Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro
Bottoming out the angle of attack or bottoming out the swing arc after the ball in the short game is very important if you want to hit successful pitches and successful chips. And this is one area of the game that so many people struggle to find the consistency within that strike. It is however one of the simplest times when you can really figure out where your swing arc is. Because it's a very short swing, because it's a short technique, you have a lot of control over what you're doing. Even though at times I know it may not feel like you have. Now what you can do is use a combination of the drills we've already spoken about to get into what you're doing at the point of impact with your wedges. Really simply if you take your normal wedge setup, and make these following changes if you don't do these already. First of all kick the feet out, so they're aiming a little bit further off to the left-hand side. This will open up the hips and allow you to turn through a little bit easier.
Get your weight about seventy percent onto your front foot. Now notice here that automatically with my ball position which was quite essential is now shifting quite a long way back because my sternum position which I've already spoken about is now after the ball. Then lean the hands a long way ahead, so you can see that the shaft is leaning a long way ahead of the ball here. And all I'm going to do is I'm going to focus and imagine that I've got that alignment stick again gripped into my hand or sticking out at the end of the shaft. Then what I do is I turn back just using my chest, using my shoulders you can see here that my body hasn’t really moved in its original position. Way forward, hands ahead and then I turn through to the same impact position, and then just try and keep that alignment stick again; now feeling like it's away from my side. If I can do that I know that my swing arc is going to be bottoming out pretty consistently after the ball because I've used these drills before. I know that this mixture of ingredients does work and the cake that it bakes is one which involves no fat shots. 2016-10-28Bottoming out the angle of attack or bottoming out the swing arc after the ball in the short game is very important if you want to hit successful pitches and successful chips. And this is one area of the game that so many people struggle to find the consistency within that strike. It is however one of the simplest times when you can really figure out where your swing arc is. Because it's a very short swing, because it's a short technique, you have a lot of control over what you're doing. Even though at times I know it may not feel like you have. Now what you can do is use a combination of the drills we've already spoken about to get into what you're doing at the point of impact with your wedges. Really simply if you take your normal wedge setup, and make these following changes if you don't do these already. First of all kick the feet out, so they're aiming a little bit further off to the left-hand side. This will open up the hips and allow you to turn through a little bit easier.
Get your weight about seventy percent onto your front foot. Now notice here that automatically with my ball position which was quite essential is now shifting quite a long way back because my sternum position which I've already spoken about is now after the ball. Then lean the hands a long way ahead, so you can see that the shaft is leaning a long way ahead of the ball here. And all I'm going to do is I'm going to focus and imagine that I've got that alignment stick again gripped into my hand or sticking out at the end of the shaft. Then what I do is I turn back just using my chest, using my shoulders you can see here that my body hasn’t really moved in its original position. Way forward, hands ahead and then I turn through to the same impact position, and then just try and keep that alignment stick again; now feeling like it's away from my side. If I can do that I know that my swing arc is going to be bottoming out pretty consistently after the ball because I've used these drills before. I know that this mixture of ingredients does work and the cake that it bakes is one which involves no fat shots.
