Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

With this golf swing tip video, we're going to look at how you can create your best golf shots from a hundred yards in, and this is a really important area. This is the scoring zoning golf. If you're really good from 100 yards in, you're only taking a few shots to get the ball into the hole from that position you're going to shoot low scores. So the best way to achieve being good from a 100 yards in is to create a wedge chart is to know how far your shots go with various swings.

So on the wedge chart, I play with I know how far a 100 yards is as in the shot I need to hit. I know which club to hit on what swing, is it a full swing, is it a par swing? I then know how to hit 90 yards, how to 80, 70, 60, 50 so an increment of 10 all the way down to where I'll be chipping from. So what I'd suggest you do is the next time you go to the driving range is look at a 100 yard marker and hit shots out there to work out which club it is that you as an individual you used to hit that distance, so it could be a pitching wedge. It could be a pitching edge. It could be a 9-iron. It could be a 6-iron well or at individuals we all hit different distances.

But note down in a notebook what club it is that goes that distance. So if it’s a full swing that goes that distance that's great. You would just note down which club it is, and then take the next lofted club so it was the 7-iron that went 100 yards now go with your 8-iron and play a full shot with your 8-iron, and you're going to notice that goes maybe 90 yards and again note that down. Keep going until you get to a position where you've reached the full swing with your pitching wedge. Now, for me a full swing on my pitching wedge goes 100 yards.

So that's my 100 yard club. I now need to know, how do I hit a shot to 90 yards. So I'm going to start working on different swing positions because I'm no longer going to use a full swing. So with my wedge if I swing the club back into a full position and then hit through a really full pace. I know that goes 100 yards. So what I'm going to do is take my notebook out and I'm going to write down that's my pitching wedge. I'm going to write down is the full swing. I'm going to write down that it’s the firm swing for the tempo and I'm going to write down it goes 100 yards.

So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to hit some shots maybe 10 shots to get an average of how far each of these go when I swing the club back to a three-quarter position. So you could call these three-quarters. You could call it shoulder height. It's just so you know in that full position and again I'm going to hit through and I'm going to do that quite firmly. I'm going to know how far the bull goes, and for me I know that that position goes 90 yards, so I'm going to write down on my wedge chart, pitching wedge three-quarter swing firm equals 90 yards. And then I'm going to do it for a half swing position.

Now, I know for me that with my pitching wedge going to a half swing position that doesn’t go 80 yards. It goes less, so I'll just note it down but basically what I'm doing is working through my clubs from a full swing hitting it firm, how far does that go? Now, I'm just going to pull a three-quarter swinger, hit it firm, how far does that go? Now, I'm going to put half a swinger, hit it firm, how far does that go? So now I've got yardages for those three swing positions. And I know if I need a little less distance I don’t need to hit quite as far as hard.

So if my 90 yard shot is a three-quarter position firm. My 80 yard shot is a three-quarter position a bit softer, and that then gives you my 80 yard position. So I'm going to do that with my pitching wedge. I'm going to do with my sand iron as well and I'm going to have all this information written down on my yardage book. So now, when I'm playing and I look at how far I've got left to go when I'm out on the course, I just take out my yardage book on my wedge chart. I find out what the distance is that I've got left maybe using a GPS or having to look at the yardage markers on the course or you may have a course planner that gives the yardages.

Once I've identified how far I've got left to go, I'll just look at my chart, look at that distance and it will tell me which club to use, which swing position to move into, and how firmly or softly to hit. If you create yourself a wedge chart, you're really going to save yourself a lot of shots and get much more accurate when you're in the scoring zone.