A teaching pro once told me that when he was getting ready to play in a tournament, he did nothing but putt and hit wedges. Lots of wedges. He explained why, but I didn't really get the point until about two years ago.
Take this self-test. Go the range and get ten golf balls. Take out your sand wedge and hit a pitch with a half swing. It will go about 70 yards or so. Now hit nine more, with identical results. Identical. Carbon copies.
If you hit the first few O.K., but then they start going every which way or you start having contact problems, something about your swing is missing or needs tightening up.
Get a lesson if you need to (and you probably do) to learn how to hit a 70-yard pitch in a way that you can pass this test.
One of the major flaws the test will uncover is that your hands are behind the ball at impact. Pick a bad shot type, fat, thin, slice, and this flaw is a likely cause of it.
There might be other things wrong, but by getting this flaw corrected, other swing flaws get patched up, too.
There's a story that when Tom Watson first went to see Byron Nelson, the first thing Nelson wanted to see is Watson hitting a few pitches. If there were problems with that shot, then there was no point in moving on to any of the longer clubs.
I have a mat in my back yard off which I can hit plastic golf balls. I spend almost all of my time there hitting them with my 70-yard pitch swing.
It's the same with you. Once you have the pitch swing down cold, you not only have a deadly scoring shot in your bag, but you'll have mastered the key to your full golf swing.
Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com
No comments:
Post a Comment