Pitch Shot from Greenside Rough

25 11 2011

What if I told you that you did not have to be perfect to hit a shot out of greenside rough?  You would then approach the shot with confidence.  Remember Tom Watson’s famous shot on the 71st hole of the 1982 U.S. Open?  Bruce Edwards, his caddie, said “Get it close” to which Watson responded “I’m going to hole it!”  And so he did.  Obviously Watson did it under the utmost pressure as he was battling Nicklaus for the victory and he was tied with Jack at the time.

The truth is that although these shots appear challenging, they are not that difficult.  I teach a forgiving short game technique on these shots where you slide the bounce of the club under the ball.  If you maintain constant loft on the club, the bounce will slide along the grass fro 10-12 inches providing a huge margin of error.  Take a practice swing and you will see the length of the brush mark.

Next time you get this shot, follow these steps:

1)    Take a lofted club like a lob wedge or sand wedge

2)    Play the ball forward in your stance

3)    Weaken your grip which will help keep the clubface open

4)    Firm up your wrists to keep the club from twisting in the grass

5)    Hit behind the ball

6)    Make a big swing

Distance control will come through practice.  Your confidence will grow as you increase your repetitions. Give yourself different lies and targets to simulate real golf conditions.  You have the forgiveness built in to the club and technique.  Go do it!

Josh Zander


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Categories : game improvement, golf, golf instruction, pitch shot, short game, video

A Simple Lesson Learned from Stats

29 07 2010

The coach from a top women’s golf program was talking the other day about how the detailed statistics from MySmartGolf helped one of her players in a very simple but important way.  This particular player was not getting up and down from off the green as often as a player of her ability should.  That could have been seen using any stat program but only a unique feature of MySmartGolf pinpointed the problem.  The shot tracking showed very clearly that virtually all of the player’s chip shots finished short of the hole.  This was a simple problem with a simple solution which the player quickly addressed.  As a result, her up and down percentage increased accordingly.  Sometimes we just need someone or something to help point out the important information and MySmartGolf can do that.

Most golf statistics programs tell you only what percentage of the time you get up and down successfully.  MySmartGolf gives you much more information such as where your short game shots finish and why.  This is the information you need in order to improve your short game.


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Categories : chip shot, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, mental game, short game

Releasing the Putterhead

10 04 2010

There are so many ways to putt well.  Bobby Locke hooked his putts. Billy Mayfair slices his putts. Crenshaw has a long, flowing stroke.  Azinger has a short, pop-like stroke.   And Tiger has perhaps the simplest stroke I have ever seen.  All of the aforementioned putters have made their fair share of putts and all have one fundamental in common.  They all accelerate into the ball.

All golfers know that it is important to accelerate into impact.  This is an important fundamental in the swing as well as in putting.  If we all agree that acceleration is important, then we should all understand that accelerating the putter means that the putter has to release past the hands.

Too many golfers believe that the stroke is controlled by the shoulders and that the hands need to stay quiet.  Keeping your hands and wrists locked produces a block which leads to poor contact and deceleration.  Your hands are your only contact with the club.  The key is to use your hands and wrists correctly rather than eliminate them from the process.  When throwing a ball underhand, the hands and wrists remain soft and active in producing the throw.  This is an athletic motion and so is putting.  To feel the correct motion, simply anchor your putter to your belly and let the putterhead swing.  Can you feel what is happening to your hands and wrists? This is a release!

I personally can’t believe that USGA has allowed belly putters as they make putting so much easier.  You can’t block your putts if you let the putterhead swing while keeping the grip end anchored to your body.  If you have a short putter, I recommend building a belly putter to match so you can practice the release.  All you have to do is take your short putter to a club builder and have him use the same lie angle and build one long enough to reach your belly. Once you learn the feel of the proper release, your putting will improve tremendously.


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Categories : game improvement, golf, golf instruction, putting, short game, Uncategorized, video

Become a Great Pitcher

21 01 2010

Pitching seems to be one of the toughest shots for the amateur golfer. The shot will become easy when you understand the role of the bounce. The bounce is the trailing edge of the club as you can see in the video. We can thank Gene Sarazen for inventing the bounce on the sand wedge. He designed it to help hit bunker shots and pitch shots. The bounce enables the club to slide along the ground which helps avoid chunking the ball. I actually try to hit the ground before the ball on my pitch shots and the club slides right on through and I get a high soft shot as a result. This is really helpful in deep rough when you can’t contact the ball cleanly. You can hit this shot much like a bunker shot where you hit the ground two inches behind and let the bounce slide right under the ball.

Before hitting this shot, I would recommend that you have a neutral to a slightly weak grip. The reason is that a weaker grip leads to a more open/lofted clubface which will ensure that the bounce hits the ground. Any grip that enables you to close the clubface will hurt you on a pitch shot as this will send the leading edge below the bounce resulting in the dreaded chunk. There is nothing wrong with having a grip for your full swing and another to hit short game shots.

64 degree wedges are fun but if you want to get really good at pitching, try doing it with your 3 iron as I demonstrate in the video. You need some flexibility in your hips to get as low as I do but flexible hips help your all-around golf game so start stretching. You will impress your friends pitching with a low-lofted club and it will make pitching with a lob wedge a piece of cake. Seve Ballesteros grew up with one club. It was a cut down three iron. He became known as the best short game player in the world.  -jz


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Categories : game improvement, golf, golf instruction, pitch shot, short game, video

Keep it Square

15 11 2009

Everything in moderation is a pretty good philosophy in life and it is in your golf game as well. Opening your stance for short game shots is ok if it is done in moderation but opening it too much leads to disaster. Setting up too open leads to glancing blows, pulls, chunks and excessive sidespin on your short game shots. More importantly, it seeps into other parts of your game which leads to inconsistency.

I recommend putting a shaft down on the ground to monitor your alignment. It will give you the sense of what is square so when you remove the club, anything other than square will feel awkward. If square is your baseline, you are setting yourself up for success. Setting up square leads to solid contact due to an on plane swing. Your ball will come off with pure backspin and an absence of sidespin. You hear people talk about trying to get the ball within a three foot circle in order to have a good chance at getting up and down. I try to hole all my short game shots. Knowing that my ball will have a predictable bounce because of pure backspin enables me to give the ball a good chance of going in. I even read the green on my chip shots much like you would on a lag putt. If your goal is to hole your shot, chances are that if it doesn’t go in, it will be inside that three foot circle.

The key to scoring in golf is predictability. Whether you are a hooker or a slicer, you can plan your aim and find the fairway if you know beforehand how your ball will curve. Setting up square will give you predictability of distance control because of your solid contact and predictability of direction due to square spin. Now go practice and hole some short game shots. -jz


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Categories : bunker shot, chip shot, golf, golf instruction, pitch shot, short game

Get it up and Down from Greenside Rough

21 06 2009

When it comes to scoring, getting it up and down from difficult situations around the green is crucial. I grew up on a golf course that had a 9 hole par 3 course adjacent to it. All the holes were between 40 and 75 yards. I used to go there with my junior golf buddies and we had competitions all day long. We used to challenge each other and put our balls in ridiculously difficult lies and see who could get it up and down. And yes, there was money on the line.

These competitions helped me learn the valuable skill off assessing a lie and understanding what I could do with it. I learned this from the best teacher I know, trial and error. The shots I demonstrate in this video come from hours of trial and error. I had to learn quickly or my lunch money was on the line. I also liked to compete against the older kids so I needed to be sharp.

The two techniques I show in the video are actually very forgiving. When you use the bounce of the sand wedge, the club slides along the ground for about six inches so you can hit between two and four inches behind the ball and hit a great shot. The key is to hit enough of these to get the distance control down. Since you are sliding the club under the ball and using so much loft, you need to make a pretty fast swing to get the ball to go anywhere.

The second technique where you put the ball well back in the stance enables you to minimize the amount of grass that gets caught between the clubface and the ball. Remember to stick with a sand or lob wedge as well because you will be taking quite a bit of loft off the face with the ball back in your stance. Now that you have de-lofted your club, it does not take much swing to get the ball to go a long way. Remember to only choose this technique when you have plenty of green to work with.

Distance control is the key to short game. You now have two new techniques in your arsenal. Now trial and error will dictate how good you get. Don’t let them win your lunch money!


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Categories : chip shot, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, pitch shot, short game, video

Blog your game up: Mastering the high soft bunker shot

2 11 2008

Today, Josh Zander, a PGA Teaching Pro at Stanford University Golf Course and MySmartGolf co-founder, tells you how to survive the bunker. To learn more about Josh, visit www.mysmartgolf.com or www.zandergolf.com.

Students always ask me for consistency when they come for a lesson. Golf is inherently an inconsistent game, as we face different weather, course conditions, altitudes and a myriad of other factors. It would be easier if one swing technique would work for all parts of the game, but unfortunately, hitting effective shots out of a bunker is very different from hitting solid golf shots from the fairway. Understanding the differences will lead you successful bunker play.

Let’s take a look at the fundamental differences. First of all, the ball position is more forward in the bunker. After all, you need to hit the sand a couple of inches behind the ball. Conversely, an iron shot requires compression, which means you need to hit the ground a couple of inches past the ball.

Secondly, the bunker swing is much steeper and narrower than a regular swing, especially if we are trying to hit a high, soft-landing shot. Watch Tiger hit an iron shot and you will see a wider and shallower motion.

Lastly and most importantly, the impact position in the bunker is different than a full swing. You need to have a backward-leaning shaft at impact, which enables you to get more loft and use the bounce.  Bunker shots have a scooping motion through impact. Solid iron shots require a forward leaning shaft exposing the leading edge of the clubhead to the ground. Scooping on an iron shot from the fairway does not work!

You can now see how the bunker game is its own game within the game of golf. You need to be a chameleon and adapt to the shot when you get in the bunker. I want to leave you with this last thought. A ball will fly one third of the distance out of the bunker than it would with the same swing from the fairway. If you need to carry the ball 15 yards out of the bunker, use your 45-yard swing. Use this ratio to help you hit the ball the proper distance out of the bunker. After all, distance control is the key to scoring. Have fun on the beach!


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Categories : bunker shot, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, short game, video


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