- 2 days ago
Are you becoming increasingly frustrated at your inability to get up-and-down?
We've teamed up with Ping and short game coach to the stars on the PGA Tour James Ridyard to bring you all the short game advice you need to improve your wedge play. Whether it's pitching, generating more spin, striking chips cleanly or effective drills to try on the practice ground, we've got every angle covered in this video.
We've teamed up with Ping and short game coach to the stars on the PGA Tour James Ridyard to bring you all the short game advice you need to improve your wedge play. Whether it's pitching, generating more spin, striking chips cleanly or effective drills to try on the practice ground, we've got every angle covered in this video.
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00:00If you can become deadly accurate with your wedges, you're going to be able to get yourself
00:04out of trouble, make the most of your great drives and see your scores start to come down.
00:08But how do you become a master of the short game? Well, we've enlisted the help of Ping,
00:12as well as leading short game coach James Ridyard, going to give you some advice on
00:16how to get the right wedges for your game and also show you how to use them correctly.
00:20We've come here to the custom-built short game area at Pavenham Park Golf Club. Let's get started.
00:30Right, so James, one of the shots that every golfer wants to play is that really high spinning shot.
00:45We see it on the PGA Tour Week in Without, that showstopper. But I think a lot of golfers get this
00:52wrong and they see their chip and pitch shots running away from the flag. So what are the things
00:56golfers need to consider when it comes to creating more spin around the reins?
01:00Right, well, it'd be easy to jump in and just assume that it's technique.
01:03But that's overlooking probably the most fundamental piece, which is actually your environment.
01:08And by environment, I mean the quality of the club are using. Obviously, clean club,
01:12good grooves, good conditioned face, so no damage to it makes a big difference.
01:17Then the ball, the ball needs to be soft enough to actually spin. Then the third piece is that thing
01:20that you can't control and that's the environment you hit from. Okay, so any kind of longer grass,
01:26any kind of moisture in there, any kind of dirt, it's going to be very, very difficult to spin the
01:29golf ball. And another part of the environment that maybe you don't consider is the landing area.
01:33So whether the green is above or below you is going to make a difference to how quickly the ball stops.
01:37If the green's above you, the ball's going to come in flatter and go forwards more. If it's below you,
01:41it's going to come in steeper and stop faster. Then we have the actual slope here hitting onto. So we have a
01:46slight down slope here, unfortunately, which is going to make my ball kick forwards a little bit
01:50faster than if it were flat or into an up slope. Two things technically. Obviously, first of all,
01:54quality contact is primary, but if you're going to hit it too hard on the club face, you're going
01:58to have an issue to the heel, you're going to have some problems generating spin. All right,
02:01so quality contact is massive. Relatively low on the face, kind of lower grooves. I'm not going to
02:06pick a groove number, but low is better than high. The second thing, and this might be a little bit
02:11technical, is your spin loft. If you consider a driver and it being the lowest spin club in the
02:16bag, we have the single spin loft, which is the loft you deliver, so up here, and your attack angle
02:21with the driver there very, very close together. As the loft increases throughout your set,
02:26the spin loft increases and the spin you see increases as well. Obviously, the top end of
02:30that is going to be your most lofted wedge. At setup, we'd really be looking to make sure that
02:34you are maximizing loft. We're not talking flop shot open, but probably some degree open,
02:38even with a 60 here, I'm going to open it probably 5-10 degrees to get it up to maybe 70 odd,
02:44because the reality of things is, when I come into the golf ball, I am still going to deliver
02:48some degree of shaft lean. Okay, we want that shaft leaning forwards for our quality of contact,
02:53so opening the face to some degree means we still deliver high loft. I'm also going to cut across
02:58it just a little bit, because like I said, any kind of draw is going to reduce spin. You think about
03:02long swing, same kind of example, if I'm going to hook something in, it's going to run. Generally,
03:07if you slice it, the ball stops pretty quick. Okay, so relatively narrow, the ball would be
03:11probably up just under my left chest. Knowing that I want to be pretty shallow, I'm going to
03:16make sure my swing stays relatively wide, and I keep loft on the golf club. We're going to that far
03:21pin there, a second from the left. Nice and high, a little bit of grab, and pretty good considering we
03:30are pitching onto a slight down slope. There you go. Some really good pointers there. If you want to generate
03:34more spin, read the situation, incorporate that technique into your game to get a little bit more
03:39check around the greens. Right, James, let's get straight into it. I think it's fair to say that
03:46amateur golfers around the greens really struggle with their strike. We see a lot of players
03:51thinning it over the green, chunking it in front of them, so how can we help golfers increase the
03:56margin for error on their wedge shots and strike their wedges cleanly more consistently? I think the
04:01first hurdle to get over mentally is that it doesn't have to be perfect, or shouldn't need to be, if
04:06you can build in some degree of margin for error with these shots, and I'm going to look at it from
04:10two perspectives. First off, a little bit of a technique hint as to how the margin for error can
04:15grow, and secondly obviously your wedge selection, wedge choice, the sole, and how to actually utilize
04:20that more effectively. Yeah. So jumping to the technical side of things, I have no real issue with
04:25somebody making contact with the ground behind the golf ball. Right, which would surprise a lot of
04:31people, right? Yeah, yeah exactly, it takes people aback first in lessons. I think because most people
04:36have a negative experience of striking a ground behind the ball, but if you deliver the club
04:40effectively you can build in some margin back there and still hit an effective shot. Now it might not be
04:45the most sexy low spin you've ever hit in your life, but it will be on the green, it'll be under control.
04:49Yeah. And I think the key aspect to that is to actually control the depth of the swing, or the depth of low
04:54point. People think about low point and concept on the ground as a forward backward thing. I try
04:59and reframe it as more of an up and down. Now if my club is heading to a spot that's this far under
05:03the turf, it doesn't matter what kind of bounce, what kind of style I have in my club, it's not going
05:07to save you. Because if I'm heading to a very low spot and hit back here I'm in trouble. So essentially
05:12what we need to do is raise the low point of the swing up. Okay, and you can do that in a few technical
05:17ways. I think maybe the most simple that I'll show you today would be to actually have this end of the
05:21club start to rise more through impact. But the opposite of that obviously would be driving this
05:26end of the club down. Right. A lot of people get kind of stuck in that rut of driving the club forwards
05:30and downwards to try and get their strike, and their margin actually gets smaller and smaller the more
05:34they do it. Okay, so raising the butt of the club up through impact is going to help the low point come
05:38up, and the concept point on the ground can be a little bit further back than maybe players expect.
05:43Wow, really. And if you want to actually be able to utilise the soul of the club, we need that low point
05:47up. I'll just jump in and demonstrate. Yeah, let's see one in action for sure. Okay, so my rehearsal,
05:53I'm actually not really focused on the ball at all. What I'm focused on is my ground contact
05:56interaction. So I'm going to look at starting a ground contact, maybe one golf ball back,
06:01and from that point I'm going to raise the butt of the club up as I move through,
06:04and that's going to prevent me sticking the club in the ground. Okay.
06:12So you can hear the sound there. It was obviously ground then ball, but the flight was still good.
06:16It's rolled down to four feet. I think I'm going to take that most of the time.
06:19So let's move on to the technique around the soul of the club and how we can make it a bit more
06:24friendly in terms of how it interacts with the ground and how we can change our setup potentially
06:28to implement that in our games. Yep. So we're kind of getting into maybe the shaft lean
06:34topic a little bit, and people are assuming that because from this face on camera, let's say,
06:38they have a significant amount of forward lean, it means that they're not engaging bounce anymore.
06:43Now that only holds true if the club face is square to target or even slightly close to target.
06:48If you're the kind of player that does deliver that, then forward lean is probably going to hurt
06:52you a little bit, especially if that forward lean number is more than the bounce angle on the club.
06:57But if you happen to be an open face player at all, so if I put a lot of forward lean on and rotate
07:02the face open, the bounce number increases incredibly quickly. So you can actually deliver a club
07:07leaning towards target with an open face and still engage a ton of bounce.
07:17So I've delivered a good amount of lean, but you can see I've left nothing, no mark on the ground,
07:20it's not dug in at all. So there you go, pretty good result there. Hopefully that's
07:23given you some food for thought in terms of your technique around the green with the wedges to make
07:26the sole on your club work for you.
07:32Right James, I think every golfer knows they need some wedges in their bag, but with all the different
07:36options when it comes to wedges, loft, bounce, grind, all that sort of thing, it can be difficult
07:41for the golfers to know exactly what's going to work for them. And a good starting point,
07:45I would suggest, is using this new Ping Webfit wedge app, which is going to give us some
07:51recommendations based on some questions that we answer. So let's go through that process and you
07:54can talk through some of the questions they're asking and why that's important in terms of choosing
07:58the right wedges for you. So it should take less than two minutes, we'll give it a try.
08:03First question it's asking me, what is my average score? I'm going to go 74 on a good day,
08:08don't laugh at that one please. And now it's asking us, what is my pitching wedge
08:12carry distance? So why would the app be asking us that?
08:15Yep, so it's looking at providing gapping information for you. So to fill the gap from
08:20whatever distance your pitching wedge carries down to partial wedge shots as a longer hitter,
08:25potentially that gap is bigger and you might need more wedges.
08:27Perfect, so 132 yards for me. What is my highest lofted wedge? So that's a 58 degree
08:33wedge for me, why would it be asking us that? Just to get an idea of what kind of shots you
08:38almost like to play around the green, whether you'd like to play high shots, low shots.
08:41Okay, cool. And now it's asking, what are my typical turf conditions? I think this is a really
08:46important question. Talk us through some of the considerations around that.
08:50Yeah, so obviously in the UK we're just looking really at maybe length of grass and whether it's
08:55hard or soft ground, but if you start to go abroad, you go to the US and you start to deal with Bermuda,
08:59we have different strains of grass. So you're going to get an idea of the turf you play off
09:03because that will then lead towards the bounce and grinds that will be most suitable for you.
09:08Okay, so I'm going to go with medium for that. And it's now asking me what my typical sand
09:12conditions are. So I tend to play my bunker shots with my highest lofted wedge, 58. Why would the,
09:17whether it's soft, medium or firm sand, why would that have an impact on how I would choose my wedge?
09:22Yeah, so in short, that's going to influence how the club interacts with the sand.
09:26All right, if the sand is firm, the club is going to kick out more easily versus something that is
09:30deeper, heavier, the club is going to go through much more slowly.
09:32So if I was playing in quite firm sand, quite tight sand, how would I adjust my wedge setup?
09:39Typically you would go towards a lower bounce wedge.
09:41Okay, to get the leading edge under the sand?
09:44Yeah, because if you have a lot of bounce, it's really trying to help the club out of the sand,
09:48which is probably the opposite of what you need when there's barely any sand in there.
09:52Okay, cool. So let's go with, we'll go with medium for that because that's kind of typically what my
09:55bunkers are like. Now we're talking about typical divot length. And again, a really important factor.
10:01Why is it asking us that?
10:03It's going to give some indication of attack angle and the shaffling or lofty deliver.
10:10So in short, the kind of longer, the deeper the divot, the steeper a player would expect a player
10:15them to be.
10:15Yeah, I think golfers don't really play off the heat to their divots. And I think it's a really good
10:20thing to notice when you hit some chip and pitch shots around the green. See whether your divots
10:24are shallow or deep, because that has an indication of your technique. So I'm going to go for medium
10:28for me on that one. It's now building my grind profile, but it's first asking me what my preferred
10:33pitch shot technique is, whether it's with a square face or an open face. Why is it asking us that?
10:38Yeah, but again, we're looking at the implications with bounce that you need, grind that you need.
10:44So if you play your pitch shots with an open face?
10:47More open face, typically you could potentially play a lower bounce wedge.
10:51Okay. So I tend to play my pitch shots with a square face. So we'll go with square face.
10:56Now it's asking us what my typical ball position is on a pitch shot. So middle back or middle forward?
11:02Why is it asking us that?
11:03Yep. Again, that will give us some kind of insight into attack angle, typically, all things being equal,
11:09which is going to help, again, ascertain bounce required.
11:12Yeah. So if your ball is back, you're probably going to be a little bit steeper.
11:16Yes. And you're probably going to need a little bit more help.
11:18A little bit more bounce.
11:19Yeah. Okay.
11:20So I tend to be a middle forward type of golfer. So let's put that in.
11:24So the app is now asking what my highest priority is with my most lofted wedge. Definitely for me,
11:30it's bunker play. That's kind of pretty much the only situation I use my highest lofted wedge on.
11:36It's now going to finalize my grind profile.
11:39Comes the moment of truth.
11:42Okay. So obviously we know with the PingEye S159 wedge in particular, six different grinds available.
11:47So there's a lot of options out there.
11:49The app selector tool gives you two options to then go and try.
11:52It's recommending an e-sole for me in the 58, which is obviously the more bunker specific sole.
11:58Yep.
11:59And an S-grind as well.
12:00So there you go. I've gone through that process.
12:02It's taken hardly any time at all.
12:03It's completely free and it's thrown up some really interesting kind of selections in terms
12:07of guiding me into some wedge designs that are going to work for me.
12:10And if you're struggling to choose your wedges, if you want some initial guidance,
12:14definitely check out the Ping Webfit wedge app.
12:17It's going to give you some really useful information.
12:22Right, so let's move on to pitching.
12:24Something I think is a bit of an underrated skill in golf.
12:27There's nothing worse than getting within 50 yards on a par five and walking off with six.
12:31So let's try and help the viewers pitching technique.
12:34What are the sort of mistakes that people make when it comes to pitching
12:37and how are we going to go about fixing those?
12:39Yep.
12:39So I think maybe a good way to frame it is if you were going to throw a ball from A to B,
12:45you probably wouldn't launch it as high as you could to get it to cover the distance.
12:48You'd actually launch it fairly flat.
12:50I think the most obvious thing to look at is when players are trying to launch the ball high
12:53because they misunderstand maybe how to play these shots,
12:58typically they're trying to add loft through impact.
13:01So they start to lose shaft lean too quickly and present too much loft to the golf ball.
13:05So the most simplistic way to bring your ball fly down is obviously to deliver
13:09more shaft lean impact.
13:10Now, the most basic way to do it is play the ball further back than normal,
13:13if you're a player that launches it too high.
13:16If you play it central, you need to perhaps pivot a little bit better,
13:20learn to hold a little bit more angle in this wrist
13:22to actually have the club leaning forwards and deliver less loft.
13:25Okay. So let's see one here. We're at the Pavenham Park Golf Club,
13:28your excellent short game area.
13:29You're just going to pitch one to this first flag,
13:31which I think is, well, the first green, which is 40 yards away.
13:34So let's see one here where you're going to bring the flight down on this one.
13:38And hopefully you're not going to shank it into my legs.
13:42I'm standing quite close to you.
13:43The temptation level is very high right now, Joel.
13:50Brilliant.
13:52You can see that actually came out a lot lower than I was expecting it to.
13:55And it still stopped on that green, that tiny green.
13:57Yeah. So we're looking at, if you do have access to a launch monitor of any kind,
14:01we're looking for 28 to 31 degrees as the window,
14:04which is much flatter than most people actually realise.
14:06Really interesting.
14:07Okay. So we've brought the flight down.
14:09Now we need to control our distances.
14:11And you were talking about golfers relying most heavily on field,
14:14but I think most golfers probably need some sort of system
14:17to give them options when it comes to pitching and hitting those different distances.
14:21Yeah. Some kind of basic clock face.
14:22So essentially I would look at your core shot or things to base things off
14:27as left arm parallel to the ground.
14:29So it'd be nine o'clock on the clock face.
14:31So the process to go through is really to figure out how far that goes.
14:34And then we can take something off.
14:35So you could end up with something that's more like 7.30.
14:39And then perhaps up to 10, 10.30.
14:41So that'd be three wedge distances straight away.
14:43And then obviously if you've got three different wedges,
14:45that's nine different distances.
14:46Exactly.
14:47Along with your full shots.
14:48Yep.
14:49The final thing we were talking about was
14:51when you're trying to get maximum distance out of it,
14:53the ball goes too high.
14:54The ball flight can be hit by the wind and different things.
14:57So we're trying to hit lower lifted wedges a bit more under control.
15:01When you are swinging more full out, there's more potential for a miss hit.
15:04Because your technique is usually going to suffer a little bit.
15:06Then the ball will start to launch high.
15:08So you start to put more effort into the shot.
15:10It launches higher and you still don't really get much more distance out of it.
15:13And like I said at the beginning, if you want to get the ball from A to B most easily,
15:16the last thing you want to do is throw it right up in the air.
15:18Okay.
15:19So you'd recommend coming down and loft,
15:20coming down and a controlled swing.
15:22So maybe we could see you on there to this.
15:23Yes, I'll switch to my 55.
15:26Here we go.
15:28Beautiful.
15:29Seamless.
15:30So we go to the 80 yard green.
15:33So I'm probably not going to be a long way past the nine o'clock swing here.
15:37I shouldn't have to force it.
15:38Nice and under control there.
15:44Low ball flight.
15:44One bounce.
15:45All right, I'll do that green.
15:47Happy with that one?
15:48I'll take it.
15:49There you go.
15:49So three really useful tips there if you are struggling with your pitch shots
15:53that should help you attack those flags.
15:58Right James, we've already given our viewers some great short game advice.
16:02But if there was one drill that you could give golfers to go and try for themselves,
16:06it's going to have the biggest impact on their short game performance.
16:10What would it be and why?
16:11Yeah, so it's going to be, it's actually a finished position drill or checkpoint,
16:16but we're going to turn that checkpoint into a drill.
16:19So I'd like to teach players to get into a finished position that essentially means
16:22they've ticked three boxes.
16:24Those would be to make sure they've used their body correctly.
16:26They've done a good job of their arms and their release has been synced up
16:30with those other two things.
16:32So I'll talk you through it if you're in a great position to see it.
16:34Okay.
16:35So no backswing, I'm just going to turn through to target
16:37and I want you to observe how I've turned my chest fully
16:40and my arms are still kind of soft and beside me.
16:42The club is aligned in my centre and obviously I've got this coat hanger
16:46you will notice pointing at the centre of my body.
16:49All right, so it becomes a drill when you start to involve a training aid or tool.
16:52Now obviously everyone has coat hangers.
16:53Yeah.
16:54I assume you could use something else.
16:55You could use a stick in the end of your club,
16:56you could hold a stick beside it, but this is light and easy for convenience.
16:59Yeah.
17:00So as long as you tick those three boxes, rotation, arm position and shaft positioned,
17:05you won't have cheated your release or over-release, you won't have dragged it,
17:09you won't have sent your arms across your body too fast and you have to pivot effectively.
17:18Okay, so decent contact, good flight and I can look down, immediate feedback,
17:21arm position is good, chest is pivoted and my release must have been in time.
17:25Yeah, I can see that shaft pointing right at the middle of your body,
17:27but it's not too far one way or the other.
17:29Exactly, it's all nicely connected.
17:30You've done everything you need to do.
17:31So there you go, there's a really easy practice drill for you to try.
17:35Get a coat hanger, put it in your grip, hit some chip shots,
17:37achieve those three checkpoints in your finished position
17:40and hopefully your scores will start to tumble.
17:42So there you have it.
17:43Hopefully you enjoyed this video and it's given you a few pointers
17:45that you can go and try out on the golf course to help you get up and down
17:48a little bit more often and save some shots around the green.
17:51But that's all from me and James from the short game area at Pavellon Park Golf Club.
17:56We'll see you next time.
17:57We'll see you next time.
17:58Bye.
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18:20Bye.
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18:24Bye.
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