Too many golfers are given a wrong idea about the golf swing. The idea is a double whammy — it makes the swing unnecessarily complicated and produces poor shots. The wrong idea is that we should use our hands during the swing to scoop the clubhead under the ball.
As can be seen in the photos above, when we scoop with the right hand, we effectively shorten the club. Now instead of the leading edge of the club brushing the grass under the ball, the leading edge is elevated and contacts the ball at the equator and we skull the shot.
Or, you can do as I’m doing in the upper photo at right, drop the right shoulder and reverse pivot to lower the club so it goes under the ball. However, when you do this the clubface has so much loft that the ball pops up and does not carry the needed distance. You can see in the photo how the ball has too much loft and therefore not enough carry—a typical fluffed shot.
The solution to skulled and fluffed shots is to simplify your swing. Make the swing without the scooping action. Improvements in a golf swing mean changes, and changes mean finding a way to do something differently from your habit. I will give you two ways to make the change quickly.
First, with no ball, over a period of a week make 100 swings in sets of 10 from three feet before the address (backwing) to three feet after the address (follow-through).
Second, use a metal coat hanger to make a small soccer goal about eight inches tall and place it about three feet in front of you (see lower photo at right). Using a 7-iron, make “no scoop” swings with the intention of rolling the ball under the soccer goal. When you do you will feel very solid contact and the loft of the club will propel the ball over the top of the goal—but your intention is to roll it under.
This “no-scoop” swing is the action that will optimize your swing for all your clubs. Watch the players on tour. You will see swings with a lot of variation. However, you will not see any player using a scooping action — it’s unnecessarily difficult and it produces poor shots.
Henry Stetina, PGA is responsible for golf instruction at the PGA Golf Management Program at New Mexico State University as well as Director of Instruction for Red Hawk Golf Club in Las Cruces.
Try this mental approach: take your normal stance and normal swing you would use for a full golf shot. Select the appropriate club according to the length of the bunker shot. That could be anything from a 60-degree wedge to an 8- or 9-iron, depending on how far away the pin is and how much green you have to work with. (Photo 4)
COMMON DENOMINATOR 1: A LEVEL SET-UP
COMMON DENOMINATOR 2: SOFT ARMS & NEUTRAL GRIP
COMMON DENOMINATOR 3: MATCHING SIDES
COMMON DENOMINATOR 4: RELEASE THE CLUBHEAD
COMMON DENOMINATOR 5: ‘GO WITH IT’
When you desire a softer type of explosion shot out of the bunker from what’s commonly known as the fried egg lie, you need to Make a few adjustments for the best chance at getting the ball out in one stroke. For one, employ a sightly open clubface and relaxed hands. Make your angle of attack steeper by leaning your weight toward your front foot. This weight shift also accentuates the digging action of the clubhead, making soft hands and an open clubface that much more critical. Otherwise, the golf ball will come out with more velocity than desired.
THE SETUP
THE SHOT
To hit solid chip shots and pitches every time, the low spot in your motion needs to be in front of the ball. Here’s my easy recipe for ensuring this happens:
Swing the club back and through, making sure that you finish with a straight line from your left shoulder to the club head. To do this, you will need to make enough of a back swing that you can let the club gradually accelerate into the ball, but not too long of a back swing that you decelerate. Many amateurs jab the club toward the ball, accelerating too quickly, which leads to mis-hits and poor distance control. Remember, a natural, correct rate of acceleration will get you closer to the hole. Photos 4-7 shows the proper swing sequence for a standard chip/pitch shot, with that all-important straight line from left shoulder through the club.
Make sure to grip the club in front of you first and then push the hands forward so that the grip is aligned with the middle of your left leg at address, as I’m doing in Photos 8-9. It is crucial that you grip the club first. Most golfers make the mistake of putting the grip forward and then gripping the club, as in Photos 10-11. This causes the club to be closed somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30 degrees! If you grip the club and then lean the shaft toward the target, the lines formed by your thumbs and index fingers will point toward your left shoulder and allow you to use the bounce of the club correctly.
It’s always a big question for teachers when they’re working on the all-important sand game with their students: Should you use the same swing plane for all types of greenside bunker shots?
Picture the ball sitting on a block of cement. In Photo 1 I’ve drawn a box around my ball in a bunker to illustrate that block. If you were allowed to pick up the ball and bounce it off the cement to create the trajectory of the shot you want, you’d bounce it a steeper angle to go higher and shorter, with an overhand arm motion, as I demonstrate in Photo 2; therefore your swing would match that (Photos 3-5).
If you wanted to create a shot that would run lower and a little further and running, you’d create a shallower bounce off the cement with a sidearm motion, like skipping rocks (Photo 6). I would also want my swing to mirror that look, as in Photos 7-9.
When you have really fluffy, soft sand, shallow with a more open face works better (Photo 10). When it’s harder and more compact, steep works better, with a bit less of an open face (Photo 11).
Greetings, beginning golfers! Are you interested in learning how to hit a pitch shot — where you have a short distance to the pin and need to hit the golf ball high and soft? No worries! I am here to help you with insights on some of the things that you should know, making it easy to master the fundamentals. As it is both a science and an art — you should know the right techniques, not only in perspective, but also in terms of their applications. As with any other golf skill, practice makes perfect!
The first thing that you have to do is to make sure that you are using the right wedge. This may seem to be too technical for some people, especially for beginners who have no idea how one wedge is different from the other. The key takeaway here is that not all wedges are the same. For hitting a pitch shot, I highly recommend that you use a pitching or sand wedge, which are both beneficial because they can provide you with generous loft.
Emilia Clarke offers quick and simple golf lessons and equipment guides through her website, 
