Why?

Because it’s been discovered that 60 to 65% of all golf shots are from inside 100 yards of the hole. Naturally a big part of those statistics comprises of putting (which is not the short game) but the fact is….about 80% of all golf shots golfers lose to par happen within 100 yards of the hole. And the large determining factor of this is how close golfers hit their short game shots.

Yes, that’s right….it’s generally not how well a person putts that determines whether they save par or not but it’s how close they hit there short game shots to the hole.

Let me explain that some more…

When it comes to putting it doesn’t matter how good a putter you become because the bottom line is that the closer you hit the ball to the hole the more chance you have of holing the putt. And here are some telling statistics from the best putters in the world…

• PGA Pro’s hole putts in the 0 – 5 ft range about 95% of the time.
• PGA Pro’s hole putts in the 5 – 10 ft range about 55% of the time.
• PGA Pro’s hole putts in the 10 – 20 ft range about 25% of the time.

As you’ll notice from those stats above….there is a big drop off each time you move further away from the hole. The point is, the further you are away from the hole, the less likely you are to hole a putt. And that doesn’t matter how good a putter you become you’ll always be around those figures because the greens are not perfect.

So once you get your putting to a good standard the only way you can lower your scores is to get the ball closer to the hole. And the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to doing this is with the short game. Because if you’re averaging 30 feet from the hole with a wedge from 75 yards and with practice you get that down to averaging 10 feet from the hole on average then you WILL score lower.

The bottom line is that with the short game it’s very possible to cut a lot of strokes from you scores by working hard and smart on improving this area of your game.

Now before I tell you anything else I first want to explain what the short game is not.

The short game is NOT putting!

Putting is a separate game all by itself. I get sick and tired of people lumping putting in with the short game. It’s not part of the short game…it’s a game all by itself.

So with that being said, here’s what the short game consists of…

• Chipping
• Pitching
• Distance Wedges
• Bunker shots

And that’s the order you should work through to improve your short game.

Now the action of chipping is very close to the putting action. Conversely, the action used for distance wedges is very close to the full swing action.

That may be one reason why a lot of golfers suffer with the short game. It’s a mixture of different aspects of golf. But the short game can definitely be mastered.

Now when you first start working on improving your short game you should focus on consistently landing your ball on the spot you want it to land.

You may think that’s a strange thing to focus on first so let me explain that some more by telling you the…

3 Things You Need To Have For A Great Short Game

1. You need to have control over the physical swing as that produces the trajectory, velocity and spin rate of each shot. And all of this determines where your ball lands.

2. You need to be able to determine and accurately predict how the condition of the ball is lying is going to affect the shot you’re going to play.

3. You need to have a good idea and feel for how the ball is going to react when it lands.

If you look at that list above you’ll notice that it doesn’t matter how good you can become at number 2 and 3….if you can’t consistently hit the ball so it lands on the spot you’ve chosen for your ball to land then everything else is irrelevant.

So that’s why for all four main parts of the short game….

• Chipping
• Pitching
• Distance Wedges
• Bunker shots

…you need to learn how to hit the ball consistently on the spot you want. And initially when you learn this you should do it from a perfect lie.

Naturally you won’t always have a perfect lie on the golf course but that’s not the point of learning the short game this way. The point is that if you can’t hit the ball the distance you want from a perfect lie then it doesn’t matter what the lie is like because you won’t be able to hit the ball the distance you want from a bad lie!

So please understand this…

Every other resource I’ve seen on improving the short game misses the point about only focusing on learning to hit the ball the distance you want. Instead they give you everything needed for a great short game and that leads to very little improvement if any. I believe that is not the best way to improv your short game.

OK, that’s an introduction to my philosophy on what is needed to improve your short game.  In part 2 we’re going to look at what you need to do to have a great short and more specifically, we’ll start by looking at chipping.  So make sure you signup for blog updates to be informed when I post a new part to this short game consistency and success series.

Rhythm & Timing

If you watch any great golfer’s swing they will have great rhythm and timing. But “trying” to swing with great rhythm and timing is wrong. You shouldn’t “try” to force these things to happen in your swing because trying causes tension.

Important Note: Unnecessary tension in the golf swing destroys timing, and rhythm.

Instead, I think it’s better if you simply observe great golfers swings over and over again to get a sense of the rhythm and timing needed in the golf swing.

To do this you can record swings of your favorite golfer that have great rhythm and timing, e.g.

• Ernie Els,
• Davis Love III,
• Fred Couples etc.

…and watch them swing over and over again. But I must say, that’s a good starting point but I’ve found a much better option than that which I share with my students in the online consistent golf school.

OK, let’s now look at…

Tempo

When I started looking into the tempo of the golf swing and how to practice it I found that professional golfers swing a lot faster than most people think. But the reason their swings look so rhythmical, smooth and slow is because everything in their swings flows smoothly. There’s no jerking movements, and that smoothness gives the entire swing an appearance of being smooth and slow.

Anyway, to improve my tempo I first tried swinging to a metronome but I found this very, very difficult. You just don’t have enough time to react to the beeps. So after trying that I read the book Tour Tempo.  And I started using the audio tracks supplied with that book to swing to the tempos suggested. From using this audio CD myself to practice with, this is what I’ve found.

The faster the tempo I used the shorter my swing became. I think my natural tempo is 24/8 but when I practiced with that tempo I found my swing was too short. So I’ve now gone up to using 27/9 tempo and this is working well for now.

So if you get this book, and I highly recommend you do, I think you should work slowly into these tempos by starting at 27/9 and then trying the other quicker tempos after that tempo is comfortable. That’s just a suggestion however.

BUT no matter what you do, you’ll probably find that the tempos on that CD are a lot faster than you’re used to. So when you get this book just experiment with the different tempos.

Now the best thing about the audio CD that comes with the Tour Tempo book is that the tones or words are spaced so you have time to react to them. As I said, I’ve tried swinging to a metronome and that’s really tough. You simply don’t have the time to react to the beeps and change directions from the backswing to the downswing.

All right, let’s now look at…

Swinging The Club Automatically

Now there are two ways to mentally swing a golf club…

1. Consciously, or

2. Subconsciously

When you swing a golf club consciously you have a lot of thoughts going through your mind about what you should be doing mechanically, along with thoughts about the possible outcome of the shot. But when you swing subconsciously you don’t have any thoughts going through your mind about mechanics or the possible outcome of the shot.

This means you just swing automatically to the best of your ability, and generally when you’re doing this you hit good shots and you play your best golf. So obviously swinging subconsciously is the best way to swing a golf club. To do this consistently you need to learn how to do the following two things..

1. Switch off your conscious mind just before you start your swing, leaving your subconscious mind free to swing the golf club to the best of your ability.

2. Program your subconscious mind with the perfect golf swing for you.

To help you start doing this consistently, I give two audio tracks to my students to listen to.

But listening to those audios is only the start, because you’ve undoubtedly wasted many, many shots because of your conscious mind interfering in your shots (i.e. telling you how to swing the club or what to avoid etc.). You can only stop this from happening by learning to swing with your subconscious mind consistently.

How are you going to do this?

Well, when playing any golf shot you need to have a technique to distract your conscious mind and allow your subconscious mind free reign to perform the swing that you have programmed yourself with. Because without a technique to distract your conscious mind it is always in a constant state of flux. And to demonstrate how hard it is “try” to quieten your mind, do this.

Right now see how long you can hold the one thought of a pink elephant in your mind before another thought comes along.

Not long is it?

And it will never be long even if you practice this forever, because of the fact that your conscious mind’s purpose is to analyze, question and doubt. So unless you learn how to consistently swing with your subconscious mind your golf game will never be consistent and you’ll always play well below your potential, because the times when you’ve hit your best ever shots and played your best ever rounds is the result of you automatically swinging with your subconscious mind. No doubt you’ve heard about top golfers saying they’ve been in the “zone” and you’ve been there as well. The “zone” is simply when a person switches off their conscious mind and executes whatever skill they’re performing using their subconscious mind.

But as you’ve already proven to yourself, if you “try” to consciously quieten your conscious mind, you’ll end up fighting with your mind and you’ll get worse instead of better.

Now golfers that play nowhere near their potential almost always play with their conscious mind, which means the subconscious is not free to swing the golf club. And this means most golfers consistently play well below the potential they’re capable of. You can quite easily tell after every shot you hit whether you’ve used your subconscious or conscious mind to hit the ball.

How?

Simply by being aware of any tension in your body after the shot. If you have any major tension like you’ve been consciously controlling the shot then you’ve used your conscious mind to play the shot. And here’s another great way for you to see for yourself the difference between the subconscious and the conscious mind.

Get a pen and draw two boxes like this on a piece of paper…

Now in the left-hand box sign your name and as you do notice the way the pen flows over the paper.  Then I want you to try to consciously copy the signature exactly as you’ve just done it, this time in the right box.

Did you notice the big difference between the two movements?

See, trying to consciously copy your subconscious signature you would’ve noticed how slow, forced, and unnatural your hand moved as opposed to the free flowing actions of the first signature. This is because your conscious mind produces tension when trying to copy anything. So your perfect golf shots are clearly produced by your subconscious mind.

But when you consciously try to copy what you did to hit that perfect shot you naturally get the same forced, unnatural result that you received when you tried to consciously copy your signature. Clearly the only way to copy what you did to hit your perfect golf shots is to reproduce that mindset.

The only way to consistently do that is through using your subconscious mind to automatically swing the golf club. And the best way of doing that consistently is by using the tools I give you when you become a student of mine (you can do that for free by going here).

All right, that’s the end of this part of the ball striking consistency series.  In the next part I’m going to discuss equipment so make sure you come back to read that.

Go out to your practice range or you can even do this at home without a ball if you like, but setup to a pitch shot as normal and then do what I call mirror-imaging your swing.  What this means is that you should try to do what you do on your backswing, on your follow-through.  Here’s a couple of pictures to show you what I mean.

Pitching Consistency Drill

So keep doing this, back and forth motion and you’ll gain great consistency in your pitching action.