How Senior Golfers can Best Control Pitching Distance to Improve their Accuracy (Video) - by Dean Butler
How Senior Golfers can Best Control Pitching Distance to Improve their Accuracy (Video) - by Dean Butler

Okay, we are going to talk about controlling the distance when you're playing pitch shots, you can imagine how crucial these shots are. Let's just say we are 75 yards away from the green, okay we know it's the pitching wedge and that's what we are going to play. But sometimes you might be 75 yards away, 85 yards away, 65 yards away and it's still a pitching wedge. So you got to learn how to control that club. So the best place for this really is to go to the practice ground with a notebook. So if you are really serious about this, go to the practice ground and first of all, let's put say two or three golf balls down, using the pitching wedge, set ourselves up and set ourselves a target of say 60 yards.

From there, let's pick the length of swing and from the length of the swing, execute through and see how far that ball goes. And what we are trying to do is get an average, not your best, not your worst. The number of golf balls, go and pace it out, make a note into your book, how far did that pitching wedge go when you swung it halfway back. Next session, pitching wedge again, this time we want to send it maybe another 15 to 20 yards. So this time, we lengthen the swing a little bit more, but the clubhead speed is still remaining exactly the same, we are not going to change the clubhead speed here at all. We hit a big number of golf balls again, go to the middle ball, make a note and you will see a difference and all we have done is change the length of the swing. We have not changed the setup in any way, we have just changed the length of the swing and of course that will follow through into the same idea, a longer sort of swing. So we have got three sort of swings, one here, two there and three here. Now here you say most probably, well what about the other one here. When we are playing a pitch, we never swing here, we never saying here. We are not trying to drive the ball, we are trying to pitch a ball into a target. We have done the work of the fairway, of the woods, now we want to pitch the ball, you have got to execute it. So the most important thing here is to get yourself of what we call the yardage chart, that's the notebook. Hit so many golf balls with those three different lengths of swing, make a note and then when you go to the golf course, come away from it, have those practice swings, practice, it's no good walking up to the ball and just hitting it. That's how we are going to have the sure shots, set yourself up, you have done your practice swings and then from here now, let's try and execute it, back, that ball has gone just about 60 to 70 yards which is about right for me. Now what we are going to do now is set myself up again, but again beforehand and you got to practice, practice the swing. Take the club up where you want it to go, it’s no good just to walk up and it’s in my mind, get your muscle memory to remember where you need to go. So let's go to the second shot, the same swing, same setup, but this time a little bit longer. So from here, this time the ball has gone much, much further, but I'm not trying to hit it any harder or higher, all I have actually concentrated on is the length of the swing. So when you are talking about pitching control in the golf course, the work has got to be done in the practice ground. I'm not going to try and kind of say, yes you can do this on the golf course, you can’t do it on the golf course. If you are on your own, you can and you can put three or four balls down, the greenkeeper is not watching, may be you can do a bit of practice there. But this is for the driving range, this is for the practice ground, select your club, three lengths swing, one, two, three and from there just hit golf balls. And you will get an average and that's very, very important. So the next time you're on the golf course, you are faced with that thing, you will know exactly what length of swing to produce. Put the work in, you will get the results. 2013-10-28

Okay, we are going to talk about controlling the distance when you're playing pitch shots, you can imagine how crucial these shots are. Let's just say we are 75 yards away from the green, okay we know it's the pitching wedge and that's what we are going to play. But sometimes you might be 75 yards away, 85 yards away, 65 yards away and it's still a pitching wedge. So you got to learn how to control that club. So the best place for this really is to go to the practice ground with a notebook. So if you are really serious about this, go to the practice ground and first of all, let's put say two or three golf balls down, using the pitching wedge, set ourselves up and set ourselves a target of say 60 yards.

From there, let's pick the length of swing and from the length of the swing, execute through and see how far that ball goes. And what we are trying to do is get an average, not your best, not your worst. The number of golf balls, go and pace it out, make a note into your book, how far did that pitching wedge go when you swung it halfway back. Next session, pitching wedge again, this time we want to send it maybe another 15 to 20 yards. So this time, we lengthen the swing a little bit more, but the clubhead speed is still remaining exactly the same, we are not going to change the clubhead speed here at all.

We hit a big number of golf balls again, go to the middle ball, make a note and you will see a difference and all we have done is change the length of the swing. We have not changed the setup in any way, we have just changed the length of the swing and of course that will follow through into the same idea, a longer sort of swing. So we have got three sort of swings, one here, two there and three here. Now here you say most probably, well what about the other one here. When we are playing a pitch, we never swing here, we never saying here.

We are not trying to drive the ball, we are trying to pitch a ball into a target. We have done the work of the fairway, of the woods, now we want to pitch the ball, you have got to execute it. So the most important thing here is to get yourself of what we call the yardage chart, that's the notebook. Hit so many golf balls with those three different lengths of swing, make a note and then when you go to the golf course, come away from it, have those practice swings, practice, it's no good walking up to the ball and just hitting it.

That's how we are going to have the sure shots, set yourself up, you have done your practice swings and then from here now, let's try and execute it, back, that ball has gone just about 60 to 70 yards which is about right for me. Now what we are going to do now is set myself up again, but again beforehand and you got to practice, practice the swing. Take the club up where you want it to go, it’s no good just to walk up and it’s in my mind, get your muscle memory to remember where you need to go.

So let's go to the second shot, the same swing, same setup, but this time a little bit longer. So from here, this time the ball has gone much, much further, but I'm not trying to hit it any harder or higher, all I have actually concentrated on is the length of the swing. So when you are talking about pitching control in the golf course, the work has got to be done in the practice ground. I'm not going to try and kind of say, yes you can do this on the golf course, you can’t do it on the golf course. If you are on your own, you can and you can put three or four balls down, the greenkeeper is not watching, may be you can do a bit of practice there.

But this is for the driving range, this is for the practice ground, select your club, three lengths swing, one, two, three and from there just hit golf balls. And you will get an average and that's very, very important. So the next time you're on the golf course, you are faced with that thing, you will know exactly what length of swing to produce. Put the work in, you will get the results.