Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro

Often on the golf course, the player would want to see their wedges fly really high up into the air, land nice and softly on the green and get a little bit of back spin. But there is a time and a place when the golfer doesn't really want that super high flighted wedge shot. Maybe the player is playing from a bad lie, maybe the player is feeling a bit under pressure they want to be able to control the distance a bit more, or most importantly, maybe the player is playing his wedge shot into a strong wind or with a strong crosswind. And the player knows that the higher this ball goes in the air, the more the wind and the lie and the pressure can affect the situation they're in. So there's often a time and place when you'll see the best players in the world take their wedges and work incredibly hard to not hit the ball high at all, but actually to hit the ball quite low. The way they do that is they employ the punch shot, so they play the ball a little bit further back in the stance, they play their hands a little bit more ahead and they hit more down on the back of the ball and they really chase the ball forward on a much lower trajectory.

And sometimes the TV cameras don't really highlight or pick this up, but actually you can see it a little bit more in real life. If you ever go and watch the best players in the world, you'll appreciate that sometimes the ball isn't in the air for all that long when they are playing these wedge shots and they just knock it down a little bit more forward; so the ball is back, the hands are down, we are leaning left and we're hitting these little knock down shots. So we play it low, the ball is in the air and comes down now. So it's probably only in the air for two or three seconds whereas the high scoopy, your floppy shot will not be in the air for four, five seconds and it really is a different shot to actually watch. And you can see that I took a nice divot here but all of that divot was after the golf ball. So when you're playing these punch shots, your feeling is, “Can I hit the ball as low as possible?” And the club's feeling is, “Well, I want to hit the ball high,” and then we get that nice mix.

So the ball goes high enough, it will clear the bunker, it's got bags and bags of spin on it so don't expect the ball to go bouncing off the back of the green and that looks quite impressive; nice and low ball flight with plenty of check rather than the low ball fight and then it runs out. So that's why I wouldn't play that sense with a high, with maybe an 8 or a 7-Iron; 8 or a 7-Iron lands on the green, shoots off the other side, wedge hitting down punching, the ball flies low and generates the spin. So it's kind of the best of best worlds, particularly if you play in windy conditions.

So next time you're watching golf on the TV, just consider how many times do you see a tall player finish a wedge shot here and how many times do you see a professional finish a wedge shot here. And consider that every time they're finishing that short little curtailed follow-through, that punch in their wedges; the ball is back in the stance, they're gripping down and they're controlling their follow-through with that little punched wedge. And if they're doing it with their wedges, maybe you should be punching your wedges too.