Hi, Adam Bazalgette here,
two-time PGA Teacher of the Year award winner.
Today's subject, on short pitches,
how to create more spin.
(energetic music)
So when you've got a short pitch,
how do you create more spin?
Well, as I've said on another couple of videos,
club head speed is a big ingredient
in creating spin, so you're missing that to some extent,
but I'll show you a couple of ways
you can go about it,
a little trick you can kind of play,
that'll add some back in there
for these short pitches.
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Let's get started.
Get that ball to stop pretty quickly,
for this shot, we're going to assume
just kind of a medium fairway lie,
not one of those nice, soft runs
you could really get under it
and lob the shot with.
Got to get some spin off a medium fairway lie.
Let's have a look close up.
So assuming a decent golf ball
and a nice, clean, fresh sand wedge spin
is going to come from speed,
assuming solid contact as well, of course,
and the amount of loft you have.
Now, obviously in these small shots
you can't create that much speed,
so what you can do is you can open the face,
or let's say aim it to the right,
and kind of cut across it.
The ball's gonna tend to go more
where the club face is aimed, less where you're swinging,
but effectively you're adding loft
and you're adding friction.
Another thing that will happen when you do this,
is you will get a little bit of a glancing blow
and that deadens the shot even a little bit more.
So the open face will affect direction,
but it's certainly not at this speed
with this much loft.
It's not gonna make the ball curve.
You might see the ball slightly skid to the right
when it lands on the green,
but overall, the ball's just going to go
more where the club face is aimed
and where you're swinging.
Just fiddle around with it until you get what you like,
obviously the more tight the lie is,
the more risk there is to opening the club,
but just as I say, play around.
This is a reasonable enough lie.
I'm going to go ahead and set my swing angle
well to the left.
Club face about at the target.
And again, you can see that ball really
come off to the right there.
Left that one a little bit short.
If you were to do this with a long club,
or even pitching the ball from 30, 40 yards,
it would really affect your distance control,
you couldn't hit it very far.
At least, I find when I'm up there,
the green doesn't affect it that much.
Obviously it makes a difference,
the ball comes off dead,
but controlling distances isn't that difficult.
You just have to play around with it,
and as you've seen me do here a couple of times,
the kind of finish you're looking for,
just a nice short sharp one,
and just make sure the face stays open
as you go through.
You can just see kind of cut that thing there,
really comes off with some stop.
So looking at the shot face-on,
fairly standard stuff, feet close together,
weight a little bit forward, et cetera.
Obviously you've got to set your body line
to get your swing path going left as we showed you,
to give yourself that glancing blow.
Here's a couple of things I'd watch out for though.
Number one, the kind of stroke you're looking for
is a nice firm, crisp stroke
with a little bit of speed in it.
Shaft nice and stable.
You do not want a lot of sloppiness and hand action,
you won't deliver the club the same way each time.
And I think another thing that's very important
is the way you contact the ground.
You do not want or need to be
crashing down in there and taking a big divot.
Believe me, if you start chopping into the ground,
not only will you be very inconsistent
with the way the ball comes off,
but you're basically going to be
compressing the ball too much.
It won't come off dead enough.
So let's try a couple here.
Get my stance aimed left.
I want a nice, crisp little brush mark
under the ball there.
That's the idea.
That club, when it comes in,
if there's any kind of cushion,
and there's a little bit here,
should kind of skid along the grass
and kind of glide under the ball.
Again, you don't want to trap the ball too much
when you do that.
One other little thing you might want to throw in there
at your discretion, see if it helps you,
we've talked about how the club face
obviously needs to stay open through the ball.
You might find, on a short shot like this,
if you just weaken the right hand a little bit,
the trailing hand, for the right-handed golfer
that's the right hand.
A little weaker there, allows it to,
or reduces the chance you're going to
roll the face shot.
So you might throw that in.
Let's try one more, I'll weaken
that right hand a little bit.
There's my open face.
Nice crisp stroke, ball popped right up there.
Again, just an economy of motion.
It's not a big shot.
You want to get yourself set there,
and bam, right in there.
Nice and stable, nice and firm, no chopping and digging.
There's a nice dead one there.
It's not a super difficult shot to get the feel of,
but there's more to it than just hitting the shot,
you've got to be fairly accurate
at predicting how the pitch of the green,
or the wind if there is any,
certainly to some extent the lie,
how easy it is to get under the ball,
in other words, the surroundings you have,
the speed of the green et cetera,
how that's going to affect the shot
if you're really going to get them in close,
you've got to be good at that too. It's a fun shot though.
I think you'll find it's not that difficult,
you'll love that nice dead feeling.
Ball's going to stop quickly for you.
So hope that helps you there on short pitch shots,
how to create more spin.
That'll give you a couple of ideas
to fool around with.
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Thanks again.