Break Wrists Early on Short Pitch Shots, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Break Wrists Early on Short Pitch Shots, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

If you can pitch the ball well your scores will decrease. Now that’s quite a bold statement but that’s something I really believe in. And a pitch of maybe about a 50 yard shot, it’s not necessarily a shot that we seem to practice a lot, certainly not a shot that you necessarily have a club that’s designed to hit, most of your clubs at full swing would actually go further, yet you have probably spent a lot of time practicing the full shot, lot of time practicing your putting and maybe your chipping, but how about your pitching, how about this 50 yarder. And the reason why I say that you will improve if you get this right is because you will get a lot of these shots in every round of golf, you might get between 4, 5 maybe even 10 of these pitch shots every round, because you will be hitting a decent T shot but on a short hole it might just be a pitch on to the green. On a longer hole might be a good T or good second and then the pitch onto the green, but this 50 yard shot will really affect how you improve your scores.

The way we play this is we want to have a little narrow stance, ball around them out on the center of the feet as well. I have choose my gap which is a 52 degree wedge but you could vary this between a pitching wedge a sand wedge or a gap wedge as well.

Narrow stance ball in the center with a slightly open stance, my feet is a right handed golf well points slightly to the left of target that just naturally opens my hip and gives me some clearance on my left side. If I have my feet square that left leg will often feel like it actually gets in the way, because I won’t be rotating my hips as fast as a normal full swing here. Narrow stance is a slightly open down on the grip just to give me a little bit more control, I don’t need full power, I need more control and because of that I am a fraction closer to the ball as well.

As I am pitching I change my backswing slightly, I don’t want to have that stiff wrist one piece takeaway that generates a very wide full swing I will actually just like a little bit more feel in my technique. So I hinge my wrist a little bit earlier to a point where as I would get my hands up towards my chest at this level the club would be nicely into a 90 degree if not slightly more, if I was to choose to make a swing that was out long, but if I am making a shorter swing, I have still got a nice set angel in my wrist quite early. And again different to a full speed swing, as I hit through the golf ball here, I don’t really want to realize and rotate my hands, arms and shoulders through the ball so I wouldn’t be trying to turn everything over this way which would produce a nice strong flight or a draw shape in my full swing. I would be trying to hold the club face open a little bit keeping the badge on the back of my front hand, my left hand, the badge of my glove, keeping that up to the sky, holding it open this way actually produces a lot more control of my distance and a little bit more control of my accuracy because the club is not squaring up or closing down through impact. It’s just a nice held on position just pitching the ball forward.

So if I hit one for you now with my narrow wrist stance, slightly open, hands down the grip, body weight and hands nicely ahead, little bit of wrist tinge on the way back and hold it open on the way through, just a little 50 yard pitch. And that’s how I would like you to hit your pitch shots from now on.

 2012-07-16

If you can pitch the ball well your scores will decrease. Now that’s quite a bold statement but that’s something I really believe in. And a pitch of maybe about a 50 yard shot, it’s not necessarily a shot that we seem to practice a lot, certainly not a shot that you necessarily have a club that’s designed to hit, most of your clubs at full swing would actually go further, yet you have probably spent a lot of time practicing the full shot, lot of time practicing your putting and maybe your chipping, but how about your pitching, how about this 50 yarder. And the reason why I say that you will improve if you get this right is because you will get a lot of these shots in every round of golf, you might get between 4, 5 maybe even 10 of these pitch shots every round, because you will be hitting a decent T shot but on a short hole it might just be a pitch on to the green. On a longer hole might be a good T or good second and then the pitch onto the green, but this 50 yard shot will really affect how you improve your scores.

The way we play this is we want to have a little narrow stance, ball around them out on the center of the feet as well. I have choose my gap which is a 52 degree wedge but you could vary this between a pitching wedge a sand wedge or a gap wedge as well.

Narrow stance ball in the center with a slightly open stance, my feet is a right handed golf well points slightly to the left of target that just naturally opens my hip and gives me some clearance on my left side. If I have my feet square that left leg will often feel like it actually gets in the way, because I won’t be rotating my hips as fast as a normal full swing here. Narrow stance is a slightly open down on the grip just to give me a little bit more control, I don’t need full power, I need more control and because of that I am a fraction closer to the ball as well.

As I am pitching I change my backswing slightly, I don’t want to have that stiff wrist one piece takeaway that generates a very wide full swing I will actually just like a little bit more feel in my technique. So I hinge my wrist a little bit earlier to a point where as I would get my hands up towards my chest at this level the club would be nicely into a 90 degree if not slightly more, if I was to choose to make a swing that was out long, but if I am making a shorter swing, I have still got a nice set angel in my wrist quite early. And again different to a full speed swing, as I hit through the golf ball here, I don’t really want to realize and rotate my hands, arms and shoulders through the ball so I wouldn’t be trying to turn everything over this way which would produce a nice strong flight or a draw shape in my full swing. I would be trying to hold the club face open a little bit keeping the badge on the back of my front hand, my left hand, the badge of my glove, keeping that up to the sky, holding it open this way actually produces a lot more control of my distance and a little bit more control of my accuracy because the club is not squaring up or closing down through impact. It’s just a nice held on position just pitching the ball forward.

So if I hit one for you now with my narrow wrist stance, slightly open, hands down the grip, body weight and hands nicely ahead, little bit of wrist tinge on the way back and hold it open on the way through, just a little 50 yard pitch. And that’s how I would like you to hit your pitch shots from now on.