Chipping

Now the big part of the short game improvement program is to learn to land the ball in the place you want the ball to land. And for chipping I want you to find one area to chip from and then with one club practice chipping until you can consistently land the ball where you want. Once you can do that then change clubs every shot and try to land the ball on the same spot. Use clubs between your 5-iron and lob wedge when doing this.

This is a great exercise to do because it will teach you quickly how far each club will roll the ball. Once you’ve done this then experiment with different chip shots and try different clubs until you find the best clubs for you generally to use on chip shots. For some people that will be high lofted clubs, for others they’ll prefer lower lofted clubs. You’ve got to find what works best for you.

Another great drill you can use to practice your chipping is to make a circle about 3 feet in diameter with golf tees around a hole. Then practice chipping from different spots trying to get each ball to stop within 3 feet of the hole.

Finally, if you’re lucky enough to have a practice chipping green with multiple holes then you should pick one spot to chip from. Then for each shot, chip to a different target. Naturally when you do this you will probably have to change clubs. For example, if you’ve got a 50 foot chip and a lot of green between you and the pin then you’ll do a lot better to choose a lower lofted club like a 5 or 6 iron. Then if you’ve got a pin that is very close to you and not much green then you’ll have to choose a more lofted club. Remember, the goal is to land the ball about 3 feet on the green for each chip shot.

This is a great drill to practice before you play a game as it will quickly give you a feel for the greens that you’ll be faced with out on the golf course (as long as they’re similar to the practice green).

OK, let’s look at some practice drills for…

Pitching

Often when you’re faced with a pitch shot your ball will not be sitting perfectly. So to become a great short game player you have to practice shots from poor lies. So do this, but when you do don’t just give yourself a bad lie for one shot and then go back to giving yourself good lies. Hit at least 10 shots from a particular bad lie so you can learn how best to get the ball out of that spot and close to the hole.

Now with pitching you have to employ a lot of imagination and be able to visualize what’s going to happen with the golf ball very clearly. And a great way of improving this skill is to get one club, e.g. a 7-iron, and place balls around a golf green and hit shots with your 7-iron trying to get each ball as close as possible to the hole. Naturally when you do this you’ll have to make adjustments from your normal setup. For example, if you’re behind a bunker and you’re using a 7-iron you’ll have to open the club up very wide, have a very wide stance and make a long, big swing.

But that’s OK. Doing things like this will help you to have some fun and learn what you can do with a golf club, and improve your visualization and imagination skills. That can only improve your short game.

All right, let’s now turn our attention to…

Distance Wedge Swings

This distance wedge drill involves a fellow golfer. To do this drill simply find an area where you can practice the distance wedge shots and practice hitting shots back and forth to each other. So start at say 50 yards away from each other and with one ball try and hit the ball to your partner so it bounces once in front of them and then they can catch it.

Then they hit the ball back to you trying to get it to bounce once in front of you.

This game is great as it puts a bit of pressure on, which can only help on the golf course. Also, it makes you focus a lot on where you want your ball to fly. And if you don’t fly it were you want then you might get a bit of flak from the person having to chase after the ball all the time.

If you don’t have a person to do that drill you can simply put targets out at different distances and then hit distance wedge shots to each target. Start with your shortest target and then move up to the furthest target. Once you’ve done that then hit each shot to a random target. By doing this it will get you more into a course mentality where each golf shot is different.

OK, now let’s finally look at…

Bunker Shots

To do this first bunker drill you simply have to place the ball on a tee and push the tee down into the sand. Once this is in place then you simply have to swing and try to cut the tee in half with the leading edge of your golf club. If you have trouble getting your club through the sand then you should definitely try this drill, as it helps greatly to accelerate through the sand.

Another great drill to improve your bunker shot technique is to place a ball in the middle of your foot print. Then when you swing simply focus on removing the imprint completely from the sand. This is a great drill if you’re afraid of hitting the sand. Finally, when you’re practicing bunker shots make sure you don’t just practice perfect lies. Give yourself bad lies and learn to get the ball close to the pin from anywhere.

So that’s some ways you can practice the short game. But finally, probably the best way to improve your short game is to practice with someone that is better than you. If you can find someone like that then play games with them trying to beat them in getting the ball closest to the hole.

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.