Pitching Help

When it comes to the shortgame it is vital that the golfer strikes the ball and the ground on every shot - and preferably in that order! Golfers run into trouble when the club contacts the ground before the ball, particularly with a closing clubface as the leading edge will dig into the turf. There is no quicker way to deplete confidence than to start  alternating between bladed and heavy pitch shots.

A helpful drill is to practice hitting 40-60 yard pitch shots with an 8-iron. Try to get the ball up in the air, with a slight cut action and have it land softly. This will give you the sense of keeping the face open and using the bounce of the club correctly. It will also prevent the wrists from being overly active. A feeling to key in on is the sense of swinging to the inside after impact (as pictured below). Be sure to keep the face open or looking up while the club tracks to the inside as this will prevent the leading edge from digging.  This is rapidly becoming one of my favorite drills!

Golf Grip Guidelines

Here is an excellent method to ensure that your grip stays in the fingers and favors the strong end of the spectrum.

Remember - a strong "ish" grip helps the handle get in front of the clubhead at impact and encourages all golfers to keep their hands passive through impact.

Have a friend draw a "channel" on your glove diagonally across the base of the fingers (as illustrated left). Be sure that the guidelines are not too high up in the palm - if this is the case the wrists will have a hard time setting the club and the grip will always look weak.

When gripping the club be sure to position the handle along the lower of the two guidelines - this will make sure that the handle does not sneak up into the palm.

Be sure that once your glove hand is positioned on the club you can see at least two knuckles and the V formed between the thumb and the index finger is pointing to the trailing shoulder.

As we saw with Louis Oosthuizen and his glove - you can draw or write whatever you want on any part of your equipment, in any color too!

For additional information on the grip:

• Golf Grip: Where should it be?
• Golf Grip: Strong, Neutral or Weak?
• The Grip and how it pertains to Impact

Bunkers: The Buried Lie

 View the HD video lesson HERE

I often talk to golfers I teach about how they play the buried lie out of a sand trap and more often than not they say they used the closed face method to get the club to dig the ball up and out onto the green. This method works fine if you don't have much of a lip or plenty of green to work with, but how do you handle this situation if you have a short sided pin or high lip to clear?

Here is a great method I got from Lee Trevino:

• At address the weight should be well onto the front foot
• The ball should be in the center of the stance or slightly back
• The hands should be forward of the ball and very low
• The idea is to get the "V" formed between the hosel and the sole of the club to delve down into the sand and lift it up and out of the sand

•  Notice how the clubface remains open so as to impart some height and softness to the shot
• The hands need to be very low  at address to get the toe up in the air and the "V" exposed to the entry point
• The swing is steep with a sharp downward attack into the sand
• There is no need to overpower this shot as, when executed correctly, the ball should pop out with some height and softness.
• There should be very little follow through

Notice how low the hands need to be here

View the HD video HERE

Additional information on Buried Lies:

Tom Watson: Buried Lies: Pick The Right Club: Golf Digest

Video Golf Tip | Buried Lies in Greenside Bunkers

Golf Tips for a semi-buried lie - Rod Lidenberg PGA

Free Golf Lesson - How to Play from Various Bunker Lies

Using the Long Putter

Over the last decade the long putter has become accepted as a viable option for golfers that have woes on the greens.  I used the long putter for the 6 or 7 year period that I played professionally and it essentially enabled me to have a career in golf. I liked it for the fact that it stopped me from twitching through impact, but also because there were two distinct methods that I could use with the broomstick.

The first option is known as the piston method and is the one I tended to prefer:

• Form a circle around the grip cap with your thumb and index finger with the left hand (if you are a righty).
• Do not wrap your other fingers on the left hand around the grip as you want the shaft to be able to pivot from a fixed axis.
• Hold the club in the right hand in one of the methods illustrated below.
• Keeping the shoulders out of the stroke - stroke the putt by "pistoning" the right arms back and forth.

With this stroke the only part of the body moving should be the right arm. Berhard Langer has used this method very effectively over the years.

The second method is a stroke based on connection and using everything as a unit. Here the shoulders and arms all work together to get the ball rolling.

• Place your left thumb on top of the grip cap and wrap all the fingers comfortably around the shaft.
• Once the putter is anchored in your sternum pivot the shoulders back and through.
• Make sure the arms are linked to your side or at least stay in place relative to the shoulders during the stroke to ensure a "one piece" motion.

The following pictures are various versions of how to hold the club in your bottom hand. Whichever one feels best to you should be the one to get the job done.

Additonal articles and sites for using the long putter:

thelongputter.com

How To Use Long Putters by Jack Moorehouse

Putter Length - Comparing Conventional, Belly and Long Putters

How to Use the Long Putters | Golf Digest

Thoughts on Sand Play

The greenside sand shot is unique to the game of golf in that it is the only shot we hit where we do not (or at least should not!) hit the golf ball.   Some people I know have hit their longest drives ever from a greenside bunker! Here are two simple things to keep in mind when extricating your ball from the sand:

• Set-up and aim to hit the sand before the ball.  Hover the club over the spot that you intend to impact.   When practicing, draw a line in the sand and see how many times you can impact the sand right on the line.  Avoid holding the clubhead over the ball at address for more consistent ground contact!
• In a regular golf shot we should be attempting to strike the ball first and the ground second.  This can only be done with a slightly descending blow and the weight on the golfers front foot.  Due to the fact that we only want all sand and no ball in the bunker there should be no forward weight shift into the hit.  Try to play sand shots with the back foot remaining fully planted and quiet throughout the swing.  The weight should remain where it was set at address. (Notice the post impact picture below) This will reduce those 'low heaters' out of greenside bunkers!

Pitching Common Sense

The most common pitching errors occur prior to the club starting the swing.  They are poor club selelction and an improper address position.

So many of the golfers that I teach have a 60 degree club or lob wedge in their bags and the vast majority of them are not qualified to benefit from it being part of their set.  It actually hurts their scores.  Most of the pain comes in the pitching department!

Golfers seem to be under the impression that if you have a shot that is shorter than the distance you hit your full lob wedge, then it surely must be a lob wedge!  Wrong!  Here are a few things to keep in mind when playing your next pitch shot:

• You more than likely have a PITCHING wedge in your bag - feel free to pitch with it!  It requires a lesser swing, has a flatter face, gets the ball to the hole more efficiently (not via the moon!) and will still spin the ball.  Practicing with your pitching wedge will open your eyes to this reality.  It just takes a little creativity and feel before you are off and running.  It is the perfect club if there is any wind, the greens are soft or the pin is anywhere from the center of the green and back.  It is for this reason that I will seldom pitch with anything more lofted than my 54 degree (I have a PW/48 degree, a 54 degree and a 60 degree) as the swing becomes too big and the margin of error too great.
• Your LW has the most loft in your bag, the sharpest leading edge in the bag and the highest potential for disaster in the bag, especially when travelling at high speeds! Reserve this club for the little specialty shots around the greens where the ball needs to stop in a hurry.  If you cannot think of the last time you saved a stroke with your lob wedge, then relegate it to fire poker or roach killer.  It more than likely will work better for you in those departments!  Shhh, I know multiple tour golfers who are currently poor pitchers who simply will not take the time to learn to hit these shots with the appropriate club!
• Keep in mind that whatever club you choose to hit most of your pitch shots with the stroke requires a descending hit on the ball.  The weight must be on the front foot in order for this to occur.  This impact position can be encouraged by setting up in a chipping type address position (see above picture) and allowing the speed of the body rotation to control the distance.  Keep in mind that pitching is a chipping set-up and motion with the addition of wrist action!  Hit down on the back of the ball and keep the follow through short and crisp.   

Try these simple keys for your pitching and you too will see the light!

Please visit the following golf blogs as they have some fantastic content:

• Geoff Shackelford
• Ball Out Blog
• Pink Diva Golf
• Armchair Golf Blog
• Golf Dash Blog

Thanks for reading and enjoy this great game we all love!

Two Shots for Sand Success

In order to be a great bunker player you need more than one shot.  How often have you found yourself in the sand, twenty feet from the hole, and you need to hit a high, soft, spinnning shot to have any chance of getting up and down?  Or found yourself sixty feet from the target and you now need a lower, running type bunker shot in order to reach the hole?  You need to learn these two shots!

The first shot is a high velocity, high trajectory, high spin shot.  It is most often struck with the most lofted club in the bag.  In this situation the ball needs to come to a screeching halt very soon after landing, due to the fact that you have very little green to play with.

Here is how to play the shot:

• Using your most lofted club, open the face as much as possible.  You should feel as if you could balance a glass of water on the face of the club at address - take note of the picture above.
• The velocity and speed in the swing is what gets the ball high and spinning, so even though this may be a short shot it requires an aggressive approach.  Hit it hard!
• Going through impact try to feel the hands scoop under the ball.  The club head releases under and thus the club face stays open through the hit. This is an important element to this shot as it allows the golfer to hit hard, yet when releasing the club properly, the ball goes up versus far.
• Practice this shot from good lies off of a slight up slope in the sand.  While hitting the shot as hard as you can try to see how high and short you can make the ball travel.

The other shot is a low velocity, low trajectory, low spin shot.  It should most often be played with the second most lofted club in the bag.  If you have an LW it would be the SW, or if you only have an SW then you should use the PW.  In this situation the shot needs to traverse a large portion of either flat or downhill green.  There is ample opportunity for the ball to roll like a putt!

Play the shot this way:

• Using a lesser lofted club the stance should be of average width and the ball position is still forward of center.
• The clubface remains open, yet to a lesser degree than the above shot.
• This shot is played almost in slow motion as there should be very little speed in the swing. I often call this the 'dump and run' shot, as it should just get out the bunker, land early on the green and roll to the hole as if it were a putt.
• The hands should be light throughout the swing and it is okay to actually roll the face a little through impact.  This serves to lower the shot further and causes the ball to release more.
• Do not attempt this shot when your ball is lying on an upslope! An upslope requires a more aggressive swing and that robs the ball of  its ability to stay low.
• Practice is vital for this shot as it tends to take a few tries before sensing the correct speed of the swing.

With a few minutes spent experimenting with the above suggestions in the sand you will soon start to lose some of the angst we have all experienced when stepping into a bunker.  Give it a try and please feel free to let me know your thoughts.

Additional Resources:

How to Hit Great Bunker Shots

Luke Donald's Buried Lie