- 2 minutes 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 Weekend 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 some
02:49degree 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,
03:10ball would be probably up just under my left chest. Knowing that I want to be pretty shallow,
03:15I'm going to make sure my swing stays relatively wide, and I keep the loft on the golf club.
03:20We're going to that far pin there, a second from the left.
03:26Nice and high, a little bit of grab, and pretty good considering we are pitching onto a slight
03:31down slope. There you go. Some really good pointers there. If you want to generate more spin,
03:35read the situation, incorporate that technique into your game to get a little bit more check around
03:40the greens. Right, James, let's get straight into it. I think it's fair to say that amateur golfers
03:47around the greens really struggle with their strike. We see a lot of players thinning it over the green,
03:52chunking it in front of them. So how can we help golfers increase the margin for error on their wedge
03:57shots and strike their wedges cleanly more consistently? I think the first hurdle to get over
04:02mentally is that it doesn't have to be perfect, or shouldn't need to be, if you can build in some
04:06degree of margin for error with these shots. And I'm going to look at it from two perspectives.
04:12First off, a little bit of a technique hint as to how the margin for error can grow. And secondly,
04:17obviously your wedge selection, wedge choice, the sole, and how to actually utilize that more
04:21effectively. So jumping to the technical side of things, I have no real issue with somebody making
04:26contact with the ground behind the golf ball. Which would surprise a lot of people, right?
04:31Yeah, yeah, exactly. It takes people aback first in lessons. I think because most people have a
04:36negative experience of striking a ground behind the ball. But if you deliver the club effectively,
04:40you can build in some margin back there and still hit an effective shot. And that might not be the
04:45most sexy low spin you've ever hit in your life, but it will be on the green, it'll be under control.
04:49And 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.
04:58I try and reframe it as more of an up and down. Now, if my club is heading to a spot that's this
05:02far under the turf, it doesn't matter what kind of bounce, what kind of style I have in my club,
05:07it's not going to save you. Because if I'm heading to a very low spot and hit back here, I'm in trouble.
05:11So essentially what we need to do is raise the low point of the swing up. Okay, and you can do that
05:16in a few technical ways. I think maybe the most simple that I'll show you today would be to actually
05:20have this end of the club start to rise more through impact. But the opposite of that obviously
05:25would be driving this end of the club down. Right. A lot of people get kind of stuck in that rut of
05:29driving the club forwards and downwards to try and get their strike. And their margin actually gets
05:33smaller and smaller the more they do it. Okay, so raising the butt of the club up through impact is
05:37going to help the low point come up. And the concept point on the ground can be a little bit further
05:41back than maybe players expect. Wow. And if you want to actually be able to utilize the soul of the club,
05:46we need that low point up. I'll just jump in and demonstrate. Yeah, let's see one in action for sure.
05:51Okay, so my rehearsal. I'm actually not really focused on the ball at all. What I'm focused on
05:55is my ground contact interaction. So I'm going to look at starting a ground contact, maybe one golf ball
06:00back. And from that point, I'm going to raise the butt of the club up as I move through. And that's
06:05going to prevent me sticking the club in the ground. Okay. So you can hear the sound there. It was
06:14obviously ground then ball, but the flight was still good. It's rolled down to four feet. I think
06:18I'm going to take that most of the time. So let's move on to like the technique around the soul of
06:21the club and how we can make it a bit more friendly in terms of how it interacts with the ground and how
06:26we can change our setup potentially to implement that in our games. Yep. So we're kind of getting into
06:32the maybe the shaft lean topic a little bit and people are assuming that because from this face on
06:37camera, let's say they have a significant amount of forward lean means that they're not engaging bounce
06:42anymore. Now that only holds true if the club face is square to target or even slightly close to
06:47target. If you're the kind of player that does deliver that, then forward lean is probably going
06:52to hurt you a little bit, especially if that forward lean number is more than the bounce angle on the
06:56club. But if you happen to be an open face player at all, so if I put a lot of forward lean on and
07:02rotate the 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. So delivered a good amount
07:17of lean but you can see I've left nothing, no mark on the ground, it's not dug in at all. So there you go,
07:22pretty good result there. Hopefully that's given you some food for thought in terms of your technique
07:25around the green with the wedges to make the 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 golfers to know exactly what's going to work for them. And a good starting point I would suggest
07:46is using this new Ping Webfit wedge app, which is going to give us some recommendations based on some
07:52questions that we answer. So let's go through that process and you can talk through some of the
07:55questions they're asking and why that's important in terms of choosing the right wedges for you. So
08:00it should take less than two minutes, we'll give it a try. First question it's asked to me,
08:04what is my average score? I'm going to go 74 on a good day, don't laugh at that one please.
08:09And now it's asking us, what is my pitching wedge carry distance? So why would the app be asking us
08:15that? Yep, 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. Perfect, so 132 yards for me.
08:30What is my highest lofted wedge? So that's a 58 degree wedge for me. Why would it be asking us
08:35that? Just to get an idea of what kind of shots you almost like to play around the green, whether
08:39you'd like to play high shots, low shots. Okay, cool. And now it's asking what are my typical turf
08:44conditions? I think this is a really important question. Talk us through some of the considerations
08:49around that. Yeah, so obviously in the UK we're just looking really at maybe length of grass and
08:55whether it's hard or soft ground. But if you start to go abroad, you go to the US and you start to deal with
08:59Bermuda, we have different strains of grass. So it's certainly 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 that'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. All right,
09:26if the sand is firm, the club is going to kick out more easily versus something that is deeper,
09:30heavier, the club is going to go through much more slowly. So if I was playing in quite firm sand,
09:35quite tight sand, how would I adjust my wedge setup? Typically you would go towards a lower
09:40bounce wedge. Okay, to get the leading edge under the sand. Yeah, because the club ascent,
09:46if you have a lot of bounce, it's really trying to help the club out of the sand, which is probably the
09:49opposite of what you need when there's barely any sand in there. Yeah, okay, cool. So let's go with,
09:53we'll go with medium for that because that's kind of typically what my bunkers are like. Now we're
09:57talking about typical divot length and again, a really important factor. Why is it asking us that?
10:03It's going to give some indication of attack angle and the shaft lean or lofty deliver. So in short,
10:11the kind of longer, the deeper the divot, the steeper a player would expect to play them to be.
10:15Yeah, I think golfers don't really play a lot of the heat to their divots. And I think it's a really good
10:20thing to notice when you hit some chipping 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? More open face, typically you could potentially
10:50play a lower bounce wedge. Okay, so I tend to play my pitch shots with a square face. So we'll go with
10:54square face. Now it's asking us what my typical ball position is on a pitch shot. So middle back or
11:01middle forward? Why is it asking us that? Again, that will give us some kind of insight into attack
11:06angle, typically, all things being equal, which 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. A little bit more bounce.
11:19Yeah, okay. So 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 my highest lofted wedge on.
11:36It's now going to finalize my grind profile. Comes the moment of truth.
11:40Okay, so obviously we know with the PingEye S159 wedge in particular, there's six different grinds
11:47available. So there's a lot of options out there. The app selector tool gives you two options to then
11:52go and try. It's recommending an e-sole for me in the 58, which is obviously the more bunker-specific
11:58sole, and an S-grind as well. So there you go. I've gone through that process. It's taken hardly any time
12:03at all. It's completely free, and it's thrown up some really interesting kind of selections in terms of
12:07guiding me into some wedge designs that are going to work for me. And if you're struggling to choose
12:12your wedges, if you want some initial guidance, definitely check out the PingWebfit wedge app.
12:17It's going to give you some really useful information.
12:22Right, so let's move on to pitching. Something I think is a bit of an underrated skill
12:26in golf. There's nothing worse than getting within 50 yards on a par five and walking up with six.
12:31So let's try and help the viewers pitching technique. What are the sort of mistakes that
12:36people make when it comes to pitching and how are we going to go about fixing those?
12:39Yeah, so 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. You'd
12:48actually launch it fairly flat. I think the most obvious thing to look at is when players are trying
12:52to launch the ball high, because they misunderstand maybe how to play these shots, typically they're
12:59trying to add loft through impact. So they start to lose shaft lean too quickly and present too much
13:04loft to the golf ball. So the most simplistic way to bring your ball fly down is obviously to deliver
13:09more shaft lean at impact. Now 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. If you play it central, you need to perhaps pivot a
13:19little bit better, learn to hold a little bit more angle in this wrist to actually have the club
13:23leaning forwards and deliver less loft. Okay, so let's see one here. We're at Pavenham Park Golf Club.
13:28Your excellent short game area, you're just going to pitch one to this first flag which I think is,
13:32well the first green which is 40 yards away. So let's see one here where you're going to bring
13:37the flight down on this one. Hopefully you're not going to shank it into my legs. I'm standing quite
13:42close. The temptation level is very high right now, Joel. Brilliant. You can see that actually came out
13:54a lot lower than I was expecting it to and it still stopped on that green, that tiny green. Yeah,
13:58so we're looking at, if you do have access to a launch monitor of any kind, we're looking for 28 to
14:0231 degrees as the window which is much flatter than most people actually realise. Really interesting.
14:07Okay, so we've brought the flight down, now we need to control our distances and you were talking about
14:11golfers relying most heavily on field but I think most golfers probably need some sort of system where
14:17to give them options when it comes to pitching and hitting those different distances. Yeah, some kind of
14:21basic clock face. So essentially I would look at your core shot or things to base things off as left
14:28arm parallel to the ground. So that'd be nine o'clock on the clock face. So the process to go through is
14:32really to figure out how far that goes and then we can take something off so you could end up with
14:36something that's more like 7.30 and then perhaps up to 10, 10.30. So that'd be three wedge distances
14:42straight away. And then obviously if you've got three different wedges, that's nine different distances.
14:46Exactly. Along with your full shots. Yep. The final thing we were talking about was when you're
14:51trying to get maximum distance out of it, the ball goes too high, the ball flight can be hit by the
14:56wind and different things. So we're trying to hit lower lofted wedges a bit more under control.
15:01When you are swinging more full out, there's more potential for a miss hit because your technique is
15:05usually going to suffer a little bit. Then the ball will start to launch high. So you start to put more
15:09effort into the shot, it 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. So you'd recommend coming down and loft, coming down a little controlled swing. So maybe
15:22we could see you on there to this. Yes, I'll switch to my 55. Here we go. Beautiful.
15:29Seamless. So we go to the 80 yard green. Yeah.
15:33So I'm probably not going to be a long way past the nine o'clock swing here. I shouldn't have to force it.
15:38Nice to under control there. Low ball flight, one bounce.
15:45I'm turning to the 80. Happy with that one?
15:48I'll take it. There you go. So three really useful tips there,
15:51if you are struggling with your pitch shots, that should help you attack those flags.
15:58Right James, we've already given our viewers some great short game advice, but if there was one drill
16:03that you could give golfers to go and try for themselves, it's going to have the biggest impact
16:08on their short game performance, what 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. So I like to teach players to get into a
16:21finished position that essentially means they've ticked three boxes. Those would be to make sure
16:25they've used their body correctly. They've done a good job of their arms and their release has been
16:29synced up with those other two things. So I'll talk you through it, if you're in a great position to
16:33see it. Okay. So no backswing, I'm just going to turn through to target and I want you to observe
16:38how I've turned my chest fully and my arms are still kind of soft and beside me. The club is aligned
16:43in my centre and obviously I've got this coat hanger you 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. Now obviously
16:52everyone has coat hangers. Yeah. I assume you could use something else. You could use a stick
16:56in the end of your club, you could hold a stick beside it, but this is light and easy for convenience.
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, arm position is good,
17:22yeah, chest is pivoted and my release must have been in time. Yeah, I can see that shaft right pointing
17:26right at the middle of your body, it's not too far one way or the other, so.
17:29Exactly, it's all nicely connected. You've done everything you need to
17:31do. So there you go, there's a really easy practice drill for you to try. Get a coat hanger,
17:36put it in your grip, hit some chip shots, achieve those three checkpoints in your finished position
17:40and hopefully your scores will start to tumble. So there you have it, hopefully you enjoyed this
17:43video and it's given you a few pointers that you can go and try out on the golf course to help you get
17:48up and down a little bit more often and save some shots around the green. But that's all from me
17:52and James from the Short Game Area at Pavelland Park Golf Club. We'll see you next time.
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