In this video, Scott Tanguay of the Coastal Golf Academy at Whispering Pines Golf Course in Myrtle Beach, S.C. shows us how to practice this important element to our short game.
Scott Tanguay: Hey everybody. Scott Tanguay here at the Coastal Golf Academy at Whispering Pines Golf Course right across the street from Myrtle Beach International Airport. Come by and see us anytime when you get off your flight.
Today we're going to talk more about a pitch shot. What's a pitch shot? A pitch shot is when you're around the green, maybe out maybe to 50, 60 yards, you're taking more loft. Right here, I've got my lob wedge, either your lob wedge, maybe your sand wedge. And the whole point of a pitch is to hit it higher. We're trying to get a high soft shot, not a low running shot. And the question you want to ask yourself is, how much green do I have to work with?
If I have a lot of green to work with, then we'll go with the low chip with the pitcher, the nine iron. If we want to hit it high, if there's not a lot of green to work with, we want to either go with the lob if you have one or at least the sand. We need more loft to get it in the air. Not more of you scooping your arms up into the sky. That's not going to work.
So what we're looking for here is the same narrow stance. The big difference is we're going to move the ball slightly forward. If you play the ball way back like this and you're trying to hit it high, there's going to be a little scooping action in that. If you're playing it back, we need to hit it low. If you play it more in the middle or maybe even a little forward, that's how we hit the high soft one.
So we come in here. All right, I've got the ball a little more forward. I've got my lob wedge here. So the work's already done for me. Now I just need to turn, and turn, and let it fly. So there's the nice high and soft one. And then if you're trying to gauge different distances, all you do is you try and hit it the same and either make a shorter swing if you don't want it to go as far, or if you want it to go a little further, you got to take a bigger swing. It's very important you don't try and hit it harder or softer.
So if I want to go a little shorter version, I'm just making a smaller swing. And if I want to go a little further, I'm going to take a bigger swing. I'm not going to hit it any harder. All right, and there you go. There's your short game right there.