Tips to Improve Your Short-Game Touch, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Tips to Improve Your Short-Game Touch, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

One of the phrases I love to hear when I am watching the golf on the TV is always he has got soft hand for a big man, what the does that mean, soft hands for a big man. Someone with soft hands for a big man, it basically means he has got good touch and feel around the green. And you might feel well that’s the furthest thing from your mind when you are around the green. Oh I definitely I haven’t got soft hands I have got this big club that feels like a shovel, I need a pair of soft hands. Well to develop your soft hands from around the green, why don’t you practice chipping with one hand, you set yourself up into a good position one hand behind your back and just very generally feel like you are rocking the shoulders, you should be able to develop quite a good technique here, so you can be quite accurate to chipping and pitching the ball just with one hand, once you are good with your right hand flick it over do the same thing with your left hand, just develop that little rocking action, you don’t need to hit long shots, just sort of five, six yards little lift on to the green and letting them roll down, so my ball is in the center I would chip normally my body weight is on my left side and I can just practice chipping the ball nicely away that just using one hand.

Once you develop that up and you can do maybe 20, 30 chip shots one hand and again 20, 30 chips shots the other hand, put your hands back together and hopefully they will feel like they just wants to work together in unison rather than getting all argumentative and fighting each other which is where this very poor distance control very poor judgment shots can come from, because your hands are fighting each other. So for soft hands development go with the one handed drill to start with.

Another really good drill to help you with your chipping and your pitching and also to help improve your imagination and your execution here’s are some shots is rather than just standing on the range hitting the same distance shot every single time, go out to nice practice hole or a hole on the golf course that’s nice and quite, take about five to six golf balls in your pockets, stand next to the flag and just throw golf balls off the green, turning around as you do so. So you throw them to all the corners, then go around the side of the green and chipping all of those golf balls back on to the flag but don’t do it just with one club, take your whole bag with you and check each shot out as you would do if you are playing for real. So I see a lot of people just take one club to the chipping green and they just hit the same shot over and over again but look at each shot in it’s own merit, is that a high one or a low one, does it need to spin or does it need to release and play each shot really carefully, ideally it would be looking to get each chip shot within three feet because that would be a guaranteed one putt, most people would hold the putt from inside the three feet or minimum maybe 10 to 12 feet because that gives you a good chance of knocking in the next putt, basically outside 10, 12 feet you are not really going to hold many puts from that range, so if you are chipping on to the 15 to 20 feet okay you might not three putted but you are probably not going to get it up and down and getting up and down is really the mark of success from a good chip shot. So stand in the middle of the green, throw the balls around the green to all different areas, different lengths behind the bunkers, over slopes, chip all those golf balls back on and it really helps your imagination helps you touch and you will feel, and by developing touch and feel you will develop those illusive soft hands as well.

 2012-07-12

One of the phrases I love to hear when I am watching the golf on the TV is always he has got soft hand for a big man, what the does that mean, soft hands for a big man. Someone with soft hands for a big man, it basically means he has got good touch and feel around the green. And you might feel well that’s the furthest thing from your mind when you are around the green. Oh I definitely I haven’t got soft hands I have got this big club that feels like a shovel, I need a pair of soft hands. Well to develop your soft hands from around the green, why don’t you practice chipping with one hand, you set yourself up into a good position one hand behind your back and just very generally feel like you are rocking the shoulders, you should be able to develop quite a good technique here, so you can be quite accurate to chipping and pitching the ball just with one hand, once you are good with your right hand flick it over do the same thing with your left hand, just develop that little rocking action, you don’t need to hit long shots, just sort of five, six yards little lift on to the green and letting them roll down, so my ball is in the center I would chip normally my body weight is on my left side and I can just practice chipping the ball nicely away that just using one hand.

Once you develop that up and you can do maybe 20, 30 chip shots one hand and again 20, 30 chips shots the other hand, put your hands back together and hopefully they will feel like they just wants to work together in unison rather than getting all argumentative and fighting each other which is where this very poor distance control very poor judgment shots can come from, because your hands are fighting each other. So for soft hands development go with the one handed drill to start with.

Another really good drill to help you with your chipping and your pitching and also to help improve your imagination and your execution here’s are some shots is rather than just standing on the range hitting the same distance shot every single time, go out to nice practice hole or a hole on the golf course that’s nice and quite, take about five to six golf balls in your pockets, stand next to the flag and just throw golf balls off the green, turning around as you do so. So you throw them to all the corners, then go around the side of the green and chipping all of those golf balls back on to the flag but don’t do it just with one club, take your whole bag with you and check each shot out as you would do if you are playing for real. So I see a lot of people just take one club to the chipping green and they just hit the same shot over and over again but look at each shot in it’s own merit, is that a high one or a low one, does it need to spin or does it need to release and play each shot really carefully, ideally it would be looking to get each chip shot within three feet because that would be a guaranteed one putt, most people would hold the putt from inside the three feet or minimum maybe 10 to 12 feet because that gives you a good chance of knocking in the next putt, basically outside 10, 12 feet you are not really going to hold many puts from that range, so if you are chipping on to the 15 to 20 feet okay you might not three putted but you are probably not going to get it up and down and getting up and down is really the mark of success from a good chip shot. So stand in the middle of the green, throw the balls around the green to all different areas, different lengths behind the bunkers, over slopes, chip all those golf balls back on and it really helps your imagination helps you touch and you will feel, and by developing touch and feel you will develop those illusive soft hands as well.