A blind shot takes away the two things a normal shot hands you for free: something to aim at and a number to hit. The swing is the same swing. So the job is not to produce some special shot. It is to get a line and a number back from other sources, then make the swing you always make. Most of the strokes lost on blind holes go before the club moves, in the ten seconds where a golfer aims at a feeling and pulls a club by guess.
The course management guide treats a blind shot as one case of a bigger rule: pick a target that survives your miss. On a blind hole you have to build the target yourself. This is how.
On this page
What makes a shot blind, and why a laser can’t help
Three things hide a green. A dogleg puts it around a corner of trees, so you can see the corner and nothing past it. A hill puts a crest between you and the landing area: the uphill tee shot to a ridge, or an approach over a rise to a green sitting in a hollow. Trees, mounds and tall rough do the rest, leaving a slot of sky where the flag should be. There is also the half-blind shot, where the top of the flagstick shows but the surface does not. That one is sneakier than the full blind, because it feels like a target when it is only a direction with no idea of depth attached.
Blind holes are not a design mistake. When GOLF.com asked its panel of course raters what separates a fair blind shot from a gimmick, they did not all agree (one prefers no markers at all), but the common threads were a directional of some kind, a post or a natural feature, and a landing area that rewards the golfer who commits to the line. Read that as a checklist from the other side. If the architect gave you a line, find it. If the hole rewards commitment, commit.
The laser problem is plain physics. A laser rangefinder measures line-of-sight distance to whatever you point it at, to about a yard on manufacturers’ specifications (Bushnell’s product page for its A1-Slope lists plus or minus 1 yard at 500 yards, checked September 2026). That is its whole trick, and the trick needs a target. Point it at the hill and you get the hill. Point it at a treetop behind the green and you get the tree, which may stand 30 yards past the surface. Point it at the sky and you get nothing. A laser on a blind shot can tell you how far it is to the crest, which is sometimes worth knowing. It cannot give you the number to the green, because it cannot see the green either.
Finding the line: marker posts, a tree, a cloud
Take the line first, before the number, because the line is the thing you lose once you start thinking about clubs.
The marker post
Many blind holes have a post, often striped, standing in the fairway or behind the green. Usually the post marks the line to the middle of the fairway or the middle of the green: not the safe side, not the pin. Check the hole map or the note on the card, because some courses set the post on the ideal line for a long hitter, and the ideal line for 280 yards is not the ideal line for 210. A post on the fairway is something to aim at. A post behind the green is something to aim at and finish short of, which is the point.
The walk
When the crest is within 40 or 50 yards, walk up and look. It costs a minute and it saves the hole. Pick something on the skyline behind the green that will not move: a tall tree, a roofline, a pylon, a gap between two trees. Walk back to the ball keeping it in view, then pick a spot on the ground two or three feet in front of the ball on the same line, the way you would on the range. That small spot is your target now. The tree only exists to give the spot its meaning.
A cloud works for one shot, provided you hit before it moves. Use one when the sky is all you have, and be quick about it.
A playing partner on the line
The Rules allow some help with the line. Under Rule 10.2b, someone other than your caddie may point out an object that shows the line, such as a post or a tree, and, for a ball that is not on the putting green, may stand where the ball should go to give you something to aim at, but the person has to move away before you make the stroke, and nobody may set an object down to mark it. So a partner can walk up the hill, stand where the ball should go, and step off once you are set. The R&A publishes the rule in full; the version above is a paraphrase.
No post, no partner
Then the line is the middle of the fairway on the hole map, and on a dogleg it is the corner plus a margin, not the corner itself. Cutting a corner you cannot see is a coin flip with a two-stroke downside. Golfers who have played the hole before know where the fairway bends. Golfers who have not should assume it bends later than it looks.
Finding the number: markers, sprinklers, GPS to the center
Now the number. There are three ways to get it, and they are not equal.
Markers and sprinkler heads. The 100-, 150- and 200-yard markers and the plates on sprinkler heads give a distance to the green, almost always to the center. What the markers mean covers the conventions and the front-of-green exceptions. Find the nearest one, pace to your ball, add or subtract. The number is as good as your pacing and as good as your picture of where the green sits behind the hill, which is the weak link on a course you have never played.
The scorecard. Under the World Handicap System a hole’s length is measured to the center of the green, as the Oregon Golf Association’s measurement notes spell out, so if you know how far you have come, the rest is subtraction. On a blind tee shot the card gives the number to the green and the hole map gives the number to the crest. The difference tells you whether the ball will land on a downslope beyond the ridge and run.
GPS. A GPS device does not measure to what you can see. It measures from where you stand to a point on a map, and the center of the green is on the map whether or not there is a hill in the way. This is the one shot where a phone beats a laser, and it is not close: the laser has no target, and the GPS does not need one. The rangefinder versus GPS comparison is honest about the shots where the laser wins. This is not one of them.
Yardage shows that number and nothing else: the live GPS distance to the mapped center of the green, on the phone already in your pocket, on the Lock Screen during the round. Blind or not, it is the same number. How it compares with a laser, including where the laser is the better tool, is written down plainly.
One caution on the GPS number, because blind shots and poor GPS conditions like the same places. GPS.gov puts a GPS-enabled smartphone's typical accuracy within a 4.9 m (16 ft) radius under open sky, and says it gets worse near buildings, bridges and trees. A blind shot from a chute of trees is that case. Take the reading where you can see sky, even if that means a few steps back toward the fairway, and trust a number that has settled over one that is jumping.
What the number gives you is the club for the middle of the green, before adjustment. If the shot plays over a ridge, add for the climb to the crest and think about what happens after it. A ball that lands short of the crest rolls back down, which is the worst result on the hole. A ball that carries the crest lands on a downslope and runs, which is fine if the green is deep. When in doubt, take the club that carries the crest with something to spare. How elevation changes the number has the arithmetic for the climb itself.
Commit: aim small, swing normal
The last part is the part most golfers get wrong without noticing. Standing over a blind shot, the body wants to steer. The swing slows down, the face hangs open, and the ball leaks toward whichever side the trouble is on, which is usually the side the eyes were drawn to. The fix is boring: a small target and the swing you make on the range.
Aim small means the intermediate spot on the ground, not the tree, and never "over there somewhere." Pick the spot, set the face to it, and let the tree drop out of your attention. Swing normal means the tempo of a shot you can see. Nothing about the hill has changed the ball or the club.
On a blind approach, the target is the middle of the green, full stop. You cannot judge the pin's depth on a green you cannot see, and the middle is the one spot with the most green around it in every direction. The flag you half-saw from the fairway is a direction, not a target.
After the shot, do two things. Walk over the crest and note where the ball finished relative to where you aimed; if the post sent you left of the green, the post is not your line next time. And if it is a course you will play again, write the line on the card: aim at the big oak, one club more. That note turns a blind hole into a hole you have seen, which is the only lasting cure.
Many blind holes have a bell by the green. Ring it when you leave, wait for it before you hit, and if the group ahead forgot, wait anyway. A great blind shot into a group on the green is still a blind shot into a group on the green.
Questions
What is a blind shot in golf?
A shot where you cannot see the landing area or the green from where the ball lies, because of a dogleg, a hill, trees or mounds. Half-blind shots, where you can see the top of the flagstick but not the putting surface, count too: you have a direction but no idea of depth.
How do you hit a blind shot in golf?
Get the line from a marker post, an object on the skyline behind the green, or a quick walk to the crest, and pick a spot a few feet in front of the ball on that line. Get the number from the nearest marker, the scorecard, or a GPS to the center of the green. Then aim at the small spot and make your normal swing.
How do you get the yardage on a blind shot?
Markers and sprinkler heads give a distance to the green that you pace from, and the scorecard gives the hole's length to the middle. A GPS gives the distance from your position to the mapped center whether you can see it or not. A laser cannot help, because it needs something to aim at.
Can a rangefinder work on a blind shot?
Not to the green. A laser measures line-of-sight distance to whatever you point it at, so on a blind shot it can tell you the distance to the crest or to a tree, not to a green it cannot see. A GPS device is the right tool for that shot.
Can my playing partner show me the line?
Yes, within limits. Under Rule 10.2b, they may point out an object that shows the line, such as a post or a tree, and for a ball off the putting green they may stand where you should aim, but they must move away before the stroke. Nobody may set an object down to mark the line. Check the Rules of Golf for the details.
Should I aim at the flag on a blind approach?
No. Aim at the middle of the green. You cannot see where the flag sits on the surface, so you cannot judge how deep the pin is, and the middle is the target with the most room for a miss in every direction.
Sources
- GOLF.com: Course Rater Confidential: Are blind shots fair, or too gimmicky? What makes a good one?
- Bushnell Golf: A1-Slope Laser Rangefinder (specifications)
- The R&A: Rules of Golf, Rule 10 (Preparing for and Making a Stroke; Advice and Help; Caddies)
- Oregon Golf Association: The Importance of Correct Yardage to Course Rating
- GPS.gov: GPS Accuracy