Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

Here we're going to look at how to hit an effective three-quarter wedge shot and how to create that. It’s a great shot to have in the bag when you're out on the golf course because you're going to play it when you're less than a full swing away. So if all you can do is hit a full swing at the golf ball, its going to generate too much distance at times you need to able to hit a three quarter version of that if the distance dictates that that's what you need to do, or if you want to play a slightly softer shot into the green.

So a correct position to start from would be play the ball in the center of the stance, okay. Open the feet up to the stance is about shoulder width apart or just underneath, and that's going to help me to balance a little more and stop you just moving around with too much weight transfer. We want to pull the left foot directly back and that's now opened to stance up, but effectively it's kept your hips and your shoulders parallel to the target line, so you're going to find it easier to hit straighter shots from this position. But you have moved your left hip out of the way allowing you to swing down the target line much more effectively and rotate through the shot.

We're going to place slightly more weight on the left side that would be about 70-75%, and we're going to get the hands ahead of the ball, so that means as you're looking at the ball, the hands are on the left side, and the club heads on the right. Work on setting a really straight line from the left shoulder down the left arm to the hand, and then continue the arm into the club head. This straight line position on the weight on the left are going to allow you to really hinge the wrist and create an upright swing plane, so if we're looking from this way on, that means that the club is going to be moving like this allowing you to attack down and into the back of the ball to hit the ball and then the turf rather than swinging around your body which will create a more sweeping action in either making you hit the ground before the ball or catch the ball on your upswing and again you're going to hit a thin shot from there.

So we'll setup again in the right position ball centered feet just on the shoulder with the par left foot directly back about 4 inches, weight on the left hands forward. Okay now to create this three-quarter position, just feel that you're only swinging your hands to about chest height, so that's going to stop the club in this position where you've created this L shape so just swing the hands back till you feel you're at chest high rather than making that full back swing position where the hands go further on and we'll see the club pointing at the target.

So hands to chest high, strike down, let yourself rotate through the shot as you move through. You'll finish with the club head in a nice high position. The hips are really rotated. The zip on your trousers is towards the target. You're off your right heel and on your instep. But if you're coming in from that three-quarter position, you're going to make a much softer shot and you won't generate as much distance, so it’s a really handy shot to have when you're approaching the green, and you're now within a full swing length.