Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro
How do professionals hit a low wedge shot? It’s a great shot when you see it on TV, hitting a wedge nice and low, taking a skip on the green before grabbing and stopping right next to the pin. Now there is no real secret to this shot, it can be done by just adapting the setup and making slight changes within the swing. Now I’ve got a sand wedge here and it’s perfectly acceptable to play this shot with a lofted wedge like that, with a sand wedge, a gap wedge or a pitching wedge. As soon as it gets higher than that to a lob wedge it becomes a little bit more difficult.
So try not to use the highest lofted wedge in the bag, try and use a sand wedge, a gap wedge or a pitching wedge to play this shot. Now a lot of the difficulty can be actually taken away by just getting the setup absolutely bang on. For a low wedge shot you want the feet and the hips to be slightly open, presetting an impact position, but most importantly the ball position to be further back in the stance. So I’ve got this ball position back of center and I’m going to actually put my weight a little bit further forward on my front foot and then lean the shaft towards the target. So all of a sudden I’ve got a ball position which is in the back of my stance, I’ve got about 70% of my weight on the front foot, and I’ve got my hands a long way ahead of the ball. Now the last thing I want to be doing within my technique is trying to take a lot of the wrist hinge out of the shot. So I’m just going to try and keep my arms, my shoulders in this triangle shape and just turn the shoulders back, turn the shoulders through and reduce the amount of wrist hinge which is actually taking place. So I’ve got the ball towards the back of my stance, feet and the hips slightly open, weight forward, hands ahead and I’m just going to drive this shot with my shoulders and take the wrist hinge out of play. And that will send the ball out nice and low hopefully check and then grab and stop next to the hole. What you don’t want to be doing with this shot is get in a ball position which is towards the middle of the stance and then using lots and lots of wrist hinge. As soon as you start to add a lot of wrist hinge into the shot, you introduce the possibility of flicking the ball up into the air and that will cause height, it won’t cause that low shot then you’re rough a bit. So adapt the setup, adapt the swing slightly, taking the wrist hinge out and you’ll see that a low flying shot which will check and grab and like I said hopefully stop near that pin. 2014-05-27How do professionals hit a low wedge shot? It’s a great shot when you see it on TV, hitting a wedge nice and low, taking a skip on the green before grabbing and stopping right next to the pin. Now there is no real secret to this shot, it can be done by just adapting the setup and making slight changes within the swing. Now I’ve got a sand wedge here and it’s perfectly acceptable to play this shot with a lofted wedge like that, with a sand wedge, a gap wedge or a pitching wedge. As soon as it gets higher than that to a lob wedge it becomes a little bit more difficult.
So try not to use the highest lofted wedge in the bag, try and use a sand wedge, a gap wedge or a pitching wedge to play this shot. Now a lot of the difficulty can be actually taken away by just getting the setup absolutely bang on. For a low wedge shot you want the feet and the hips to be slightly open, presetting an impact position, but most importantly the ball position to be further back in the stance. So I’ve got this ball position back of center and I’m going to actually put my weight a little bit further forward on my front foot and then lean the shaft towards the target.
So all of a sudden I’ve got a ball position which is in the back of my stance, I’ve got about 70% of my weight on the front foot, and I’ve got my hands a long way ahead of the ball. Now the last thing I want to be doing within my technique is trying to take a lot of the wrist hinge out of the shot. So I’m just going to try and keep my arms, my shoulders in this triangle shape and just turn the shoulders back, turn the shoulders through and reduce the amount of wrist hinge which is actually taking place.
So I’ve got the ball towards the back of my stance, feet and the hips slightly open, weight forward, hands ahead and I’m just going to drive this shot with my shoulders and take the wrist hinge out of play. And that will send the ball out nice and low hopefully check and then grab and stop next to the hole. What you don’t want to be doing with this shot is get in a ball position which is towards the middle of the stance and then using lots and lots of wrist hinge. As soon as you start to add a lot of wrist hinge into the shot, you introduce the possibility of flicking the ball up into the air and that will cause height, it won’t cause that low shot then you’re rough a bit. So adapt the setup, adapt the swing slightly, taking the wrist hinge out and you’ll see that a low flying shot which will check and grab and like I said hopefully stop near that pin.
