flight, softer landing. The article does not build a clear guardrail between the two. That is a pedagogical gap. A good teacher usually says: play the easy version until the ball lands on the intended spot ten times in a row, then move on. The article lacks that sentence. That small omission can push amateurs into the highest-variance shot around the green.

The biggest risk is not the technique. It is how readers use it. The flop is a recovery tool for short-sided situations with an obstacle. It is not the default chip. Amateurs remember the image of a high, soft shot and make it their first choice whenever the ball is near the green. They skip the chip-and-run, the putt from the fringe, the safe play. Their average score rises, but the shot feels good because it looks good. This is a hard failure to correct because it is socialized through imagery.

The GOLF Top 100 Teacher designation is a meaningful professional signal. It shows that Doniger is recognized by peers and the industry. But it is curated by GOLF.com inside its own content ecosystem. It is not certification that her method outperforms every other method. Readers should treat it as a sign of standing, not proof of efficacy. That does not diminish the lesson. It simply reminds us that the technique still needs to be tested through personal practice, with specific course conditions and equipment.

The article also lacks guidance on the ratio between swing length and distance. In the advanced version, Doniger says to use a bigger swing with a slower tempo. That is correct as a feel, but risky without a distance map. Amateurs will over-swing and then decelerate to compensate. Deceleration is the root error of the flop. A good lesson should say: how long a swing for 10 meters, 15 meters, 20 meters, and always with the same tempo. The article stops at feel and does not reach measurement. For advanced players, that is a weakness. For beginners, it is a reason to keep failing even after reading carefully.

In Vietnam, greens are often softer and slower than in Korea during the dry season. The flop may not need as much face opening. In Busan in late autumn, greens are fast and firm, and a soft landing is a real requirement. Players who move between the two environments need to adjust the same technique. I have seen Vietnamese players in Korean amateur events come up short with the flop because they used their familiar stance and face angle. The motion was not wrong. The assumption about the green was wrong. Technique does not travel alone; it carries course conditions with it. That is a lesson in adaptation, something a scorecard never records.

The thumbs-off drill can be used as a test before playing a real flop. Put the hands on the grip, remove the thumbs, make a few short swings, and feel the clubhead pass through the ball. If the head stops at impact, the wrists are holding. If it passes naturally, release is present. The test needs no ball, no green, no launch monitor. It needs a wedge and honesty about feel. Data gives us a place to stand; emotion gives us a reason to stay. In the short game, the feel of release is the most important internal data.

Crowd noise is never just noise; it is the heartbeat of a city. For an amateur, the sound of a ball landing softly on the green is a small heartbeat too. It creates a sense of control. But real control does not come from choosing the hardest shot. It comes from choosing the right shot for the situation. The flop is beautiful only when it is the last option, after safer choices have been eliminated. If it is the first option, beauty becomes a trap.

I once wrote 2,000 words about tactics and then realized a single pointing finger said more. Doniger's lesson works the same way. The detail readers remember may be just the image of removing the thumbs from the grip. A small detail, but it hits a large error. Effective short-game lessons rarely add motion. They remove a bad habit. Removing the thumbs removes an anchor that locks the wrists. Removing the feeling of “I must hit it hard” removes a cause of deceleration. Removing the hero-shot image removes a wrong situational choice.

For Vietnamese players learning the short game, the sensible path is release first, wedge selection second, flop third. Release can be trained with the thumbs-off drill, short swings through grass, and the feel of the clubhead passing the ball. Wedge selection requires knowing bounce, grind, and whether the lie is tight or soft. The flop should begin only when the easy version can land the ball on the intended spot. These three steps are less exciting than a video of a high, soft shot, but they produce durable results. Amateurs often reverse the order: they learn the shot first and the conditions later. That is why many practice for years without lowering their scores. Results come from the right learning order, not from the hardest shot.

What I want from the next generation of instruction is clearer guardrails. Instruction should explain how to hit a flop, and when not to hit a flop. It should explain how much to open the face, with which wedge, from which lie. It should explain how long a swing should be for which distance. Those sentences do not make instruction less appealing. They make it more trustworthy. In a sport where error is measured in meters, trust matters more than inspiration.

As I left the Busan practice range that afternoon, I could still hear the club of the man in his sixties digging into the grass. He will practice again. Maybe he will remove his thumbs from the grip, choose a different wedge, and realize the flop does not need to be the most beautiful shot in the bag. It only needs to be the right shot at the right time.