When Should I Open The Face Of My Golf Pitch Shots (Video) - by Pete Styles
When Should I Open The Face Of My Golf Pitch Shots (Video) - by Pete Styles

When should you open the face when you’re pitching the golf ball? Good question this one. Because first we -- if we understand what opening the face means we can then apply it to a real life situation to decide whether we should or shouldn’t open the face. Opening the face is this theory of having the club face pointing more to the right-hand side for the right-handed golfer. So my club face is twisting to the right, it’s opening the face. What effectively that does is it creates more loft on the club face. It creates a little bit more bounce on the bottom of the club as well. And it does aim the ball, or aim the club face more to the right. So if I hit the ball it would go right for the right-handed golfer. So, that would an open face. Now, to counter the open face I would then need to aim to the left side. So, I’ve opened the face right, I then move around to have my body aiming left.

Now, when I hit the ball, the ball goes nice and straight. But it goes higher because I’ve added some loft. So, my question now is well, why do I need it to go higher, when would I need to play that shot? Now if you’re near the green and you’ve got a big bunker in the way, you got to go up and over the bunker, but then you’ve got a very small green and you want the ball to stop before it rolls into another bunker or over the back of the green. It would be handy if we could get that ball to go really high up, stop land quickly, and not roll off the back of the green. That’s when we have to open the club face. But do we have to open the club face of all of our irons, or should be using the appropriate club? Now if you open the face of a 9-iron, what you get is a pitching wedge. If you open the face of a pitching wedge, you get a gap wedge, gap wedge sand wedge, sand wedge lob wedge. So, the only club you really need to open the loft on or open the face of, is your most lofted club. Now for most golfers that should be a lob wedge already. And if you haven’t got a lob wedge try and get a lob wedge in your bag, because you don’t need to open the face of that regularly then. So, if you've got a lob wedge in your bag, more often than not that will do decent job of bringing the club down and getting it to stop. If your lob wedge isn’t going to provide enough stopping power, that’s when you open the face. So, really I’m advocating only opening the face of your existing; most lofted club. You open the face of your lob wedge a little bit, that adds more loft. You aim a bit to the left, that straightens it out a little bit, then you hit down crisply underneath the ball and effectively you’re now playing a flop shot. So, don’t go opening the face of all of your other wedges, because all you’re doing is you're turning it into the next wedge. So just use the next wedge. The only face you need to open is your most lofted wedge. 2014-11-10

When should you open the face when you’re pitching the golf ball? Good question this one. Because first we — if we understand what opening the face means we can then apply it to a real life situation to decide whether we should or shouldn’t open the face. Opening the face is this theory of having the club face pointing more to the right-hand side for the right-handed golfer. So my club face is twisting to the right, it’s opening the face. What effectively that does is it creates more loft on the club face. It creates a little bit more bounce on the bottom of the club as well. And it does aim the ball, or aim the club face more to the right. So if I hit the ball it would go right for the right-handed golfer. So, that would an open face. Now, to counter the open face I would then need to aim to the left side. So, I’ve opened the face right, I then move around to have my body aiming left.

Now, when I hit the ball, the ball goes nice and straight. But it goes higher because I’ve added some loft. So, my question now is well, why do I need it to go higher, when would I need to play that shot? Now if you’re near the green and you’ve got a big bunker in the way, you got to go up and over the bunker, but then you’ve got a very small green and you want the ball to stop before it rolls into another bunker or over the back of the green. It would be handy if we could get that ball to go really high up, stop land quickly, and not roll off the back of the green. That’s when we have to open the club face. But do we have to open the club face of all of our irons, or should be using the appropriate club? Now if you open the face of a 9-iron, what you get is a pitching wedge. If you open the face of a pitching wedge, you get a gap wedge, gap wedge sand wedge, sand wedge lob wedge.

So, the only club you really need to open the loft on or open the face of, is your most lofted club. Now for most golfers that should be a lob wedge already. And if you haven’t got a lob wedge try and get a lob wedge in your bag, because you don’t need to open the face of that regularly then. So, if you've got a lob wedge in your bag, more often than not that will do decent job of bringing the club down and getting it to stop. If your lob wedge isn’t going to provide enough stopping power, that’s when you open the face. So, really I’m advocating only opening the face of your existing; most lofted club. You open the face of your lob wedge a little bit, that adds more loft. You aim a bit to the left, that straightens it out a little bit, then you hit down crisply underneath the ball and effectively you’re now playing a flop shot. So, don’t go opening the face of all of your other wedges, because all you’re doing is you're turning it into the next wedge. So just use the next wedge. The only face you need to open is your most lofted wedge.