Improve Your Short Game By Limiting Club Options, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Improve Your Short Game By Limiting Club Options, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

When you get yourself in and around the green, that can often mean a lot of different options. Actually, from the teeing ground, it’s pretty much just a straight forward, take my drive and hit to the middle of fairway, but when you get the other run of the hole and your near the green there so many different options that you could play.

Now, one of the confusing parts about this is often the club selection that goes with the relevant shot. After seeing people standing there just they get a bit confused about the type of shot to play and then they end up not committing to the shot that they think they should have played in the first place.

There’s so many different clubs that you could use. From 10 yards off the green, pretty much every club in your bag would reach the putting surface. They might go on a different height and a different trajectory, but every club could work. It’s really important that you kind of you go with the right choice, but you don’t have too many options. So let’s just simplify that to three different shots.

The low one which should be the chip and run, we’re going to play with a 7-iron. A normal pitch, we're just going to play that with the gap wedge, a 52-degree wedge, or a pitching wedge if you don’t have a gap wedge, and then we’ve got the lob shot which we're going to play with the lob wedge, or the 60-degree wedge if you’ve got a 60. So it’s low, medium, and then high.

The technique behind the shot is quite similar. We have a narrow stamps ball central leaning on the left side and then hit the 7, the 52, or the 60, and just let the club produce the different height of shot for you. Now a good way of assessing which shot you want to play is imagine you have the ball in your hand, you’re going to throw the ball up onto the putting surface or roll the ball out on to the putting surface and whichever roll or throw feels most comfortable, then go ahead and play that relevant shot with the right club.

So 7 is low, 52 for a middle length pitch, and then the 60 for the high lob up onto the green, and try to simplify your chipping game down to three simple shots rather than having too many different confusing options.

 2012-06-11

When you get yourself in and around the green, that can often mean a lot of different options. Actually, from the teeing ground, it’s pretty much just a straight forward, take my drive and hit to the middle of fairway, but when you get the other run of the hole and your near the green there so many different options that you could play.

Now, one of the confusing parts about this is often the club selection that goes with the relevant shot. After seeing people standing there just they get a bit confused about the type of shot to play and then they end up not committing to the shot that they think they should have played in the first place.

There’s so many different clubs that you could use. From 10 yards off the green, pretty much every club in your bag would reach the putting surface. They might go on a different height and a different trajectory, but every club could work. It’s really important that you kind of you go with the right choice, but you don’t have too many options. So let’s just simplify that to three different shots.

The low one which should be the chip and run, we’re going to play with a 7-iron. A normal pitch, we're just going to play that with the gap wedge, a 52-degree wedge, or a pitching wedge if you don’t have a gap wedge, and then we’ve got the lob shot which we're going to play with the lob wedge, or the 60-degree wedge if you’ve got a 60. So it’s low, medium, and then high.

The technique behind the shot is quite similar. We have a narrow stamps ball central leaning on the left side and then hit the 7, the 52, or the 60, and just let the club produce the different height of shot for you. Now a good way of assessing which shot you want to play is imagine you have the ball in your hand, you’re going to throw the ball up onto the putting surface or roll the ball out on to the putting surface and whichever roll or throw feels most comfortable, then go ahead and play that relevant shot with the right club.

So 7 is low, 52 for a middle length pitch, and then the 60 for the high lob up onto the green, and try to simplify your chipping game down to three simple shots rather than having too many different confusing options.