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If you want to improve your golf short game touch and start to get the ball much closer to the pin, leaving you a really make-able putt that you can up and down from just off the green, the way to do this is to improve your distance control.

First of all, if you are going to improve your distance control, you need to work out how your clubs actually operate when you hit them. You need to go to the chipping area and place the ball by the side of the green. Without hitting at the pin, hit a few shots where you go across the green. Work on hitting a good chip, so make sure you have got the ball in the centre of your feet, with your feet slightly narrower than usual, to improve your balance through your shot. Put your left foot, if you are a right handed golfer, back about four to six inches to allow you to turn through the shot more easily so that you can keep the club head travelling down the target line, which will increase your accuracy. Keep your left arm and the shaft of the club in a really straight line, if you are playing a chip and run, and swing the club head back and through the ball, maintaining that straight line down your left side. Make sure that however far you have swung the golf club away from the ball, you equal that distance by swinging through it.

Work on hitting a few shots just across green and where the ball first bounces. Put a marker on the ground in that position. The ball will roll into its finish position, so now look at what the relationship is between how much of the shot there is to the first bounce point, that you marked and then how much of the shot there is to where the ball finishes. How much the ball is in the air, compared to how much it has rolled on the ground. If you are using your 7 iron you will find the relationship of about 75% of the shot rolling on the ground and only 25% of the shot will be in the air. You can apply that to get you close to the pin. Try it with all your clubs because all your clubs will have a different relationship. Work on doing it with your 7 iron so that you have got a chip and run and then also do it with your pitching wedge, which will give you a slightly higher shot into the green.

You can play a game called Bulls Eye to really sharpen your short game up. Simply create a Bulls Eye around the hole. Start off with two club lengths away from the hole and place a tee peg in a north, south, east and west position and then also at points halfway between those so you have got eight tee pegs set up in a circle around the hole, two club lengths wide from the hole. Play your shot to get it into that Bulls Eye and apply what you have learned with how your clubs react. If you are using your 7 iron, work on landing the ball, first bounce a quarter of the way towards that Bulls Eye and then letting the ball roll into the Bulls Eye. If you get the ball into the Bulls Eye you score a point.

See how many points you can make out of 10 goes. Then play again and see if you can up that number. If you start to find that you are scoring 8, 9 or 10, then make your Bulls Eye smaller so only go to one club length away and put your tee pegs in. Play the game again and again and just keep recording the scores that you were getting on that Bulls Eye game, whilst working on where the ball needs to bounce. If you know where the bounce point is, you will be able to really improve the touch that you have with your short game.

Hitting lots of shots from one yardage will improve your accuracy from that yardage only and will not allow you to be adaptable and display good feel on the golf course.

Practising with the same club will improve your distance control with only that one club. A golfer who has great feel for their short game should be able to master a variety of short clubs from a variety of different yardages.

Getting the ball closer with your shot into the green will definitely improve your score, but it will not improve your short game. Hitting the ball closer will take your short game out of the equation, so you avoid it, rather than improving it.