help with pitching please

Hi All

The weakest part of my game is definitely my pitching from 75 - 120 metres from the green. I rarely seem to make good contact and so my confidence is now shot to bits. Can anyone suggest how I can fix my problem - I feel that I haven't a clue what, if any, differences there are between a full iron shot and a pitch shot.

Thanks in advance.

Mike

Here's my best pitching tips (for right-handed players):

- Take a comfortable stance where the feet are somewhat closer together compared to a full swing. Weight evenly distributed
- If you like, open up your stance a little (i.e align your feet to the left of the target). Not necessary, but will probably make you feel less "cramped"
- Place the ball approximately centered between your *ankles* - NOT your feet!
- Swing as if you are swinging for a full shot but only take the club up to 25, 50 or 75% of your full swing
- Finish should be at least as long as backswing
- If you tend to hit fat, move the ball back slightly. If you tend to hit thin, move the ball forward a little
- Practice, practice, practice!
- Practice, practice, practice!
- Practice, practice, practice!
- Practice, practice, practice!

Good luck

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Regards, Peter
(WITB)

Look at head and upper body sway first. Keep it quiet in the hips. A big problem can always stem from the lower body getting too active and short pitch shots are delicate, so treat them as such...

If that is good, look at the hands/arms getting too steep, causing a big out-to-in path. That is hard to hit just right...it's good for sand shots, but there you get lots of splash from teh sand. In the fairway, you need to be right on the mark. To reduce the steepness, work on a 3/4 swing that does not set and release the wrists. You will feel like you won't hit it anywhere, but this shallows the angle to get you the initial feel. When that starts to click, introduce the hands slightly.

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I'm a golfaholic, no question about that. Counseling wouldn't help me. They'd have to put me in prison, and then I'd talk the warden into building a hole or two and teach him how to play. ~Lee Trevino

Here's some good advice I picked up off of the golf channel watching one of Dave Pelz's shows on pitching:

• Shorter backswing
• Make sure you ACCELERATE through the ball. Natural tendency is to go back too far and then DECELERATE. It will totally destroy your pitch shots.

On his show, he showed very clearly how higher handicaps take to too big of a backswing and then decel through the ball. He advocates thinking to yourself, as the club comes back think the work "SAAWWISH" and then when the club comes back through the ball think "SWISH" to emphasize the acceleration through the ball.

Chessbumm....

This is my fatal flaw on chip shots. I always feel like I've taken too big a backswing... the result? I end up dire need of tortilla chips.

great tip there chessbum that really does set a good tempo. i tend to duff shot because of long fast backswing then slow club down on throughswing.

Your welcome! I hope it helps. It really helps me. That decel is one nasty habit to get into and can really make you look bad. Now, I always think, accelerate through, just before I hit my pitch shots.

Good luck,

Chessbum...

I sometimes practice by standing square to the target and just throwing up a few balls first with the left hand/arm and then with the right arm side skimming motion. It just helps me to break things down and analyse things seperately before putting the swing back together. It helps me to get a better line and makes me realise when one side is overpowering the other.