Simple short game tips on technique and tactics from chipping to bunker shots

Simple short game tips on technique and tactics from chipping to bunker shots.

We are going to make the short game simple. How do we do that? We really kind of, I don’t want to be offensive, but we dumb it down. We make it easier, less stressful. There’s not that much to do. It’s a short movement. Yes, there’s a skill. Yes, there’s an art to it, but let’s learn a foundation one. We’re going to cover a bit of technique and a drill that you can do right now at home if you need be to enhance the feel and consistency that you want to give you that foundation. Then we’re going to sort of cover the guide, which is using the left arm to gauge distances at least far as technique is concerned. And then we might hop into a bunker and just give you one of my favorite little tweaks to give you the confidence to splash out of the bunkers more consistently and really just make the entire short game more simple. So let’s get to it.

Alrighty, so let’s get into the drill. Okay. This is something you can do at home with or without a club actually. And what we’re looking at is the feeling that we want a consistent sort of angle of attack on the chip shots. The problem that too many people have and they stress about is high the thinning cause they’re trying to sort of help it up or they’re duffing it. Now there’s so many videos out on YouTube that are going to cover this, but again, I’m just trying to make this really fricking simple. And the way that you can feel that right now is using this drill. Okay? If you don’t know the foundation, the fundamentals are chip shot. We want our sternum over the golf ball. That’s a very essential kind of checkpoint. We want that sternum over the golf ball. We want more weight on the left side.

Why? Because we want to ensure that we’re getting the golf ball first as opposed to sort of hitting it behind or whatever it might be. And as far as a grip is concerned, you want a firm grip but you want suppleness in the forearms, you want suppleness in the wrist. So you can feel the weight of that club just as if you were throwing it. And that’s what this drill is sort of enhancing. So we’ve got the right arm just to feel like you’re tossing it, cause you wouldn’t really screw that up if I said to you just to throw this ball over there to the hole. You would just do something like that. Okay. And you would do it pretty consistently. So we want to try and replicate that. And a lot of it is, you may have heard about like the bounce of the club.

I’ve got my 54 here, just check in yet. I’ve got my 54 and the bounce of the club is basically, it’s that, again, I’m not going to bore you because there’s so many videos and obstacles on this stuff, but the bounce of the club is what we want to utilize to give us that nice strike and consistency. And we can do that by controlling that arc with our right arm and that sort of consistency with the right arm because we don’t want this variable too much. Okay. So the drill did simple to emphasize that right arm feel. Just take the right hand only obviously if you’re lefthanded it’s going to be left-hand doggedly. So she trailed obviously, right? So feel like you’ve got a nice firm. But you’re feeding the way to the club and just as you practice drill here, which is going to bottom out, but you see, you can’t just stop.

It’s not just about using the hands. You think about chipping and pitching. It’s not just that, okay, that can work, but we don’t want that because that’s going to give us an inconsistent strike. We want a shallow strike. That’s just brushing the grass, almost no to the tool really. And being able to be consistent with that with your right arm is going to be your guide to be able to control that puff. Okay. Now I dumped that a little bit. Full transparency. That’s the first time I’ve actually tried it, but I was a little bit long and then sort of short so it’s better to just, I was actually trying to go for too long a shot, but we’re just going short and there we go. Keeping that consistency with the right time, that’s the guide. That’s how you’re going to get consistent shot. So practice that at home.

Just keep it simple. Okay. Right hand only. That’s going to give you the strike and the confidence that you want. Now you can try that with different clubs, different shots, whatever it might be. The more you can do that when you just simply come on to hitting a a regular shot, feel the same with the right arm and you’re going to be clipping the tough. Exactly the same. Okay, wait, hold up. Hopefully. Anyway, if you don’t keep practicing. The next element is to keep this really simple to make the short game more simple is what’s your guide for the links have shot.

The left arm is really your guide, how much you’re going to rotate. That is the distance controller. Yes, we want the right arm kind of being stable, but the distance control is this, how much this moves, whether it’s to here is going to obviously be a shorter shot to that. Okay. Now the only distance control I’m thinking about if I want to land it on the fringe of the green there is just where do I want that left shoulder to rotate and pull through. Okay, let’s just, just on the fringe. Perfect. That’s the guide. Now the idea is what kind of shot do I want to hit? If I’ve got my pitching wedge, I want to go to the far end of this little practice green. I want to feel that left arm rotate all the way through and that’s my distance guide. So I want it to finish about there and just with choosing the club is going to bump and run and it’s going to finish.

I mean I have to say that work talk that actually ended up on the fringe. I have to brag a little bit with that. I’m quite impressed with that. I hope you can see it. But anyway, that’s the idea. The left is your guide and controller when we’re not just stopping here, everything’s sort of working together, but you do that, that feel there. So even though we’re holding two clubs, you know, two arms at the same time, the right arm is sort of staying stable, the left arm is pulling through and that guide, but distance guide, that distance control that’s going to give you to get this sort of consistency that you want and it’s making it simple, right? That’s the idea. The other thing I want to talk about is let’s take a couple of different shots here. Let’s say, wait, let me move that over there for the crack of it.

Let’s say we’ve got this, all right, we’re going to aim for the furthest cup. A lot of you just, that habit would choose your most lofted sort of club, which is going to go like floated all the way. That’s what you want to try and do. But why we’ve got all that green to work with. Okay. So why would we take the most lofty club when there’s absolutely no no obstacle in the way? We’re not trying to float over a bunker. We’re not trying to do anything. There’s just a flatness to work with. So I mean, even here you could use an any time. I mean I know polished even used to talk about this and he told Jack Nicholas it was one of his first tips he gave him apparently, but there’s no point taking a lob wedge and trying to sort of get that height and trying to spin it when there’s no, there’s nothing in the way.

So why not just take a pitching wedge and nine, nine and eight time, whatever it might be, and just keep it really simple. Just bump, bump and run. Keep it simple just to get you exactly where you want to be. I mean, that would have gone close to the cup, but that’s how you do it. And the other little tweak you can do if you’re finding that you’re duffing a few shots, you’re not quite getting the contact that you want. I would like you to try raising the shaft up. Okay. Just raising the chuffed up is actually going to cause less resistance on the bottom of the clubhead. Less sort of drag. So by doing that, it’s not going to dig in there. The chances are going to be reduced at the very least. So it’s not going to dig in as much. So just by raising the shaft standing a little bit closer, there’s less drag, less resistance, and you just make the same kind action I’m from run and you get better at that shot.

It’s so easy. Don’t try and do too much. That’s how you can start. Begin to get creative if and when you need to, but you want to start getting up and down more often. Keep it simple. Trust me, it makes all the difference. Don’t try and open up club faces and hit love shots or whatever it might be. Don’t bother. It might be fun to do that now and again, we want golf to be fun. Of course we do. But what’s more fun? Guinea handicap, lower winning some money from your friends and all that stuff. Right? So let’s see if we can make the bunker a little bit easier too.

Okay, so now we are in the bunker. Just trying to make the short game and the bunker a little bit easier. Very quick. Sort of wrapping this up. When you practice for stop. Okay. Give yourself variable lies. Don’t hit the same shot to the same hole every time. Why? Because chances are all you haven’t got three hours to practice your bunker shots just to work on your technique. How often do you get hit in a bunker on the course? Maybe one, maybe two, maybe none in around maybe once a week. So you’ve got to make the shot that you’re practicing. Is is replica, what’s the word? I dunno. You know what I mean? As as lifelike as possible. They’ll do. Anyway, we’ve got a couple of different shots here and the way I want you to focus on the technique here first is I want you to feel like you’ve got more weight on your left side.

Actually, I’ll show you that to this whole, okay? So I want you to have more weight on the left side and very, very simple tweak. Just raise your right heel up, okay? Just raise that right heel up. And what that is going to do is make sure that you’re striking down that way, but you’ve got to make sure that you accelerate. You don’t want to be digging down too much, and that’s where the next aspect comes in that I want you to forget about the golf ball. Okay? Just forget about the golf ball for a minute. The bunker hasn’t been right to tools. This is quite hard. However, I want you to forget about the golf ball. It’s about the sand getting to the designated distance. These grains of sand are what? The only thing I want you to care about. The only thing that matters in life right now is making these grains, lumper grains of sand traveled to that cup. That’s it.

Perfect. Got it in the hole, and the same now should apply the same sort of feel, the same technique. I’ve got my weight on my left side and all I’m thinking about is the grains of sand going to the ball, accelerating through it’s make cause. What it’s going to do is if we want a longer shot, we’re going to hit those grains of sand that little bit further and this is a great way to practice because now we want it to feel exactly the same commitment and acceleration. Getting those grains of sand up there, okay, same shot. The ball is irrelevant and that’s what I want you to feel. The other sort of light little tweak I want you to give. So not only raise that right heel if you need to make sure that hitting those grains of sand as far as set up, everyone thinks they need to stand way, way open and cut across it.

You don’t, it’s actually more effective to feel like you’re a little bit closed because what that is going to do is make sure that you get the rotation behind and coming down that way. Hey that sound, that sound is what’s key and that’s where I’d love you to be able to practice feeling that that sound, that spanking sound, a dig dug a bit deep there, but if you can get that sensation feeling like your right foot, I mean even if you want to bring the right foot behind a little bit, okay, you can open up the face so that we still aligned a little bit left of the target generally and we’re accelerating through. Now weight on the left side, I’m hating those grains of sand and just Hey, that sound, that’s how you get confidence. That’s how you get control and that is so simple.

Hit the grain of sand, try closing the face, your feet a little bit so you ensure that you’re getting behind instead of just chopping across it and just kind of make sure that you’ve got enough weight over the left side of the ball so you can be confident in that acceleration. Okay. Dead simple. That’s it. Hope you enjoyed those short game tips, chipping and bunker and hopefully it makes it a bit more simple. If it doesn’t, let me know. If it does, let me know in the comments below. Thanks. All right, so there you have it. I hope you enjoyed those tips, insights, and strategies to help you play better golf, but make it a bit easier for you. If you have any questions, do leave them below and you know what light can subscribe to the channel. It helps us grow. It does all that kind of stuff. Now, if you start with me, this song, you do want to follow the link that I’ve got below because it’s going to give you a really great series of lessons to help your golf game more than hours and hours of instruction could possibly do and it’s free. All you have to do is follow that link. And again, if you’ve got any questions, whatever it might be, any feedback, leave it below and come and join us over on the website at the Facebook group, wherever it might be. See you next time.

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