Instruction
Test your wedge game with Radius
Wedge play is one of the most under-practiced part of the game, yet it is vital to good scoring. If you struggle with any sort of consistent contact or distance control, then make it a point this week to set an appointment to see a quality coach in your area to find out why you suffer with these shots. THEN, get to work on that technique and dialing in your distance control with this game.
Game: Radius
- Gear needed: Wedges
- Time needed: Depends on your dedication
Rules: Hit one shot from each of these five distances — 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 yards — or from the distances you need to improve. Striving to hit the shot as close as possible to the hole, score those five shots in the following manner:
- If you happen to hole the shot, you earn 10 points.
- If it resides within 6 feet, you gain 4 points.
- If the ball ends up 6-12 feet away, you receive 2 points.
- If you find the ball outside of 12 feet, but still on the green, you get 0 points.
- If you miss the green, you must subtract 2 points from your score.
Total the points from those five shots, then gather the balls and do it again striving to better your score. You’ll notice that from the longer distances points may be hard to come by, so go through your routine and make your practice focused and deliberate.
Score Recap
- Holed shot: 10 points
- <6 feet: 4 points
- 6-12 feet: 2 points
- 12 feet: 0 points
- Missed the green: -2 points
Don’t forget to check out my 230-page book, Golf Scrimmages: Realistic Practice Games Under Pressure, as well as my interactive practice website www.golfscrimmages.com.
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Instruction
Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?
Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
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Instruction
The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic
My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
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Instruction
Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!
Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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Stefan
Oct 17, 2016 at 11:12 am
I go to forest preserves, walk off distances, hit tons of balls, leave em behind if I can’t find them all. After about 15 shots, I’m hitting from a reasonable lie, helps with rough shots too. Occasionally, I’m told that’s not allowed, but less than annually and the coyotes and or deer generally outnumber the people…
Bill
Oct 17, 2016 at 9:50 pm
Grizzly Adams did have a beard
Anthony
Oct 16, 2016 at 3:37 pm
I agree with the other posters here. Sounds like great fun, but where could anyone actually do this?
Very few courses here in the northeast have anything other than a practice range with long grass (shortest flag 90-100 yards) and a putting green. You’re lucky if there is a sand trap to practice from.
Sounds like a nice luxury to have an empty green and some fairway grass to practice wedge play from 100 yards and in but almost no courses or practice facilities offer this.
I believe that is the reason it is seldom practiced …
Tom
Oct 17, 2016 at 12:21 am
interesting didn’t know that. Here on the west coast practice ranges have 100 yard greens and some have water trough’s @ 75 and 50.
Philip
Oct 15, 2016 at 8:21 pm
Not a bad idea, but I have never seen a practice green set up to do anything remotely similar to this.
Mat
Oct 16, 2016 at 6:54 am
These all seem like great yet impractical ideas. It’s not like I can go down to a TopGolf and insist on grass… The reality is that wedge practice is either very expensive per bucket, or very time consuming shagging your own. Maybe GK’s should mark out a few circles, but I just don’t see that happening.
Brian
Oct 16, 2016 at 9:41 am
Just use some sidewalk chalk.
Philip
Oct 16, 2016 at 10:37 am
I’m not talking about the circle, but having access to a practice green to be able to get as far as 100 yards or as close as 30 yards without people putting on it or chipping around it just isn’t available. I can hit to a 50 yard or 100 yard flag in high grass on our range, which I do, but walking onto a range is usually frowned upon and dangerous with balls coming from any direction.
James
Oct 17, 2016 at 7:40 am
This sort of practice is for out on the course. When you’re playing a quick nine, or six, or whatever loop at your home course, do this test over a few holes. It’s only one extra shot per hole if you’re playing nine holes.
Of course, if your home course is under snow/water right now…best of luck :p
Tom
Oct 15, 2016 at 3:53 pm
This will make practice fun. Maybe some friendly competition to.