How Can I Control My Distance From 100 yards and In? (Video) - by Pete Styles
How Can I Control My Distance From 100 yards and In? (Video) - by Pete Styles

Here’s a question I got asked an awful lot when golfers get nearer to the green. They say it to me, “Pete how can I control my distance from inside a 100 yards?” And the only key point to notice here is that distance beyond the 100 yards for most golfers, it’s quite simple in terms of the decision making process because each club in their bag goes ten yards further than the last. So, if there are 100 yards away, it might be a wedge, 110 yards, it might be a 9-iron, 120 yards, next club of 8-iron, and so on and so forth, 10 yards per club. But when they get inside of 100 yards, they don’t necessarily have a club to hit. Let’s say they take that sand wedge and they hit as hard as they can and it goes 80. Well therefore, how do you hit at 70, 60, 50, 40? How do you control those distances? You don’t really have a club that goes that far, certainly not with a full swing.

This is where we have to bring in the concept of making non-full swings to control the distance you’re hitting at. Now the first thing you should do here is you should look at all the clubs that you have there in your bag that are suitable for going a short distance. So, we’re probably thinking pitching wedge and sand wedge for most golfers. But I think a lot of the better golfers now have got a gap wedge which is between the pitching wedge and the sand wedge and then maybe also a lob wedge, this is at the far end. So in my bag, I’ve got four potential options that can all cover these 100 yards and in distances. I then have lots of different swings that can control these distances as well. Now the easiest way to explain to you how you can control the length of your swing is just think, simply thinking about a clock face. So, imagine that the golf club is sitting down at the bottom of the clock face at 6 o’clock and a vertical position behind my head here is 12 o’clock. So then I’ve got seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, one and two and three. Now I know that each different club swung to each different hour is going to give me a different time. Now, if I did that all the way through my bag, I then do it with something like 30 different distances. That might be quite a lot to comprehend. So, let’s initially just work on a quarterback, a half back and a three quarterback. You should already know your full swing distance. So, if I’m in decent setup position here and I just swing the club instead of a quarterback and a half back and a three quarters back, that’s going give me three different distances for that club. So, next time you’re at a driving range, take your wedges out onto the range, understand your distances. Maybe you’ve got some markers out there, maybe you’ve got your generic laser guided range, find it help you when you’re on the driving range, setup to the ball, clip a few shots away with the club just coming back to the sort of quarterback position, hitting it through to the quarterback position again and you’ll get a few distances for that club. Change clubs, do the same again; change clubs, do the same again. You need to write all these numbers down. Then swing back to the next position with the same club, measure how far that goes, same again with the different clubs. And by the time you’re finished, you should have maybe 12 or 16 different distances depending on all of your wedges written down on a nice sheet of paper. Next time you’re on the golf course, right I’ve got 73 yards. Well, I know 73 yards isn’t in a full wedge. So what distance is it? Which club is it? Look through your yardage chart, you’ll find a distance that’s close. It might not be perfect. It might be two or three yards either side but you should have a wedge that goes roughly that distance and an associated length of swing. So, it might be 52 degrees, swung to three quarters length is going to go that distance and then I should be more accurate. And all the time I’m gaining feedback from that and I can get a little bit more sort of subtle if you like. So, I can go just past the quarter pass position and just a little bit further than the [court’s] pass position. That’s a great way of helping you understand your distance control inside the 100 yards. 2014-05-06

Here’s a question I got asked an awful lot when golfers get nearer to the green. They say it to me, “Pete how can I control my distance from inside a 100 yards?” And the only key point to notice here is that distance beyond the 100 yards for most golfers, it’s quite simple in terms of the decision making process because each club in their bag goes ten yards further than the last. So, if there are 100 yards away, it might be a wedge, 110 yards, it might be a 9-iron, 120 yards, next club of 8-iron, and so on and so forth, 10 yards per club. But when they get inside of 100 yards, they don’t necessarily have a club to hit. Let’s say they take that sand wedge and they hit as hard as they can and it goes 80. Well therefore, how do you hit at 70, 60, 50, 40? How do you control those distances? You don’t really have a club that goes that far, certainly not with a full swing.

This is where we have to bring in the concept of making non-full swings to control the distance you’re hitting at. Now the first thing you should do here is you should look at all the clubs that you have there in your bag that are suitable for going a short distance. So, we’re probably thinking pitching wedge and sand wedge for most golfers. But I think a lot of the better golfers now have got a gap wedge which is between the pitching wedge and the sand wedge and then maybe also a lob wedge, this is at the far end. So in my bag, I’ve got four potential options that can all cover these 100 yards and in distances. I then have lots of different swings that can control these distances as well. Now the easiest way to explain to you how you can control the length of your swing is just think, simply thinking about a clock face.

So, imagine that the golf club is sitting down at the bottom of the clock face at 6 o’clock and a vertical position behind my head here is 12 o’clock. So then I’ve got seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, one and two and three. Now I know that each different club swung to each different hour is going to give me a different time. Now, if I did that all the way through my bag, I then do it with something like 30 different distances. That might be quite a lot to comprehend. So, let’s initially just work on a quarterback, a half back and a three quarterback. You should already know your full swing distance. So, if I’m in decent setup position here and I just swing the club instead of a quarterback and a half back and a three quarters back, that’s going give me three different distances for that club.

So, next time you’re at a driving range, take your wedges out onto the range, understand your distances. Maybe you’ve got some markers out there, maybe you’ve got your generic laser guided range, find it help you when you’re on the driving range, setup to the ball, clip a few shots away with the club just coming back to the sort of quarterback position, hitting it through to the quarterback position again and you’ll get a few distances for that club. Change clubs, do the same again; change clubs, do the same again. You need to write all these numbers down. Then swing back to the next position with the same club, measure how far that goes, same again with the different clubs. And by the time you’re finished, you should have maybe 12 or 16 different distances depending on all of your wedges written down on a nice sheet of paper.

Next time you’re on the golf course, right I’ve got 73 yards. Well, I know 73 yards isn’t in a full wedge. So what distance is it? Which club is it? Look through your yardage chart, you’ll find a distance that’s close. It might not be perfect. It might be two or three yards either side but you should have a wedge that goes roughly that distance and an associated length of swing. So, it might be 52 degrees, swung to three quarters length is going to go that distance and then I should be more accurate. And all the time I’m gaining feedback from that and I can get a little bit more sort of subtle if you like. So, I can go just past the quarter pass position and just a little bit further than the [court’s] pass position. That’s a great way of helping you understand your distance control inside the 100 yards.