Having a great wedge game can be the saving grace for those days when your swing just isn’t quite right. A bad miss is still a par when you can get it up and down from inside a trash can!
Let’s go over a few of the keys to a great wedge game starting with the setup.
Too many people will put the ball back in their stance which will cause the club to come into the ball with a steep angle of attack. This will lead to chunks & skulls. Please put your ball position, at worst, in the middle but certainly favoring further forward.
Let’s also take a look at where your sternum points (imagine a laser shooting out of your chest.) at address as this will be where the ‘low’ point of your club arc contacts the ground. If this point is behind the ball you’re in for a tough go of it. Please set this sternum point roughly 6″-8″ ahead of the ball.
Although your weight distribution should be very balanced at address, some people may need to put more weight on their lead foot to compensate for some of their tendencies. One of our swing keys is to keep the lower body extremely stable, therefore, we don’t want to get too off kilter with weight distribution.
The overall swing motion of the pitch shot is almost the opposite as that of a full swing… In the full swing you want the lower body leading the entire downswing, however, in a pitching motion the downswing should be lead with the club and upper body. You may feel as though the club and arms begin the downswing with a ‘gravity falling back to the ground’ type of feeling… allowing the lower body to merely ‘respond’ or ‘react’ to the motion of the upper body and club. You may even ‘feel’ like the lower body only moves when the upper body(through rotation) pulls the lower body through the shot.
As always, feelings can have different affects on different people, depending on their current tendencies. Please check out the video of Justin Mooney for a more accurate view of what actually happens. It’s only through lots of experience that you see how evident that what we ‘feel’ is not always what we are actually ‘doing’. Justin has done a great job of mastering the low spinner shot which has turned his wedge game into a serious strength and a leg up on the competition!
Let’s go over a few of the keys to a great wedge game starting with the setup.
Too many people will put the ball back in their stance which will cause the club to come into the ball with a steep angle of attack. This will lead to chunks & skulls. Please put your ball position, at worst, in the middle but certainly favoring further forward.
Let’s also take a look at where your sternum points (imagine a laser shooting out of your chest.) at address as this will be where the ‘low’ point of your club arc contacts the ground. If this point is behind the ball you’re in for a tough go of it. Please set this sternum point roughly 6″-8″ ahead of the ball.
Although your weight distribution should be very balanced at address, some people may need to put more weight on their lead foot to compensate for some of their tendencies. One of our swing keys is to keep the lower body extremely stable, therefore, we don’t want to get too off kilter with weight distribution.
The overall swing motion of the pitch shot is almost the opposite as that of a full swing… In the full swing you want the lower body leading the entire downswing, however, in a pitching motion the downswing should be lead with the club and upper body. You may feel as though the club and arms begin the downswing with a ‘gravity falling back to the ground’ type of feeling… allowing the lower body to merely ‘respond’ or ‘react’ to the motion of the upper body and club. You may even ‘feel’ like the lower body only moves when the upper body(through rotation) pulls the lower body through the shot.
As always, feelings can have different affects on different people, depending on their current tendencies. Please check out the video of Justin Mooney for a more accurate view of what actually happens. It’s only through lots of experience that you see how evident that what we ‘feel’ is not always what we are actually ‘doing’. Justin has done a great job of mastering the low spinner shot which has turned his wedge game into a serious strength and a leg up on the competition!