Changing Loft To Alter Golf Chip Shot Trajectory (Video) - by Peter Finch
Changing Loft To Alter Golf Chip Shot Trajectory (Video) - by Peter Finch

If you are looking to alter the trajectory of your chip shot, you can alter the loft of the club to give you different results. Now, I’ve got a 56 degree sand wedge here and very simply you can change the loft on your wedge. So if you change it to 52 degree wedge, for example, the ball flight should come out lower if you hit exactly the same type of shot with the same ball position. If you change to a higher lofted wedge, it should go higher. That is simply because of the point of impact, the dynamic loft is pointing the club face further out the sky.

However, if you are using the one-wedge, for example, you can start to manipulate how the trajectory will appear just by changing the loft of this one club. Now, what I mean by that is if I wanted to hit normal chip shot with this sand wedge, the ball position will be pretty central in the stance, my weight will be forward and my hands will be ahead. Now I’m presenting here slightly less than the 56 degrees of loft which is only sand wedge because of my hands lean ahead, the loft is decreased. However, let’s say I pulled that ball position a little bit further back in my stance, I straightened up my alignment, so my lower half is now aiming at the target, as well as my upper half and I actually push my hands further ahead and got the club face very, very straight. If I swing through and hit this, I can get a very low, very bumpy trajectory on my sand wedge. It will bounce. It will check a little bit, but it will come out very, very low and it will run down towards the target. The opposite end of the scale, if I put the ball nice and forward and then open up my stance even more and open up the club face to match, all of a sudden I might be well beyond the 56 degrees of loft to the club face. Now, this is important because you can use different wedges, you can use different lofts to affect different types of shot. Those things that you just have to stand there present that square club face, move the shoulders back and through and hit the one single type of ball flight. You need to be able to maneuver around. You need to be able to adapt and you need to be able to change the amount of loft on that club to help you hit different shots when you are around the grid. 2016-10-11

If you are looking to alter the trajectory of your chip shot, you can alter the loft of the club to give you different results. Now, I’ve got a 56 degree sand wedge here and very simply you can change the loft on your wedge. So if you change it to 52 degree wedge, for example, the ball flight should come out lower if you hit exactly the same type of shot with the same ball position. If you change to a higher lofted wedge, it should go higher. That is simply because of the point of impact, the dynamic loft is pointing the club face further out the sky.

However, if you are using the one-wedge, for example, you can start to manipulate how the trajectory will appear just by changing the loft of this one club. Now, what I mean by that is if I wanted to hit normal chip shot with this sand wedge, the ball position will be pretty central in the stance, my weight will be forward and my hands will be ahead. Now I’m presenting here slightly less than the 56 degrees of loft which is only sand wedge because of my hands lean ahead, the loft is decreased.

However, let’s say I pulled that ball position a little bit further back in my stance, I straightened up my alignment, so my lower half is now aiming at the target, as well as my upper half and I actually push my hands further ahead and got the club face very, very straight. If I swing through and hit this, I can get a very low, very bumpy trajectory on my sand wedge. It will bounce. It will check a little bit, but it will come out very, very low and it will run down towards the target. The opposite end of the scale, if I put the ball nice and forward and then open up my stance even more and open up the club face to match, all of a sudden I might be well beyond the 56 degrees of loft to the club face.

Now, this is important because you can use different wedges, you can use different lofts to affect different types of shot. Those things that you just have to stand there present that square club face, move the shoulders back and through and hit the one single type of ball flight. You need to be able to maneuver around. You need to be able to adapt and you need to be able to change the amount of loft on that club to help you hit different shots when you are around the grid.