A few years ago I received some of the best short game advice from Dave Pelz. His book, the “Short Game Bible,” is a classic for short game golf instruction. Dave and just about every “pro” in the world recommends that we know our distance to the flag. This is important so that we know which club to select and how long to swing back to the pin. As he watches professional golfers, he’ll notice that, ideally, they want to put themselves in a position where they can drive onto the green with a full swing of the club. The reality is that as weekend warriors we rarely reach that ideal.
We are often faced with situations where that full swing is going to get us into big trouble, even with a very high club. This is where short game practice is vitally important if we want to improve our short game. On most driving ranges there is a short game practice area, which is marked with some of the distances to the pin. Those distances are usually from the practice tee to the practice green, but what about when you practice from 40 yards or 25 or whatever? Usually these distances are not marked. The reason you need to know these distances is so you can develop repeatable short swings with different clubs so you have an arsenal of shots for your memory banks to repeat.
Learn to judge visually
When I first heard this idea, I literally took a 100-foot tape measure out onto the field on a very slow day so I could measure the distance to the quarterback and see what it looked like. After a few holes, I was able to tell when I was within 50 yards or any distance in round terms. You can do the same thing in a practice setup so you start to know what 100, 75, 50, 25,15 yards looks like. Very quickly you will get the right feeling for your short distances.
Now that you have the feel, you need to develop a swing that matches your testing distance. Most “pros” will teach some variation of this method. basically it is this. For each of the wedges you carry and even your 7, 8, 9, do you know how far they will go in a quarter, half or three quarter swing? This is something that may take you a while to figure out, but when you know it, the information is invaluable to you.
Armed with the knowledge of how far a ball will travel, you can start making good decisions near the green. More in a moment, but first a couple of caveats.
Learn to swing
You will find all kinds of opinions on the alignment. Arnold Palmer said to stay open, others will say directly. The open lineup is probably best to prevent your body from blocking the shot. Next, most “pros” agree that for short shots, the hands should guide the clubface. This means you set up with the ball closer to the back of your stance and your hands will be in front of your target side leg. (left leg for right-handers) With your weight on the target side, you’ll hit the ball and finish high for the typical drop shot. This setup will also tend to remove club loft, meaning that the face angle (which is more upright) will now act as the next lower club number, meaning more distance.
Now. Imagine that you are a clock!
Your head is 12:00, your feet are 6:00, your target side is 1-5, and your back swing side is 7-11. What you want to know is; how far a swing goes from 7:30 to 8:00 for each of your wedges. (I’m wearing 4) Below is the same information for a 9:00 swing. Finally, the same information for an 11:00 swing. You’ll find that some of the different wedges will travel the same distance for different swings, but once you’re done, you have 12-16 shots in your bag that you can hit with confidence and you know the distances each one will travel. For those shots that go the same distance there will be a big difference in loft.
fill your arsenal
For example, a 60-degree lob wedge can go 25 yards with an 11:00 swing, while a 48-degree pitching wedge can go the same distance with an 8:00 swing. The difference, of course, though, is the loft, which causes the lob to go over the bunker to a closed pin and come to rest in front of the pitching wedge, which will roll 10 feet after landing on the green.
When you’re armed with all these shots in your golf bag, your short game quickly reaches a new level. The good thing is that you really only have to learn 3 repeatable swings to have 16 in your arsenal. Hit them straight and rarely!