any ideas to obtain touch/feel/distance?
- Thread starter pm4610
- Start date
- Status
Golf season has just started here (Chicago), anything I've been practicing has been off of mats. When I get on grass it's so much different. Once weather gets better here, there's a short game area that I practice at (twice a week) and that helps, but I still seem to struggle with it.
I've tried the clock face method but didn't find it too effective for me. I would trust the distance and I would end up mentally trying to accelerate or decelerate my swing and it would be all over for me. One of my former instructors was standing 5' from me and said "throw me that golf ball underhanded." Then he said "throw it over there to your bag." I did. He said "your body knew just how hard to throw it without you thinking about it. You gotta trust your hands." I've since read that in several different golf books.
I try to take my thinking out of the short pitch shots. I take a couple of practice swings then I take the shot not worrying about how far to take the club back. The more I practice at it, the more I hit the target area.
At the range I try to pick spots (usually patches of grass) out on the range 20-80 yds and hit 2-3 pitches/chips to them then alternate to another spot. I think that has helped me a lot. I used to hit 40-50 balls to the same spot and never seemed to improve my wedge play. Alternating to different spots seems to really help me start getting the distances trained into my mind/body. Now I seldom worry about how far I need to take the club back. I just focus on the target, take a couple of practice swings, and let my hands/body/pivot do all the work. I can get really close to where I aim.
One of the biggest things that helped is learning to hit with "the pivot." It has helped me out quite a bit on consistency. I'm not yet a pivot expert but as I get better at pivoting and lagging, all of my golf shots get better and more importantly they get more consistent.
Another thing that helped me is something another instructor told me. Don't take a full swing with your wedges. Never go more than 3/4 swing and if you need more distance, go up a club. I carry a 60* wedge and 52* gap wedge. Anything over 70 or so yards I grab the gap wedge. I hit the gap about 100yds with a 3/4 swing. Anything over 110yds I go up to the pitching wedge. That's helped me out a lot too. I have a tendency to lunge or raise up or over-swing when I try to hit a full wedge. When I pull it off it's nice but when I don't I either dig a trench divot or blade it 30-50 yards further than I intended it to go.
I try to take my thinking out of the short pitch shots. I take a couple of practice swings then I take the shot not worrying about how far to take the club back. The more I practice at it, the more I hit the target area.
At the range I try to pick spots (usually patches of grass) out on the range 20-80 yds and hit 2-3 pitches/chips to them then alternate to another spot. I think that has helped me a lot. I used to hit 40-50 balls to the same spot and never seemed to improve my wedge play. Alternating to different spots seems to really help me start getting the distances trained into my mind/body. Now I seldom worry about how far I need to take the club back. I just focus on the target, take a couple of practice swings, and let my hands/body/pivot do all the work. I can get really close to where I aim.
One of the biggest things that helped is learning to hit with "the pivot." It has helped me out quite a bit on consistency. I'm not yet a pivot expert but as I get better at pivoting and lagging, all of my golf shots get better and more importantly they get more consistent.
Another thing that helped me is something another instructor told me. Don't take a full swing with your wedges. Never go more than 3/4 swing and if you need more distance, go up a club. I carry a 60* wedge and 52* gap wedge. Anything over 70 or so yards I grab the gap wedge. I hit the gap about 100yds with a 3/4 swing. Anything over 110yds I go up to the pitching wedge. That's helped me out a lot too. I have a tendency to lunge or raise up or over-swing when I try to hit a full wedge. When I pull it off it's nice but when I don't I either dig a trench divot or blade it 30-50 yards further than I intended it to go.
Jim Kobylinski
Super Moderator
Paul
You need to go to the short game area and just learn to hit balls certain distances. Pick a yardage and develop a shot to hit it to that yardage. Then move on to the next.
You need to go to the short game area and just learn to hit balls certain distances. Pick a yardage and develop a shot to hit it to that yardage. Then move on to the next.
I took the day off today and that's where I went. At the very end, I discovered two things that help, one was visualization of the target that I want to hit, and the other was keeping my feet only 10 inches apart. There were too many times that in an effort to "hit down it", I somehow manage to "smother" the ball resulting in a really nice line drive...which is not the shot I want. I can't figure out what I do, that cause that...
birdie_man
New
Do you have a solid impact? (i.e. no throwaway)
Haven't gotten into the swing length stuff much myself.....I may more in the future who knows. I'm not a pro but for now I do it with swing speed. (this is what you are actually controlling with the swing length of course)
I just get the yardage and/or see the spot and/or feel the swing (in an educated guess sense)...
...then put my brain on auto and hit it. Just like a free throw...or a baseball throw...etc. Your brain calculates what you have to do when you get your conscious mind out of the way. (so long as you already have the habits you need built in...mechanical and mental)
My 3 cents...everyone's different. (and I'm not done "building" yet anyway)
Haven't gotten into the swing length stuff much myself.....I may more in the future who knows. I'm not a pro but for now I do it with swing speed. (this is what you are actually controlling with the swing length of course)
I just get the yardage and/or see the spot and/or feel the swing (in an educated guess sense)...
...then put my brain on auto and hit it. Just like a free throw...or a baseball throw...etc. Your brain calculates what you have to do when you get your conscious mind out of the way. (so long as you already have the habits you need built in...mechanical and mental)
My 3 cents...everyone's different. (and I'm not done "building" yet anyway)
Last edited:
thefuture37
Banned
set up to hit a 50 yard shot. make a couple practice swings and think about how far the ball would have gone if those had been your real swing. then hit the shot and see how far it goes. do that alot over different yardages and you will develop feel.
Another thing to check is your tension. Sometimes I catch myself with a death grip on the club and tight arms. It happens a lot less frequently now that I have built up a lot of confidence. For me I think the tension was a side effect of being unsure about the pitch/chip I was about to take.
- Status