Know your distances when pitching! Do you struggle with distance control with your pitch shot? Ever wonder why the tour professionals are so good at it? Well then follow these simple tips to improve your distance control when pitching. Firstly, you need to get all your wedges out of your golf bag and see what you have got. It may vary from person to person, however we will work on the bases that we have a lob wedge, sand wedge, gap wedge and pitching wedge. With each one of these clubs we will have four different yardages, one for a quarter swing, one for a half swing, one for a three-quarter swing and one for a full swing. Hit ten balls with each variation of swing, therefore 40 balls per club. When hitting the ball, do this with a nice smooth rhythm. We aren’t trying to hit the ball as far as possible; we just want a nice controlled action. Do this with every club, take the average distance of the 10 balls, and you should have four different yardages for each club. Some yardages with one club may overlap with another. For example, a three-quarter swing with a lob wedge goes a similar distance to half a swing with a sand wedge. Therefore depending on whether you want to hit the ball higher or lower will determine your decision for what club you take. Once you know your yardages, when you get to a pitching yardage out on the golf course you know exactly how far each club is going to go. For example, if you have 55 yards left to the flag, you’re either a ¾ swing with a lob wedge or half a swing with a sand wedge, you know make a swing taking out the guess work, just learn how far to swing the club back. If you make a ¾ swing with a lob wedge or ½ swing with a sand wedge, that the ball is going to go about 55 yards. Give this a go and you should find your distance control improves significantly. Here are four pictures showing each set position, if you would like to book a pitching session with Mark, Dan or Philip please call the shop on 02392 464491 or pop in. | 
