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Stock Distances - Finesse Wedge

One of the most endearing aspects of golf is its variability. That is, in your typical round, there are not two shots that are alike. Thus, we often work hard to train our "touch" (or ability to fine tune distance) for the full-swing, short-game, and putting. Of course, when it comes to the "finesse wedge", the same can be said. 

However, as a finesse wedge shot is typically less than 40 yards, players can struggle at times to find their "in-between" distances. For cases such as this, I will often use a few easy references (and some reliable, tour-driven golf science) to help students build a couple more "go-to" shots.

When done properly, players should have a repeatable strategy for shots ranging from 30 to 5 yards in carry distance.

Tags: Fundamentals, Pitch, Chip, Practice Strategies, Drill, Intermediate

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This drill is finesse wedge stock distances.

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So it's always helpful when you're trying to build touch to build a couple of references.

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We do that in the wedges where you're working on, you know, whether it's 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock

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swings and how far they go.

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With your full swing, you dial in your full swing distance and then you make references

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off that.

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With putting, I like to do the same thing.

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So it only makes sense that we would do something similar with finesse wedges.

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So there's a couple different, I put the finesse wedge in the less than 40 yard category.

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And so it's very helpful to have a stock kind of more short shot where it's 7 to 10 yard

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somewhere in that zone.

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And then having more of a medium length pitch of about 20 yards.

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And then ultimately maybe a 30 yarder.

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One of the common datasets that a buddy might collect on Torpros is 30 yard shots.

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And if you look at them, it's eerily similar how all of them take their swing for their

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30 yard shot back to about belly button height with the club somewhere up around 40 or even

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close to vertical.

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So for their 30 yard shots, it's got to look kind of like that.

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Well I imagine if we had the data we'd started to see some similarities for even the shorter

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shots.

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I like to calibrate one where it's just below the corner.

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I talk about the corner as being one of the hard spots.

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So just below the corner.

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And then I like to do one that's just above the corner.

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And those typically coincide with somewhere just less than 10 yards, maybe about 7 and

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somewhere around 20 yards.

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And if I practice those two distances or those two swings, then I'm typically going to have

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an easier time adjusting my distance on the course.

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Because I have this stock shot that I can either take less loft and make it run.

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I can add more loft to take away some distance.

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But I have this basic shot that I can adjust rather than having to kind of invent a

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brand new shot for every single shot that I'm facing.

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So we'll go through just a little session where we'll try to hit.

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We can either do a handful going at the first one and then a handful going at the second

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or we can do ladder is going back and forth and then trying to ultimately fill in the

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gaps, playing a little leap frog game.

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So variety of ways you could do it, but I would start with at least two base lines inside

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of 30 yards.

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I highly recommend somewhere in the 7 to 10 yards and somewhere around 20 yards as good

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base lines.

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Okay, so we'll do just short of the corner.

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We're just going to pay attention to about how far.

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So that's landing pretty close to my 8.9 yard carry distance.

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So that was two pretty close and you can see that those are rolling within a yard or so

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of each other.

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So that would be one base line.

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Next one we'll do just past the corner.

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And for some people just past the corner as a little bit harder and for other people

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it's just short of the corner as a little bit harder.

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So that was good.

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That was pretty close to the trajectory in distance that I wanted.

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Went the right distance.

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Not quite the trajectory that I wanted.

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So now I could experiment with let's say halfway in between which would be either

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I'm going to do the short shot and add a little bit more speed to it or I could do just

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short of the long shot where I could do the long shot a little bit slower.

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So those were two different ways, two different kind of trajectories for getting to let's

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say a 15-pace carry distance.

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But it was easier for me to do that because I had the reference of my short shot in my

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long shot to go off of.

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So if you don't have any references you're going to have a hard time getting really

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precise with your carry distance control.

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So I highly recommend calibrating a few and then again playing either leap frog filling

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in the gaps or just learning how to adjust those carry distance as four specific adjustments

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like taking off five yards, adding five yards, etc.

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Now we'll do the tough one for me which is the really short one.

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Good.

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