Taking Your Game To The Next Level
Hitting good pitches shots shaves strokes off your score. It also helps lower your golf handicap. Good pitch shots can help you save par when your chances of doing so are slim. Players adept at hitting pitch shots can save hundreds of strokes over the course of a season. They also can record dozens of pars they might not have had otherwise—thanks to their ability to get up and down. If you want to take your game to the next level, master the pitch shot.
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However, doing this is much more easy to talk about that to accomplish.You can live to regret a bad pitch. You have absolutely no room for any errors in accuracy and distance control. If you land ten to twenty feet from the hole you are in trouble. You must know how to change shot trajectory to match your lie. You simply must create the right trajectory. If you want to shave strokes off your golf handicap, get rid of the guess work from hitting pitches.
Use Your Wrists
The key to controlling trajectory is in your wrists, as we tell students who take our golf lessons. You must use your wrists properly to match the lie at hand. If you fail to match shot trajectory to your lie, you’ll probably struggle getting short wedge shots close. So work on using your wrists to control height of your shot. Below are golf tips on how to use your wrists to hit high and low pitches:
When hitting a short wedge shot high,cup your left wrist on your downswing. This lifts the shot because it opens the clubface. For a guide look at the logo on your glove. You are holding it correctly if you can clearly see the logo of your glove. A high pitch shot is used when you want to get out of a bunker or when there is little green to work with.
It is different for a low pitch shot. When hitting one bend your left wrist forward on the takeaway. Lift is taken off the club, with this bowing action as it closes the clubface. Again use the logo on your glove as a guide. You’ve done it correctly if you can’t see the logo when you look down.
Ball Position Is Also Key
Ball position also helps you control shot trajectory. The further back you position the ball at address, the less loft you’ll get on your shot. The further forward you position the ball address, the more loft you’ll get on your pitches. Below is a drill we use in our golf instruction session to teach players how to vary shot trajectory by moving the ball back and forward at address.
You can play three shots while the ball is positioned off your heel of your forward foot , while using your basic pitching stance. The next move is to play three shots with the ball positioned in the middle of your stance. The final move is to shoot three shots with the ball positioned off your back foot. You should use the same stance and swing for all shots. You have to practice this continually until you are certain you have all the different ball positions just right ,and you are sure of yourself when making shots from the three different positions.
One word of caution: Make sure your head remains stationary on all three shots. It will be behind the forward ball position and ahead of the back ball position. This may seem strange at first if you’re not used to playing the ball at different address positions, but you’ll get used to it.
Accurate pitch shots save strokes. But hitting accurate short pitches is easier said than done. To do so you must learn to vary the shot trajectory. Use a high trajectory when you have to go over an obstacle or don’t have much green to work with. Use a low trajectory when the front of the green is open or you have a lot of green to work with. Hitting accurate pitches will help you shave strokes off your golf handicap and take your game to another level.
