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The Wedge Guy: Fixing what’s broke

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Understand that today’s post is coming from a bona fide lifetime range rat. I’ve always loved time on the range, hitting ball after ball after ball, trying to become the best ball-striker and shotmaker I could be. My Dad’s advice as I was growing into the game was always, “there’s nothing wrong with your game another five thousand practice balls won’t fix.”

My childhood idol was Ben Hogan, so I studied his books, “Power Golf” and “Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf,” relentlessly. And I made myself into a pretty good player, with the strength of my game always being hitting fairways and greens. To be honest, the chipping/pitching/putting part of the game just didn’t interest me all that much.

Maybe because my father and my brother were both such good putters and pretty effective around the greens, I felt like my mark had to be through outstanding ball-striking.

But as I got older, I realized that any measurable gains I might make on becoming a better player would be through improving my scoring skills. Even the best players in the game only hit 12-14 greens per round, and I’ve always been right there. But PGA players turn that into 65s and 68s, while I turned mine into 71s and 75s, or worse.

The point of sharing that is to encourage all of you to – as we enter the 2022 season – to honestly and candidly assess where it is your game can use the most improvement. And my bet is – regardless of your handicap – you’ll find that answer is within 50-75 yards from the flag. Whether your goal is to break 90 or par, you’ll likely find that the shots that kept you from that goal are happening much closer to the green than the tee.

  • How often do you miss a putt under 6-8 feet for par or bogey?
  • How often do you hit a chip or pitch shot that leaves you outside that range . . . or completely misses the green? I’ve always said when you have a wedge in your hand for the second shot in a row, you have completely thrown one or more shots away.
  • So, unless you are committed to instruction and the long-term process of changing your swing to change your ball-striking consistency, your time would be better spent honing your short game skills and your putting, and here’s where I think we can divide into two primary groups – those looking to break 80 and those looking to break 90 or 100.

For you higher handicap players, I advise your practice time be invested in two primary areas:

  • Learning to hit a basic pitch and chip shot so that you can do it with confidence and consistency. Your goal is to make sure a missed green (of which you have 13-15 per round) leads to nothing worse than a bogey almost all the time. Go to your golf professional and invest the time and money to learn a technique for chipping and pitching that is reliable and repeatable.
  • Practice making putts of eight feet or less. If you can get better in this range, it will take pressure off your short game and lower your scores. Again, get a pro to help if you need to, as these putts are usually pretty straight and a sound technique will improve your performance quickly.

For you more advanced players trying to break 80, 75 or even par, your goals are not all that different:

  • Learn how to hit a variety of shots around the greens. Even if you tend to always pull the sand or lob wedge, spend some time seeing what your other wedges can do. I find it a lot easier to just change clubs to make the ball fly lower and release a bit more, than I do to try to manipulate my technique to achieve those goals.
  • Know when to be bold, when not to. Sometimes a missed green leaves us short-sided or with a high-difficulty recovery. If you aren’t sure you know that shot and can pull it off, play away from the hole and take your medicine with a bogey. Doubles usually come from those greenside shots that are the most risky.
  • Like the other golfers, improve your statistics inside eight feet. That means working on your stroke a bit, but more likely working on your routine. Get your line, focus your attention on the putt and relax . . . make a sound stroke.

So, there is my advice for today. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it — and really analyze what might be broke.

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Terry Koehler is a fourth generation Texan and a graduate of Texas A&M University. Over his 40-year career in the golf industry, he has created over 100 putter designs, sets of irons and drivers, and in 2014, he put together the team that reintroduced the Ben Hogan brand to the golf equipment industry. Since the early 2000s, Terry has been a prolific writer, sharing his knowledge as “The Wedge Guy”.   But his most compelling work is in the wedge category. Since he first patented his “Koehler Sole” in the early 1990s, he has been challenging “conventional wisdom” reflected in ‘tour design’ wedges. The performance of his wedge designs have stimulated other companies to move slightly more mass toward the top of the blade in their wedges, but none approach the dramatic design of his Edison Forged wedges, which have been robotically proven to significantly raise the bar for wedge performance. Terry serves as Chairman and Director of Innovation for Edison Golf – check it out at www.EdisonWedges.com.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. geohogan

    Apr 22, 2022 at 7:20 pm

    Totally agree. During a long spell of the putting yips
    hit 15 greens in regulation, with 6 three putts .. shot 78.

    When cause and cure was explained to me a few years later, yips corrected in 30 minutes.

    “There is no similarity between golf and putting; they are two different games, one played in the air, and the other on the ground.”

    — Ben Hogan

  2. Bob Jones

    Apr 19, 2022 at 9:51 pm

    You’re not going to break 100, or 90 consistently, until you get a better swing. Short game and putting don’t help you if you waste strokes getting the ball up to the green. When the handicap gets to 12-13 is when the greens game needs to be emphasized.

  3. LOWEBOY

    Apr 19, 2022 at 2:46 pm

    For me, I need to be able to execute the shot I have just made perfect practice swings on. Literally perfect practice swings, then chunk, blade, etc. Frustrating. And practicing wedges on the range, a no-go. So inconsistent it’s annoying and not productive. I may get four to ten shots from a bucket of balls that are hit the way I intended them to be hit, and not one after the other, so I have no idea what I did correctly or incorrectly to get the desired results. I get bored on the range, and prefer playing instead, and I know I need the practice, I just wish I could pull off back to back to back to back shots with a wedge so I can gain some consistency.

    I am 52, so maybe when I grow up I will be able to have decent wedge game. It’s only those shots that take me out, too. I can drive well, hit good irons, have always been a good putter and can read the greens well, just lack the wedge game.

    I saw a video recently, adopted that technique, and am making better contact and have better form, but now I hit the shot further than I did before. More learning ahead.

    One thing I have also learned recently, is spine angle makes a huge difference in my game. If I have the roundness, my shots are all over the place. Spine angle in a good place along with the shoulders, I can strike the ball much better, and that includes the wedge shots.

    • Jay_Jay

      Apr 23, 2022 at 3:41 pm

      @Loweboy,get a shag bag, fill it with the balls you game on the course, and find a quiet park (or your club, if you’re a member of one) to just hit a bunch of different wedges/short irons.

      Tinker with: swing length, choking-down on the grip, how much to open or close the face at address, and see what those different changes do to your flight and roll.

      Range balls just don’t feel or behave the same when hit, in my experience.

      Plus, it’s cheaper than burning 10+ bucks at the range trying to do the same thing.

  4. Richard Dean Johnson

    Apr 18, 2022 at 5:03 am

    My alignment stick is basically 4 feet long. Lay it down on the putting green to indicate 4 feet from the cup. Stick a tee in the ground at 4 feet. Lay the stick down again to indicate 8 feet. Stick a tee in the ground to indicate 8 feet. You can leave the alignment stick laying between the 4 and 8 foot tees if you like, but now your 3 ball putting effort can easily identify 4, 6, 8 feet. Do four sets of 3 ball putting at each distance. Eventually lay the stick down again to indicate 12, then 16, then 20 feet, etc..I usually feel by 16 feet if I can’t center the ball on the face of the putter two putts can become very testy.

  5. Speedy

    Apr 14, 2022 at 3:13 pm

    The Golfing Machine by Homer Kelley is all one needs.

    “Sustain the lag.” – Ben Doyle

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Instruction

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

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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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How a towel can fix your golf swing

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This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.

For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.

Setup

You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.

While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.

Get a Better Shoulder Turn

Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.

In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.

Stay Better Connected in the Backswing

When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.

Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.

Conclusion

I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.

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Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks

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You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!

 

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