Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

Here we’re going to look at how the club’s bounce can help you really crisp your pitch shots up. You’re struggling to hit crisp pitch shots and you’re tending to take the turf before the ball, then this would be a great advice for you to follow. Because using the bounce of the club will really get you to slide the club through the turf so that you connect with the ball. It means you’re going to hit a much higher pitch shot, much better connection and the ball is going to stop a lot quicker on the green when it hits the ground. So you’ll be able to attack the pin a lot more and become a lot more accurate.

So first of all let’s look at what bounce actually is. If we have a look at the golf club here, bounce is to do with this area of the sole of the golf club, really where this curve is. And if we set the club flat on the ground, it’s how high the leading edge is; this part of the club here, compared to the bottom of the club. So that’s the club’s bounce angle. And you’ll tend to see with the club’s bounce angle, you might have something like eight degrees of bounce or 10 degrees of bounce, and it’s just telling you what the difference is between the low part of the club and the leading edge.

So this is a club’s bounce. And when we’re playing shots with bounce we want this part of the club, so the bounce; the low part of the club here to come into the ground. It’s going to hit the turf and skid through the turf and under the ball. We don’t want the leading edge to dig in. If you’re hitting fat shots, you maybe playing too much with the leading edge, which would have this kind of action in the club where the leading edge is really attacking down. And then this part of the club; the sharp leading edge is digging into the turf and taking a massive divot before you hit the ball.

So using the bounce really helps the club almost slide through turf, skid through the turf, if we set up and we’re using the correct swing. So, follow these tips and have a go at using the bounce because it really will give you a much higher shot and a much better connection. So to play with the bounce, it’s really important that when you address the club, we’ve got the shaft of the club perpendicular to the floor. If the club’s leaning forward too much, this is going to get you to play the shot more with the leading edge. And then that leading edge is going to dig into the turf rather than allow you to play with the bounce. So make sure you set the club perpendicular to the floor. It’s going to feel like your hands are over the top of the ball rather than to the left of the ball as you’re looking once you set up.

So for a pitch shot, we’re going to take a slightly narrower stance than normal, the feet width just on shoulder width the par, we’re going to pull the left foot directly back, out forward to six inches, that’s going to allow the hips to open, so that the hip alignment is to the left of the target, but it maintains your shoulder alignment. So you’ll maintain your accuracy with the shot.

Opening the hips up is going to allow you to turn your body through the shot and release the club and the arms more correctly down the target line. So we’ve got a slightly smaller stance, we’ve got the left foot drawn back; directly back four to six inches, and we’re going to play the ball from the middle of the feet as well. Now as I said, the key to playing with bounce is to make sure that the shaft’s perpendicular to the floor and that we don’t have the hands pushed forward. And then we really want to make a nice rounded and flatter swing than usual. So to do that if we look this way up, if the hands are pushed forward and we’re going to play with the leading edge, we’ll take the club away and then we’ll make quite a steep movement with the club head. So this type of action. But if we’re going to play more with bounce, we’ll take the club away and we’ll make a flatter action. So the shaft will look like it’s leaning back a lot more than it would if you were playing with a leading edge.

So this is a really good position with the shaft, maybe about 45 degrees, rather than being too vertical which you’d have with the leading edge. And to do that we’re just going to really work on making a round movement and a round turn. So we’re going to turn the shoulders and get into this flatter position. That is now going to give us a really nice angle to swing back down there and then the bounce is going to hit the floor and it will slide the club with a shallow divot under the ball, and you’ll hit a really crisp pitch shot.

So again just set up feet now with unusual ball in the middle, the stance, but the key to hitting with bounce is to keep the shaft perpendicular. As you play just keep your weight nice and even, make sure your sternum stays over the ball. Again you don’t want to lean too much left here on this shot and then a really rounded flat swing as you swing through, and that gives you a really crisp shot, lovely high trajectory and it’s going to get you hitting pitch shots a lot more accurately into the green.