Pitching is a term that we use to describe how we could pitch a ball up onto the green and often it’s going to be done with a pitching wedge. So that’s nice and simple for you to start with, that’s the club that you can use to start pitching with. Now, a pitching shot isn’t necessarily going to be a full swing or a full hit. It’s a shot that you might hit when you are nearer to the green, but you need to get the golf ball up and over on to the green but it doesn’t need to be full power.

So your pitching technique can differ slightly from your full swing. If you chose to, you could hit a pitching wedge with a full swing but I’m going to describe a shot that doesn’t quite go that far. So when I set up to the golf ball, I can narrow my stance down a little bit, bring my feet a bit closer together and that would reduce the power I can use and reduce the distance I can hit. I would also drop my grip lower down the golf club. It’s the same grip with the interlinking or the overlapping fingers but it’s just lower down, so I’m not holding the top to the golf club. That again, reduces the power that I want to use.

I can then reduce the length of my swing and the length of my follow through and that again reduces the distance the golf ball goes, so I can pitch it nicely on to the green. So this isn’t a full swing, this is a pitch shot. I’m going to place the ball in the center of my stance, narrow the stance, come down the grip, because I’m down the grip I might be a little bit closer to the golf ball as well. I then make a quite a short restrictive back swing and a short restricted follow through, and I pitch the golf ball out there, about 60 yards. If I hit this club full power, it might go a hundred yards. So I’ve reduced the distance and I’ve pitched the ball nicely onto the green.