SH080. Do This Before Hitting Another Pitch or Chip

Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover "Do This Before Hitting Another Pitch or Chip"

Are you tired of conflicting swing thoughts running through your head regarding chipping and pitching?

One instructor says swing wide with the arms and shoulders, another says use your hands.

Then you hear "hit down on it" but also "swing shallow and use the bounce."

No wonder you're confused!

Here's the truth: All those techniques can work.

But there's one simple thing that separates pros from recreational golfers.

I've got a simple drill that trains this fundamental. Once you master it, every technique becomes easier.

 

 

 

 

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 16:54

Video Transcription:

So you've probably seen a lot of instruction on pitching out there. Now you may hear some people talk about how you wanna make a wide swing, kinda like a Steve Stricker or a Jason Day. Keep everything nice and wide. That's gonna keep you connected, eliminate a lot of variables, and you're gonna hit it more clean.

You may also hear that you want to use your hands. You look at some great players like se, and it's a lot of wrist action. The hands are moving. Those are two polar opposite instructions, or two polar opposite techniques. But you're looking at players that are phenomenal short game players that are doing both of those examples.

You may also hear that you want to be shallow and use the bounce. You wanna open up the club. You don't wanna dig that leading edge into the ground. And we talk about how to just have that club come in very level with the ground, use the bounce, and it's gonna be clean that way. And then you hear other instructors talk about how you don't have to use the bounce.

And instead of coming in shallow, that's gonna make you inconsistent. You actually wanna hit down into the ball more. That's actually been incredibly popular this last couple years talking about that. So what gives which one is right? We're seeing all this conflicting information. Well, there's actually one drill and one thing that's gonna make you a great pitcher of the golf ball, a great chip of the golf ball.

If you do this right, you're not gonna struggle with any of those techniques. You're gonna do all of 'em. Well, you're gonna find the one that works best for you, but you could do anything you want. If you do this one thing wrong, you're gonna consistently struggle with chipping and pitching forever. Now, before I get into that interesting drill that I just showed.

We're gonna talk about some of the real data on this. Now, when I pull up this ping graph, this first graph, what we're looking at is when this club, they did a research project with over 150 players looking at their short game, their 15 yarders, 30 yarders, 60 yard shots. They took tour players all the way up to 20 something handicappers, and they looked at a couple things.

Number one, when they look at this leading edge of the club, so not the bounce of the club, but the actual bottom of the face, the leading edge they looked at when that first made contact with the ground. Now for this example, they were off a mat and they were looking at when does that leading edge first touch the mat?

So as soon as my leading edge touches the mat, they're counting that as angle of attack at ground contact. So when the fir club first touches the ground, what was the angle of attack? Now for those of you that aren't familiar, thing of attack, angle of attack is how steeply the club is coming to the ground.

So if you imagine this club head here, if it's coming in very vertical and steep like this, that would be a very negative angle of attack. That would be down like 30 or 40 degrees. If I'm coming in perfectly level with the ground, that would be a shallow angle of attack. That'd be zero degrees if it's just running across the ground like this.

So it'd be a zero degrees angle of attack. This would be 90 degrees angle of attack. So what we looked at when we looked at tour players all the way up to high handicappers, is there angle of attack when they hit the ground was almost the same. You're seeing there's anywhere between 6, 7, 8 degrees, nine degrees, depending on the shot.

But. One minute on a clock is six degrees. They're within a couple degrees of each other from tour player all the way up to 20 handicap. So what that tells me is that most players' angle of attack is in the ballpark of being effective When their club first hits the ground, the angle of attack isn't gonna be the thing that's keeping them from chipping well, now we go to this next chart.

We're seeing a massive difference when we look at those tour players. They retain most of their angle of attack when they hit the golf ball. So this chart is looking at not when the club first hit the ground, but what was the angle of attack when the club actually made contact with the back of the ball.

Now if you're looking at this golf ball, the very back edge of the golf ball, if you imagine a vertical lineup from that would be zero. So on this chart, when you see contact with the ball, it means when did the club very first pass the back of the ball? The club leading edge of the club passed the back of the ball.

Like I said, with pros, they're hitting down almost as much as they were as when they hit the ground. When you look at all the way up to the 20 handicappers and every handicap between, it got worse and worse, their angle of attack was almost zero. So what does this mean? It means that the high handicap golfers, their club was hitting the ground too far behind the ball, and then instead of keeping on moving down, it bounced off the turf and came in level with the golf ball.

That's why their angle of attack was almost zero when they hit the golf ball. But negative six or eight when they were hitting the ground, when you looked at the pros, they were negative six to eight, six to nine, somewhere in that ballpark. Seven to nine degrees I believe would be more accurate. And when they hit the golf ball, they were somewhere around five and a half to to eight-ish or so when they hit the golf ball.

So what it's saying is those pros roughly at the same angle of attack as the amateurs, but they were much closer to the golf ball when their club first hit the turf. Now I got really interested in this and I asked for some special, a special chart from Ping, which they gave me, and we can look at it here now.

And what we saw is this is showing where did the club first hit the ground in relationship to the ball. So you see a two, two poor guys here on the very far right, the high handicappers. They were hitting almost nine inches behind the golf. And you see a whole lot of players that're hitting closer and closer.

A lot of recreational players, a lot of amateur players were hitting anywhere from two to six inches behind the golf ball. So basically they're coming down, hitting the ground behind the golf ball, and then bouncing up into it, not hitting clean shots. The larger dots here are the pros, and we can see that the pros within one inch of the golf ball, meaning if their club is coming down anywhere, hitting the turf for the very first time, right at the back of the ball to one inch behind that and that one inch gap.

Is the difference between being a great player for chipping and pitching or struggling with your chipping and pitching. Nothing else is really gonna matter. Not angle of attack, not how wide your arms are, how you hinge the club, none of that's gonna matter. You need a technique that gets that club to go into the ground and that one inch gap.

And you'll be great at chipping and pitching. So I worked on a drill to develop this, and I started out by using some, uh, a larger marker like a, um. A washer that I bought from Home Depot here, this is probably about an inch and a half wide washer, and what I realized is I have the width of the club sole.

Let's say it's about three quarters of an inch, and then I add that to the width of the marker or the width of this washer, and that'll gimme the size of the gap that I'm hitting in. So if I have a inch and a half washer and a three quarters of an inch club sole of the club, if I can hit this washer and just have it pop up in the air.

Like that. I know I'm hitting in about a two inch gap. So really that's what chipping is about. Now, it's not quite to the pro level. We're gonna get to that here in a second. But if I can just pop this washer up like that, I know my club is coming down and hitting the ground roughly in the right spot. Now, if I hit too far behind it when I hit this washer, it's gonna fly forward into the screen or, or further down the fairway.

Now when you're doing this drill, you wanna make sure. You're doing it on a putting mat on turf, on something that's really tight. You can't really do this in the fairway or there's too much grass. It's not gonna sit flat, the washer isn't. And of course, if I hit too far in front, I'm not gonna hit the washer at all.

So what I want you to do is work on making 10 swings and it, this literally takes like two minutes, and I'm gonna work on just popping this washer up into the air and you'll know you're doing it right. If it just pops forward an inch or six inches or a foot, as long as it doesn't shoot forward, you know you're hitting it correctly.

We're gonna see how many outta 10 we can get. If we're less than eight, outta 10, we're in the right challenge point. We wanna keep on doing this until we can get at least eight outta 10. Once we get 8, 8, 8 outta 10, we're gonna kick up the difficulty. Now, a couple things we're gonna work on, I've definitely noticed, is I've worked on this drill myself and had some of my best chipping and pitching practicing rounds.

I don't wanna be super static. I don't like the idea. And when I've tested out using this drill. Trying to keep all your weight on your front foot and just be a robot, it's actually more difficult to hit the front side of the washer. Doing that, I wanna get my stance fairly close together. I want my weight to be roughly 50 50 at a dress, maybe favoring the lead side a little bit, but as I swing, I'm gonna get my weight to shift forward.

So it's almost like I'm here. As I go back, I'm gonna take a little step forward and get all my weight to move this way. So I don't ever want my weight going back this way and drop kicking it. Or I'll hit behind the washer. I wanna make these swings and feel like everything's moving forward. Now it's not gonna look like much.

And if I do that here again with this washer, we're just seeing, it's a very small shift. Now, another piece of cool information is that you're always gonna have shuffling, even if you're using the bounce. I have yet to measure a pro scene 3D measurements or on video where the shaft is leaning backwards.

The shaft is always gonna be leaning in front. We get the bounce by opening the face. And typically swinging a little bit more to the left to get that bounce to work. You don't want to get the bounce by trying to scoop the club or have the shaft leaning backwards at impact that's gonna make you hit behind this washer or behind the golf ball.

So realize as my weight shifts to the left, I'm still gonna have a little shaft lean to hit in front of this washer, and I'll go over in a minute here. The difference between when you play a bounce using the bounce, and don't use the bounce, but I'm gonna work on that now. Another thing I like to to feel here is I don't wanna drive my hands down into the ground.

If my hands keep moving down, it's gonna tend to get me hitting too far behind the golf ball. I wanna feel like my hands come up and in as I come through. So my hands are arcing back up and in, and my body's rotating toward the target for me and for the players that I've seen. That really helps 'em to get on the front half of this washer.

Now, lastly, I don't mind if you test out doing a very wide Steve Stricker like approach where I go here and then hit the washer or using more wrist like 70 by stairs or some other players where they're using the hands to make that happen. I have found that you can hit the front half of this washer or what will later go into is smaller coins.

Using either of those techniques, just test out the one that works best for you. Again, some of the best chippers and pitchers in the world have used both those techniques. Obviously, neither one of those is wrong. Now, finally here, this angle of attack. I think the easiest way to hit the front of this washer in my opinion, is to come down a little steeper.

I'm gonna set up with this face roughly square to slightly open. So if this is square with my leading edge of my club, this is slightly open. I like to do that for a basic setup, and I wanna feel like I'm hitting down and popping on the front half of that washer. I, I wanna have some negative angle attack.

Now you can imagine at extremes, this becomes very obvious. If I said, Hey, I just have to hit this washer and I'm coming straight up and down. Obviously I'm gonna hit the top of the washer every time. If I come in extremely shallow, well now my margin for air gets really tight on whether or not I hit it, the hit the washer clean, or I come in too shallow and hit the washer in front of me, or down the fairway, down the onto the putting green or chipping green wherever you're practicing it.

So me personally, I think the easiest way to make clean contact with this washer is to make sure that you have a little bit down. That's my opinion. Other people may disagree. Try it out for yourself. I also like to feel like I get a little throw with my right arm. Like I'm throwing the club down. I'm not locking it in.

So if I feel like I'm going ahead and just hitting down into this, letting the club move down, then that makes it really easy for me to hit the front half of this washer and make sure that I don't hit behind the golf ball. So those are the tips and the technique recommendations that I would recommend.

And as you try those out. Let's test it. How many outta 10 can you get? As soon as you get up to eight, outta 10, we're gonna move to smaller coins. Remember I said that's about a two inch gap? I've got a half dollar here that's gonna be probably an inch and a half inch and three quarters gap, something like that.

I'm gonna go all the way down to a dime. So as I get better and better at this, I'm gonna place this little tiny dime on the ground and I want to get good enough to where I can hit that dime and have it pop up just like that. Now. When you're doing this again, we're gonna work on that challenge point.

Start out. If you start out with a dime, you may get like one outta 10. You're not gonna get the improvement. Start out with a half dollar or a washer that you buy from Home Depot. Get eight outta 10 with that. Then move up to the next coin. Get eight outta 10 with that, and move down to the smaller coin, eight outta 10.

With that, move down to the smaller coin. But eventually, if we end up with this dime, a little over a half inch wide, the sole's a little over a half inch wide. That ends up being that one inch gap. So if leading edge of my club comes down and misses the back of this dime and I hit it, I'm within that one inch gap of the pros.

So essentially, if you wanna be a PJ Tour player, you've gotta be able to pop up this dime, 8, 9, 10 times outta 10 if you wanna hit it that clean as a tour player. If you wanna get to scratch, you don't have to be that good. If you wanna get to a five, we definitely don't have to be that good, but I definitely wanna be able to pop this little dime up and you can see.

What I found is when I worked on this. It became way easier to hit that, which is a little bit of practice. So there I was, two outta three. Now finally, let's go into when to use the bounce and when not use the boun, use the bounce. Now the bounce, and I think this is widely misunderstood, I wanna use the bounce when I'm adding loft.

The easiest shot again, in my opinion, is to hit down a little bit more. Take a low lofted club, put it back in your stance. Hands a little forward. The faces may be only a hair open. And from there, I'm gonna hit down and through, and I'm gonna imagine that I'm clipping the front side of that dime and I have a perfectly solid shot.

Now, the problem with that, that's the easiest shot. If I'm on a bad lie, tight, very little grass, maybe it's sandy or muddy. That's the technique I'm gonna use every single time. But it comes out a little lower. It's gonna roll out a little bit more. It's almost like you're bump and run type shot. Now, if I play that style shot with a 56 degree, it's not gonna bump and run.

If I play it with a eight iron or nine iron, it will bump and run quite a bit. So I can still get a little bit of check. And most of the time, that's the technique that I'm gonna use. If I'm shortsighted, maybe I have a little bit more grasp to play with. Maybe my, my lie isn't so dicey and I have a pretty nice fluffy lie.

Then I'm gonna start to use a little bit more bounce and I'm gonna try to get the ball higher in the air. Now for here. I'm gonna open up the face a little bit more and when I do that, that brings exposes some more bouncier. I'm still gonna have my shaft leaning forward at impact, and I typically wanna cut this ball.

This is why you see so much instruction with a club staying outside your hands and cutting the golf ball. When I do that, that allows me to hit it straight even though the face is open and exposing some bounce. So if you imagine here, if I open up this face. To where it's really open. If I do this with the face and I swing straight, where's that ball gonna go?

It's gonna go to the right. It's going to the right of the camera from my perspective, your left, but it's not gonna go toward the target. If I open that face and use the bounce and now cut it a little bit, cut across it, I can use the bounce and get that club or that ball to fly directly toward the camera.

So whenever you're using the bounce, that's for higher shots. Higher softer shots, that's when you bring in the 56 and the 60 bounce is for high shots. Hitting down is for low shots. My opinion hitting down is easiest, and I only break out the bounce and do the other when I'm hitting a little higher and softer.

So now let's imagine I'm gonna hit one a little higher and softer. I'd open the face, don't have to open my stance. I can if I want to, but I'm gonna. I feel like I slightly cut across this ball. The ball moves up in my stance a little bit, so this is my stock shot almost off of my back foot. My bounce shot is gonna be a little more toward the center or slightly up, and I'm gonna slightly cut this one, but really the, the moral of the story and that ball launched a lot higher.

The moral of the story, no matter which I'm using, the bounce or the leading edge, I'm hitting down or I'm hitting level if I can't get it in this little one inch gap. If I can't knock this, let's say I'm gonna do this bounce one again. If I can't pop this dime off the ground like that, I'm not gonna be good at any of these techniques.

So work on the dime, get to where you can hit. Start with a washer, move down to a dime, get to where you can hit eight outta 10 with a dime. That's when I would start to work on high shots, low shots, using the bounce, bump and run. I'd start to vary up my shots a little bit until I can get to where I can hit.

At least a dime, a nickel, a quarter. Most of the time I need to just be playing a stop stock bump and run. Once you get to where you hit that dime, man, it frees up the world for you. 'cause I can control where I'm striking the ground like the pros. And you can do dang near anything that you want to. Hope you enjoyed this video.

I'll see you soon.