Hold Clubface Open to Make Pitch Shots Check (Video) - by Pete Styles
Hold Clubface Open to Make Pitch Shots Check (Video) - by Pete Styles You'll often hear me talking about how I’d like to release the golf club to generate power, to try and generate a more of a closed clubface to produce a right-to-left ball flight but actually we don't need that in all shots. There are a lot of shots where we actually encourage you to hold the clubface off and this picture is exactly that example. We’re going to play the ball here with pitching wedge or a gap wedge, a gap wedge around about 50 degrees of loft, halfway between a pitching wedge and a sand wedge. I’m going to play the ball from the center of my stance. I’m going to grip down with a narrow stance and lean slightly on my left side. Now as I strike through the golf ball, I want to maintain as much left arm angle as I can, left arm, left wrist and not have the clubface rolled over. If I was to release the clubface, in my action like I would do for a full swing, I tend to find that the clubface would get slightly delofted, start to turn and aim down the left-hand side and the picture when it lands would land left and running. If we can hold the clubface off, it lands straight and just have a little bit more check and a bit more spin on the ball. So as I set up, lean to the left, strike down, hold the face open. The ball flies out nicely and spins and if I rotate round so you can see this from the front down as I hit that ball through there, the badge on the back of my glove on my left hand would be facing straight upwards. If you wear a glove on your left hand, pitch through and see how the badge faces upwards. If you were rotating your hands incorrectly for the shot, the badge would point downwards and the clubface would close over. So if you're pitching through, you want to hold the face nicely open, keep the badge pointing upwards and that should help you with short chip shots, getting them online and spinning a bit more. 2012-09-17

You'll often hear me talking about how I’d like to release the golf club to generate power, to try and generate a more of a closed clubface to produce a right-to-left ball flight but actually we don't need that in all shots. There are a lot of shots where we actually encourage you to hold the clubface off and this picture is exactly that example.

We’re going to play the ball here with pitching wedge or a gap wedge, a gap wedge around about 50 degrees of loft, halfway between a pitching wedge and a sand wedge. I’m going to play the ball from the center of my stance. I’m going to grip down with a narrow stance and lean slightly on my left side. Now as I strike through the golf ball, I want to maintain as much left arm angle as I can, left arm, left wrist and not have the clubface rolled over. If I was to release the clubface, in my action like I would do for a full swing, I tend to find that the clubface would get slightly delofted, start to turn and aim down the left-hand side and the picture when it lands would land left and running.

If we can hold the clubface off, it lands straight and just have a little bit more check and a bit more spin on the ball. So as I set up, lean to the left, strike down, hold the face open. The ball flies out nicely and spins and if I rotate round so you can see this from the front down as I hit that ball through there, the badge on the back of my glove on my left hand would be facing straight upwards. If you wear a glove on your left hand, pitch through and see how the badge faces upwards. If you were rotating your hands incorrectly for the shot, the badge would point downwards and the clubface would close over. So if you're pitching through, you want to hold the face nicely open, keep the badge pointing upwards and that should help you with short chip shots, getting them online and spinning a bit more.