- Well hello, Adam Bazalgette here in Naples, Florida.
I'm two-time PGA Teacher of the Year award winner
and founder of Scratch Golf Academy.
Today's subject, how to hit half wedge shots in golf.
Stay tuned.
(intense music)
So how to hit half wedge shots.
What's the definition of a half wedge shot?
We'll get into that, club selections
and things in your technique, etc.
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Okay, let's get started.
So half wedges, how would you define a half wedge?
Well, here's some of my definitions.
First off, I would not use a pitching wedge.
Today's pitching wedges have about the loft
of a nine iron 30 years ago.
Just not gonna have enough loft and spin,
unless the conditions are unusual to really do the job.
So I like a 58, you might like a 56 or a 60,
but something in that neighborhood.
Pick that and sort of stick with it
for the sake of the shot we're talking about.
Need a little bit of height and spin as you go in there.
And for me the simplest definition,
within 20 yards of the green, let's say,
to me is kind of a greenside pitch.
I can hit this on a full shot about 90 yards,
maybe 95 if I get lucky there.
So I've kind of got that gap,
and 55 yards is about right in the middle
of my 20 to 90 yard gap.
So I worked on the shot a little bit,
and I find for myself if I can take my hands back
between belt and chest height, somewhere in here,
with some wrist cock and something
approximately equal on the front end.
For me that's gonna go about 55 yards.
Let me pop one out here.
(club makes impacts with ball)
Yup, that's a pretty decent shot.
I'll show you a couple of shots
from this angle here in just a moment,
so that gives me a really nice benchmark.
We'll talk about this a little bit later in the video,
but it gives me a gap that's pretty equal
between full and greenside shot.
Now, a couple of words of caution here,
these are very important.
nless you're hitting the ball solidly,
unless you have pretty consistent trajectory,
even if you have the same length swing
you're not gonna have that good of a result.
So very, very important, we don't wanna make this
per se a swing lesson,
this is more about gapping and half wedges,
but when you go through impact,
the handle has to be ahead of the clubhead.
Club shaft has to be leaning a little bit.
You don't wanna get it like this,
but you've gotta tilt the sweet spot onto the ball
and drive the ball a little bit.
That helps you with contact,
and secondly you've gotta hit it at a consistent trajectory.
There's so many golfers come in here
and their hands are active at the bottom.
Even if they do hit it solidly,
and that's challenging when the club's unstable.
Sometimes you're hitting it with
a lot more effective loft than other times.
Your distances just aren't gonna be that good.
If you go to a PGA tour event,
watch the guys warming up.
The first five minutes usually
they'll grab a sand wedge or something,
and just hit some little three quarter shots.
You see how consistent that trajectory
is on those shots, its amazing.
So that's a benchmark for you when you're practicing.
Are they coming off at about the same height?
And of course one of the keys to that is,
as you go through, if your hands are gonna be less active,
your body's gotta be pretty dynamic.
So I feel my core and my trunk really working at the bottom.
I feel my wrists and arms nice and stable and firm.
It gives me a certain stability in the golf club
that helps me regulate trajectory,
and it's a critical ingredient.
Let's have a look from this angle.
So here we are at 55 yards, I'll try a little shot here,
see if I can dial in that yardage.
(club makes impacts with ball)
Just pulled it just a smidge,
but took a kind of a hard bounce,
but that's right in the neighborhood of 55 yards again.
And to be honest with you,
as little as I play these days
relative to when I was a junior,
it is great to have a benchmark yardage like that.
Now, two little thoughts that you might through in there,
'cause there's always room for some personal interpretation,
and that is you might decide to take a slightly open stance,
just a little bit aimed left
of target for the right-hander.
This does a couple of things that you might like.
Number one, a little bit of an open stance
will shorten your backswing slightly.
It adds resistance in your lower body,
and makes it shorter.
And of course, number two,
it's a little easier to turn through.
So some people really like that,
and they find this helpful for them.
If 55 yards is kind of a yardage for you,
you might experiment a little bit with that,
and as I say, It's open to personal interpretation.
Another thing that some players like to do,
and it helps them out a little bit
is choke down on the club some.
I'm not recommending way down to the bottom of the handle
when we're hitting it this far,
maybe up around the green.
But choking down on the club
will take off a little bit of distance,
and you might like the feel,
you might like the added control it gives you there.
You just have to factor it into your recipe.
So, if choke down's in the mix,
it may mean a slightly longer swing,
so just experiment with these couple of variables.
The alignment of your stance, and how far down you choke.
I like to choke down a fraction.
My stance stays fairly square on the these shots.
Let me try one more.
Maybe just the barest tiny bit open.
(club makes impacts with ball)
I hit that just a little hard, I could tell.
Yup, I hit that probably 25, 30 feet past the hole.
So, I'm used to this shot enough now,
just a little panicky coming down,
and jammed it a bit,
that I have a good feel for my own distance.
So some concluding thoughts here.
When you put a set of clubs together,
if you're doing it properly,
you're trying to get equal gaps in your yardage.
You don't want your 5 or 6 iron,
your longest iron going say 160,
and then the next wood you have going 200,
that's too big a gap.
And it's the same when you start to hit your wedges.
A lot of people say I'm gonna hit a half wedge,
but it's actually 80% of a full wedge.
Get a gap, because, listen, if I can hit it 55,
I know how to hit it 90 on a full shot,
20 is my greenside.
I can start to find those middle gaps a little bit.
I have a benchmark, and I can adjust from that.
Now Dave Pelz, pretty sure it was Dave Pelz
was the one that came of with it.
He came up with system of multi swings on a clockface,
sort of shaft parallel, arm parallel, shoulder high etc.
And then you can even add to that multi wedges,
and all of a sudden you get all these different benchmarks.
If you like to practice a lot and you're wired up
that way that might be a good system.
At least though, If you're a pretty enthusiastic practice,
maybe get two benchmarks.
Maybe have your 90, maybe your sort of 60,
your 40, and your 20, or something like that.
And you just have to learn how to hit those shots.
And again in terms of set makeup,
you might wanna have 2 or 3 different wedges,
but let me just say this to you.
If your a guy or gal that hits a lot of long drives,
gets a lot of sort of 40 to 90 yard type shots into green,
that could be great for you.
If you're not such a long hitter,
and you might hit a lot of fairway woods,
but probably when you get 80 or 90 yards
it's not really a wedge, it might be a 8 or a 9 iron.
So if you're a short hitter,
maybe concentrate your set makeup
on some really effective fairway woods, and hybrids.
So I hope these thoughts help,
and with a little bit of practice
you'll have that consistent trajectory,
you'll have a benchmark, you'll have some gaps,
and you get those balls close to the hole.
So if that helps you with how to hit
half wedge shots in golf,
or at least if it gives you some ideas
about how to benchmark it etc.
There's a lot more to it than that.
You could go to scratchgolfacademy.com,
my home website, we have full courses
in every aspect of the game,
and really break the technique down there.
And of course this YouTube channel has a lotta content,
I would love to have you subscribe to that.
Thanks so much.