- 4 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.
00:40Right, 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 would 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.
01:07And 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
01:21that 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
01:37stops.
01:37If the green is above you, the ball is going to come in flatter and go forwards more. If it's
01:41below you,
01:41it's going to come in steeper and stop faster. Then we have the actual slope here hitting onto. So we
01:45have a slight
01:46down slope here, unfortunately, which is going to make my ball kick forwards a little bit faster than
01:51if it were flat or into an upslope. Two things technically. Obviously, first of all, quality
01:54contact is primary, but if you're going to hit it too high on the club face, you're going to have
01:58any issue to the heel, you're going to have some problems generating spin. All right, so quality
02:02contact is massive. Relatively low on the face, kind of lower grooves. I'm not going to pick a groove
02:06number, but low is better than high. The second thing, and this might be a little bit technical,
02:12is your spin loft. If you consider a driver and it being the lowest spin
02:16club in a bag, we have the single spin loft, which is the loft you deliver, so up here,
02:20and your attack angle. With the driver, they're very, very close together. As the loft increases
02:25throughout your set, the spin loft increases and the spin you see increases as well. Obviously,
02:29the top end of that is going to be your most lofted wedge. At setup, we'd really be looking
02:33to make sure that you are maximizing loft. We're not talking flop shot open, but probably some degree
02:38open. Even with a 60 here, I'm going to open it probably 5, 10 degrees to get it up to
02:42maybe 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.
02:53Yeah. So opening the face to some degree means we still deliver high loft. I'm also going to cut
02:57across it just a little bit, because like I said, any kind of draw is going to reduce spin. You
03:02think
03:02about the long swing, same kind of example. If I'm going to hook something in, it's going to run.
03:07Generally, if you slice it, the ball stops pretty quick. Okay, so relatively narrow,
03:10the ball would be probably up just under my left chest. Knowing that I want to be pretty shallow,
03:16I'm going to make sure my swing stays relatively wide, and I keep loft on the golf club. We're
03:20going to that far pin there, a second from the left. Nice and high, a little bit of grab,
03:29and pretty good considering we are pitching onto a slight down slope. There you go. Some really good
03:33pointers there. If you want to generate more spin, read the situation, incorporate that technique into your
03:38game to get a little bit more check around the greens. Right, James, let's get straight into
03:45it. I think it's fair to say that amateur golfers around the greens really struggle with their strike.
03:50We see a lot of players thinning it over the green, chunking it in front of them. So how can
03:54we
03:54help golfers increase the margin for error on their wedge shots and strike their wedges
03:59cleanly more consistently? I think the first hurdle to get over mentally is that it doesn't have to be
04:04perfect, or shouldn't need to be, if you can build in some degree of margin for error with these shots.
04:09And I'm going to look at it from two perspectives. First off, a little bit of a technique hint as
04:14to
04:14how the margin for error can grow. And secondly, obviously your wedge selection, wedge choice,
04:19the sole, and how to actually utilize that more effectively. So if you jump into the technical side
04:23of things, I have no real issue with somebody making contact with the ground behind the golf ball.
04:28Right, 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 the 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
04:48control.
04:49Yeah. And I think the key aspect to that is to actually control the depth of the swing,
04:53or the depth of low point. People think about low point and constant point on the ground as a forward
04:57backward thing. I try and reframe it as more of an up and down. Now, if my club is heading
05:01to a spot that's this far under the turf, it doesn't matter what kind of bounce, what kind
05:06of style I have in my club, it's not going to save you. Because if I'm heading to a very
05:09low spot and
05:10hit back here, I'm in trouble. So essentially what we need to do is raise the low point of the
05:14swing
05:14up. Okay, and you can do that in a few technical ways. I think maybe the most simple that I'll
05:18show
05:19you today would be to actually have this end of the club start to rise more through impact. But the
05:25opposite of that obviously would be driving this end of the club down. Right. A lot of people get kind
05:28of
05:28stuck in that rut of driving the club forwards and downwards to try and get their strike.
05:32And their margin actually gets smaller and smaller the more they do it. Okay, so raising the butt of
05:36the club up through impact is going to help the low point come up. And the constant point on the
05:40ground can be a little bit further back than maybe players expect. Wow. And if you want to actually be
05:45able to utilise the sole of the club, we need that low point up. So I'll just jump in and
05:49demonstrate.
05:49Yeah, let's see one in action for sure. Okay, so my rehearsal, I'm actually not really focused on the ball
05:54at all.
05:55What I'm focused on is my ground contact interaction. So I'm going to look at starting a ground contact,
05:59maybe one golf ball back. And from that point, I'm going to raise the butt of the club
06:03up as I move through. And 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 like the technique around the sole of the club and how we can make it
06:23a bit more
06:23friendly 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 the
06:32maybe the shaft lean topic a little bit and people are assuming that because from this face on camera,
06:38let's say they have a significant amount of forward lean means that they're not engaging bounce anymore.
06:42Now 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 you a
06:52little 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
07:01lean on and rotate the
07:02face open, the bounce number increases incredibly quickly. So you can actually deliver a club leaning
07:08towards target with an open face and still engage a ton of bounce.
07:17So 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 given you some
07:23food for thought in terms of your technique around the green with the wedges to make the sole on your
07:27club 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 for
07:41golfers 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
07:52some questions 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 asking 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
08:10asking us, what is my pitching wedge carry 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
08:38you almost
08:38like to play around the green, whether you 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
08:58deal with Bermuda,
08:59we have different strains of grass. So it's certainly an idea of the turf you play off because that will
09:04then 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 conditions
09:12are.
09:13So I tend to play my bunker shots with my highest lofted wedge, 58. Why would the, whether it's soft,
09:18medium 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.
09:26If 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.
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,
09:49which is probably the opposite of what you need when there's barely any sand in there.
09:52Yeah, okay, cool. So let's go with, we'll go with medium for that,
09:54because that's kind of typically what my bunkers are like.
09:56Now 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 shaft lean or lofty deliver.
10:10So in short, the kind of longer, the deeper the divot,
10:13the steeper a player would expect a player them to be.
10:15Yeah, I think golfers don't really play a lot of the heat to their divots.
10:19And I think it's a really good thing to notice when you hit some chip and pitch shots around the
10:22green,
10:22see whether your divots are shallow or deep, because that has an indication of your technique.
10:27So I'm going to go for medium for me on that one.
10:29It's now building my grind profile, but it's first asking me what my preferred pitch shot technique is,
10:35whether 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.
10:50Okay, 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.
11:00So middle back or middle forward? Why is it asking us that?
11:03Yeah, but again, that will give us some kind of insight into attack angle,
11:07typically, 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.
11:18A little bit more bounce.
11:19Yeah, okay. So I tend to be a middle forward type of golfer. So let's put that in.
11:25So the app is now asking what my highest priority is with my most lofted wedge.
11:29Definitely for me, it's bunker play. That's kind of pretty much the only situation I use my
11:34my highest lofted wedge on. It's now going to finalize my grind profile.
11:39It comes to the moment of truth.
11:42Okay, 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,
11:58and 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
12:07terms of guiding me into some wedge designs that are going to work for me. And if you're struggling
12:11to choose your wedges, if you want some initial guidance, definitely check out the PingWebfit wedge
12:16app. It'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 is 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. 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
12:44from 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. I think the most obvious thing to look at is
12:51when players are trying to launch the ball high, because they misunderstand maybe how to play these
12:57shots, typically they're trying to add loft through impact. So they start to lose shaft lean too quickly
13:03and present too much loft to the golf ball. So the most simplistic way to bring your ball flight down
13:07is obviously to deliver more shaft lean at impact. Now the most basic way to do it is play the
13:12ball
13:12further back than normal if you're a player that launches it too high. If you play it central,
13:17you need to perhaps pivot a little bit better, learn to hold a little bit more angle in this
13:22wrist to 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, your excellent short game area.
13:30You're just going to pitch one to this first flag, which I think is, well the first green,
13:33which is 40 yards away. So let's see one here where you're going to bring the flight down on this
13:38one.
13:38And hopefully you're not going to shank it into my legs. I'm standing quite close.
13:43The temptation level is very high right now, Joel.
13:50Brilliant.
13:52Well you 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.
13:58Yeah, 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, which is much flatter than most people actually realise.
14:06Really interesting. Okay, so we've brought the flight down, now we need to control our distances.
14:11And you were talking about golfers relying most heavily on field, but I think most golfers probably
14:16need some sort of system to give them options when it comes to pitching and hitting those different distances.
14:21Yeah, it's some kind of basic clock face. So essentially I would look at your core shot or
14:26things to base things off as left arm parallel to the ground. So it'd be nine o'clock on the
14:30clock 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, so you could end up with something that's more like 7.30.
14:39And then perhaps up to 10, 10.30. So that'd be three wedge distances straight away.
14:43And then obviously if you've got three different wedges, that's nine different distances.
14:46Exactly.
14:47Along with your full shots.
14:48Yep.
14:48The final thing we were talking about was when you're trying to get maximum distance out of it,
14:53the ball goes too high, the ball flight can be hit by the wind and different things.
14:57So 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.
15:04Okay.
15:04Because your technique is usually going to suffer a little bit.
15:06Then the ball will start to launch high. So 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.
15:19Okay. So you'd recommend coming down and loft.
15:21Coming down and loft.
15:21Controlled swing. So maybe we can see one there to this.
15:23Yes. I'll switch to my 55. Here we go. Beautiful.
15:29Seamless.
15:30So we go to the 80 yard green.
15:32Yeah.
15:33So I'm probably not going to be a long way past the nine o'clock swing here.
15:37Shouldn't have to force it.
15:42Nice to under control there. Low ball flight, one bounce.
15:46Right on the middle of that green. Happy 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
16:06that'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.
16:15But we're going to turn that checkpoint into a drill.
16:19So I like to teach players to get into a finished position that essentially means they've ticked
16:23three boxes.
16:24Okay.
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.
16:31So I'll talk you through it if you're in a great position to see it.
16:34Yeah. Okay.
16:35So no backswing, I'm just going to turn through to target and I want you to observe how I've
16:38turned my chest fully and my arms are still kind of soft and beside me.
16:43The 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.
16:54Yeah.
16:54I assume you could use something else, you 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.
17:17Okay, 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,
17:27it's not too far one way or the other, so.
17:29Exactly, it's all nicely connected.
17:30You've done everything you need to do.
17:32So 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, hopefully you enjoyed this video
17:44and it's given you a few pointers that you can go and try out on the golf course
17:47to help you get up and down a 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
17:54at Pavenant Park Golf Club, we'll see you next time.
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