00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000
This distance wedge video is looking at the low-spiny wedge.

00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:09,000
So the low-spiny wedge is kind of a really cool shot that a lot of four pros like to hit.

00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:13,000
Not everyone does it, but a lot of them default to this is kind of some of their standard

00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:16,000
40 to 60 yards or so.

00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:21,000
Where it comes in a little bit low, looks like it's going to bounce way off the green and

00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:26,000
then it lands once and then kind of grinds to a halt or lands twice and grinds to a halt,

00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:29,000
depending on kind of the distance that they're hitting.

00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:32,000
There's two things that are required in order to get this shot.

00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,000
You need low launch and high spin.

00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:41,000
Now I'm going to walk you through a little bit of the kind of details of how they're able

00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:44,000
to hit this shot, but know that it's layered on the finesse wedge.

00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:46,000
So, or sorry, it's layered on the distance wedge.

00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:51,000
So as far as the general pattern is going to go, we're going to tend to see a little bit of

00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,000
a upper and lower body shift towards the target, the entire stroke.

00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:58,000
You're not going to see a shift off the ball and then big through the ball.

00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:02,000
So during the backswing, that upper body is going to shift slightly left.

00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:07,000
You'll tend to see a little bit more of a cast pattern where everything kind of goes

00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:13,000
all together instead of having a really pronounced bracing strategy and sequencing.

00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:18,000
But we'll talk about a couple of the specifics that we're going to do for this shot that

00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,000
you don't necessarily have to do just the hit a good distance wedge shot.

00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:28,000
Okay, so most of these shots are going to be hit with your at least sand wedge.

00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:34,000
So 56 in above, I've got my 58 here and I'll demonstrate some at the end of this video.

00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:40,000
Basically what you're going to see is you have to, in order to get this to launch

00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,000
low, we have to do some things that are going to de-loft the club.

00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:47,000
But if my angle of attack is really high with a de-lofted club, I'm going to tend to hit

00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:50,000
too high on the face in order to get the spin.

00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:55,000
So to monitor your launch angle, this is a brilliant little setup that I first saw James

00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:01,000
Radiard in his program, the secret of the short game or the distance wedge.

00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:04,000
If you'd Google James Radiard and short game, you'll find it.

00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:11,000
But basically this is yardage stick that has some duct tape going across from it.

00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:17,000
And I've basically got it about twice the distance of one of these meter sticks.

00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:22,000
And so what that does is that creates a 30, 60, 90 triangle, which means that if I'm

00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:27,000
going to hit the tape, I'm roughly going to have about a 30 degree launch angle, which is

00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:33,000
about the optimum for where at least the guys who I've talked to who use a lot of track

00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:38,000
mandate, they'll tell you that 30 degrees, if it gets up around 40 degrees, they're not

00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:39,000
going to have high enough spin.

00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:43,000
So 30 degrees is where you get the low one that still spins enough.

00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:49,000
So how am I going to take my 60 degree or 58 degree wedge and get it to launch there?

00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:53,000
Well part of it is going to be wherever I set up.

00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:57,000
I want to have about 10 to 14 degrees of shaft lean somewhere in there.

00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:00,000
Now there are different ways to get shaft lean.

00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:04,000
We'll talk a little bit about how we're going to get it for this particular shot.

00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:08,000
But we want to get shaft lean, which is going to deal off the club.

00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:12,000
And the other big one, which is going to more relate to the spin than the launch, is we

00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:15,000
want to hit this low on the face.

00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:19,000
As opposed to hitting the ball, kind of high up in the middle of the club.

00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:23,000
What happens is if you hit it off the middle of the club, it's just going to ricochet off

00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:24,000
that sweet spot.

00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:28,000
If you hit it low off the face, it'll tend to slide a little bit more up the face of

00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:29,000
the club.

00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:32,000
And so you'll actually be able to impart more spin that way.

00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:38,000
So what ends up happening for this shot is I need to have lean, but I don't want to have

00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:41,000
that steep angle of attack, because that's going to move my contact a little bit too high

00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:42,000
up the face, typically.

00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:48,000
So I want to have a very shallow angle of the attack while still having the shaft lean.

00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:52,000
One of the big requirements for being able to do this shot, based on that criteria, is

00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:55,000
we can't have very much flip in the hands at all.

00:03:55,000 --> 00:04:02,000
So the cast is more from the arm in the elbow than it is from the hand.

00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:07,000
So what ends up happening is that cast pattern is going to look more like that right arm

00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:09,000
is going to extend.

00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:13,000
And for a lot of you because you're not going to flip the wrist, it's going to feel a little

00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,000
bit more like a punch shot.

00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:20,000
It's not, it's the specialty shot, but it's going to feel more like a punch shot because

00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:24,000
you're not going to have a big flip of the hands.

00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:28,000
So all other things are going to be fairly standard to what we were doing in the distance

00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:29,000
wedge.

00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:34,000
Other than we need a little bit more lean, we can't have any flip of the hands.

00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:40,000
And we need the hand pad to go a little bit more left through the shot.

00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:45,000
You're never going to see someone hit this low spinning wedge where their hands are going

00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:48,000
kind of in out and up kind of like that.

00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:52,000
Like you would see a little bit more with the longer clubs like the driver.

00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:57,000
What you'll tend to see on this shot is you'll tend to see the hands almost work straight

00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:01,000
up the shaft lean at impact.

00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:06,000
And following that body rotation just like so.

00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:11,000
So one of the ways that I like to teach players how to hit this shot is basically learning

00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:13,000
to get that shaft lean without stalling.

00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:18,000
So getting into that setup position and then finding where that impact is going to be,

00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:20,000
just going to be somewhere around there.

00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:25,000
And then from here, keeping the wrist about the same, just use that body rotation to take

00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:29,000
the club up that shaft lean.

00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:33,000
By doing so, what you'll tend to find is that you're going to have a little bit more

00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:40,000
of the speed coming from that right elbow extension as opposed to a really big body

00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:41,000
pivot.

00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:44,000
Now, this is why in my playing days, I didn't hit this shot a lot.

00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:49,000
I would air for more going with kind of slightly open face and lofted shot because

00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:54,000
I tend to, I still tend to get most of my speed from my hips and my lower body.

00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:57,000
And that's very hard for this particular shot.

00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:01,000
You want to have more of the engine, more of the power source being the arms and the

00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:02,000
shoulders.

00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:07,000
If it drifts down into your lower body, you're also going to tend to have trouble contacting

00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:09,000
it really low on the face.

00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:15,000
One last point, this, because we're trying to get a lot of spin, I should point out that

00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:17,000
equipment is incredibly important for this shot.

00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:21,000
I remember talking to Patrick Harrington's brother at a conference and he said that

00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:26,000
Padrik, similar to Phil Nicholson, would get new wedges every single week.

00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:30,000
That's not realistic for most people, but if you have old beat up wedges, kind of like

00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:35,000
this one, if you're hitting range balls, that combination, you're not going to get enough

00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:36,000
spin to actually make it grab.

00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:41,000
If you're hitting off of kind of shaggy turf or like first cut of rough, that's also going

00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:42,000
to make it harder to hit this shot.

00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:48,000
So you want to have relatively new wedges and you absolutely have to play kind of a spinny

00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:51,000
performance ball.

00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:53,000
All the technique in the world, you're not going to be able to generate the spin numbers

00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:57,000
if you don't have good quality equipment for hitting the shot.

00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:04,000
So you're going to, we'll just quickly recap, you're going to get that shaft lean by having

00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:06,000
your hands slightly forward an impact.

00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:10,000
You're going to have that body continue or support the movement of the body through

00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:11,000
the shot.

00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:15,000
Other than that, it's just going to be your standard ball position kind of in the middle

00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:18,000
to slightly back in your stance.

00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:21,000
Not very far back, because that'll get your angle, the tack too far up.

00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:26,000
So ball position middle, little bit of this reverse weight shift, power it more with your

00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:27,000
upper body.

00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:32,000
If you do that, you should be able to clip the tape, hit these low shots that have a high

00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:37,000
amount of spin and we'll demonstrate a couple for you here so you can see kind of what

00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:37,000
it looks like.

00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:56,000
That's close, that was actually really good.

00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:59,000
So lower body is going to be a little bit quieter.

00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:06,000
It's more of a torso arm movement in order to get the amount of shaft lean you need

00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:09,000
and not have the club just slam in the ground.

00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:14,000
Even though your lower body is quiet, your upper body has to keep turning through.

00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:18,000
And you don't want to have a really pronounced flip of the hands because the flip of the

00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:22,000
hands is typically getting to get you to contact it a little too high on the face to get

00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:26,000
the real high spin numbers.

00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:31,000
So it's not a shot that I think you absolutely have to have.

00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:35,000
But it's a fun shot to be able to pull off when you need to do that.

00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:40,000
Had a little bit high launch, but that was still enough spin that that would have held

00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:42,000
for the shot that I was turning to.