Dave Pelz: “Studying the game”

Students in my short game schools ask all the time about how to hit high, soft shots. I tell them the first thing they should do is invest in a lob wedge. Let’s say you have 40 yards to a pin, and you have to carry a bunker with only a few yards of green to work with. You need the right tool — a lob wedge — to hit the ball high and land it softly enough to stop by the hole. The following is a collection of answers to the questions I hear most about lob wedges. Read the rest of this entry »

Test the high pitch against the 8-iron chip. Photo by Leonard Kamsler

Picture this: You’re faced with a shot to a pin 50 feet away. You have no bunker to carry, a clean fairway lie, lots of green to work with — a pretty easy shot. You could use almost any club in your bag. Which one should you reach for?

The truth is, there is no single answer. But there is a best way for each golfer, and you need to learn which way is best for you. Look at my example at left and note the putts resulting from five shots hit two different ways: lofted pitches with a sand wedge and running chips with an 8-iron.

The question is not which shot ends up closer on average, but which shot leads to more one-putts. That’s a crucial distinction that many golfers don’t recognize. When your shots end up within three feet of the hole, you’ll one-putt almost all of them. When they end up four to nine feet from the hole, you’ll miss about half, and from more than 10 feet, you’ll two-putt the vast majority. Read the rest of this entry »