Finesse Wedge - Chipping and Pitching
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One of the key concepts related to great wedge play involves controlling the radius of the swing. That is, we want to have a very good feel for managing the bottom, or low-point. This will allow us to create a wide variety of shots around the green, all in which we are effectively using the bounce of the club.
In order to practice this, you simply need to cue the feeling of keeping the club in front of your chest. Or alternatively, to feel that the grip is pointing at your sternum throughout the stroke. This may feel a bit over exaggerated at first, but it is a great way to remove any tendencies to become overactive with the hands/arms. This common fault will quickly change the radius of the swing and make it increasingly difficult to score with your wedges.
Tags: Fundamentals, Poor Contact, Pitch, Chip, Drill, Beginner
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This wedge drill is club in front of your chest.
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So one of the concepts for the wedge play is that better wedge play happens when you're
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able to control the radius of the swing.
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And so one way to control the radius of the swing and use more the bottom sole of the
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club is to keep the club in front of your chest.
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If I bring the club to the left of my chest, or if I bring the club to my right of
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the chest, then the radius is going to tend to change and that's going to make it a little
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bit more difficult to control the bottom of the swing.
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So in this little drill, I'm going to focus on basically keeping the club more or less
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in front of my chest, keeping the club in front of my chest, and hitting this more
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with my pivot instead of hitting it ideally a little bit more with the arms and hands.
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Now in actuality, there is going to be a little bit of a arms starting or catching up earlier
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in the downswing because you'll see that in the downswing there is a tiny bit of this
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cast sequence.
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But it's so small, especially on these really short shots, that you can practice hitting
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these shots, keeping the club in front of your chest, keeping the club in front of your
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chest, keeping the club in front of your chest.
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So if you struggle with low point control, or if you struggle with using the bounce, there
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is a very good chance that you're creating too much lag and too much shaffling and the club
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is getting behind your chest.
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And if that's the case, one way to train it is to use this little simple reference for
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helping control the width of your circle, keep the club head in your hands, roughly in
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front of your chest during the entire swing, that will help you use bounce and brush the
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ground the way that we're supposed to do it for the finesse shots.