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40 Yard Wedge Shots - The Magic!
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Tired of getting your grips dirty using your clubs for alignment? Get these alignment sticks from Amazon. This, THIS is where the magic happens. This is where you begin to feel like The GOAT, where you feel like you can become a master over that little white ball. This is where everything you've been working towards comes together into a real golf swing that will carry over all the way to the driver.
The feeling you're going to want is the exact same one you've been working on, all these short game shots.
And that's what you see me working on here, Is my right arm and core and club face, all working that club through together and keeping that toe from rotating over.
I'm feeling like the club face is staying square to my body just as I started the whole time.
A couple other things that are going to help you tremendously is alignment.
You'll notice that the shaft that I have on the ground is parallel left.
So that is how you're going to want to set up.
They want the club face being pointed at the target, but your feet are going to be left of it.
And you're going to want to feel that your feet are also aimed left.
And as you open up your lead foot, that's going to make it look like your feet are a little bit open in relationship to the shaft.
They shouldn't be perfectly parallel because as you open your feet up, they're going to open that lead foot up.
It's going to be left of the target.
If you find that you're hitting everything right, check your alignment.
Always put a shaft down.
So as you're working through this, It's really just controlling that club face with your right hand or your trail hand, and keeping it moving in sync with your body, getting that trail arm into GDP and just rotating your core through while pivoting on that lead leg.
That will get you to the point where you can hit the same shot over and over and over again.
And what I want you to do is set up that six-foot chipping ring.
I have that there.
It's a little bit difficult to see, but I have the six-foot chipping ring.
So I have three feet on either side of that flag from 40 yards, and I'm trying to get the ball to land in that circle every single time.
And I do sets of five.
So I'll do a set of five, take a little break, do a set of five, and so on.
So that's what you're seeing here.
So each one of these balls is landing in that target circle.
Maybe one lands a little bit short, but it rolls through it.
What I'm really concerned, not so much with distance control.
That's just going to be practice time for you.
I want the ball to be in that circle in terms of the direction of travel.
So every single ball should either land in that circle or go over that circle.
If you're to the right or to the left of it, then you need to look at your technique, video your swing, let us help you out.
Now let's take a look at this technique a little bit more closely.
All right, so let's look at down the line first.
The first thing, as I talked about earlier, is alignment.
This drill and everything in this program is really about clubface control.
And yes, You will be able to hit the ball three feet on either side of the flag.
Five out of five times when you go through this program and are doing it correctly, because it's really, really simple.
It's the simplest way to control the clubface.
But there are things that you need to pay attention to.
The first one, as I talked about earlier, is alignment.
If you're not paying attention to alignment, you have no idea where this ball is going to go.
So you want to set up the club shaft parallel left of the target.
If you set it up pointing straight at the target, your clubface and everything is going to be askew to the right.
As you open up your lead foot, that's going to open up your stance in relationship to this.
So you'll see, looking at it this way, that it looks like my feet are almost off the edge of the green here from 40 yards.
That's perfectly normal and okay.
I want the back of my feet, if you can see that with my heels, my heels are parallel to the club shaft.
You just can't see that from this angle here.
And my body, my shoulders are square, my forearms are square, my hips are pretty square.
Everything is basically squared up to this club shaft.
So if you're finding first and foremost that you're hitting the ball left, hitting the ball right, or just doing one thing consistently, check your alignment first.
I can't tell you how important it is.
I spent a whole day set up to the right with my club shaft pointing to the right.
I didn't realize I kicked it and I kept hitting every single shot to the right.
So club face alignment parallel to that shaft, get that shaft parallel left to the target.
Now, just like you've been working on the whole time, that club head should be outside your hands the entire time of this program.
So as you're going through this, if you have proper club face control and you're rotating using your core to bring that club back, Then that club face is going to be outside of your hands and the club face angle with that leading edge of the club.
And your spine are going to match up one-to-one.
They're going to basically be at the same angle.
If you've manipulated that face open, this drill you're going to find to be impossible unless you have the most incredible hands ever.
So make sure that you're doing minimal club face rotation, Just like that drill you saw me doing earlier, where I feel like I'm just kind of rotating my core back and rotating my core through.
That's what I feel exactly here.
Now, this will be more visible face on, but you can see the logo on my shirt.
Even though this is such a short shot, a 40-yard shot with a 60-degree wedge, there's virtually no power involved whatsoever, but you still must rotate.
It is so important to turn.
Otherwise, you're going to start manipulating that club face with your arms and hands, and you'll never be able to hit five out of five in that little six-foot circle.
When you think about it, it's really small.
I know you can't see the chipping circle here, but it's here, but that's three feet on that side and three feet on that side.
So that is my range from 40 yards.
I'm trying to make every single ball either land in that circle, or even if it lands short, it bounces over it, or if it goes a little bit long, it's still in that grid line.
If you drew a straight line back further toward me or past, every single ball is landing in that grid line.
And you need to be able to get, again, just like I talked about in the 20 -yard shots, at least 100 points in a practice session.
And the way that you get points on this, every single ball that lands in that circle is a five -pointer, and every one that flies over it, whether it flies over it long or comes up short, it doesn't actually land it, but it still stays in that grid line, give yourself one point.
And really what you're trying to do here is just, again, manage that club face so that every single ball is coming out exactly where you're aiming, assuming you're aimed correctly, of course.
Now, as I start down, I really have to lead with my core, and you can see that here.
If we back it up a little bit, if you focus on my belt buckle here, you're going to see that it's basically the first thing to go.
And that's really not my hips, that's my core, my belly starting to turn everything back to the left, clear my hips out of the way to make room for my arm.
Again, the club head going right through my hands.
Minimal club face manipulation whatsoever.
I'm trying to feel like I'm never, ever changing the club face angle from a dress.
And that's what allows me to hit these balls the same way, over and over again, into that same little circle, that, again, is only giving you three feet on either side of the flag from 40 yards.
You can see that my left hip is already visible here.
The shorts on my left leg.
You've got to turn.
If you find that you're hitting shots out to the right, a lot of times that could be shoving your arm.
If you're hitting them off the heel or even shanking them, your hips are not clearing out of the way.
You're not leading with your core.
You're firing your arms.
And so that can cause the arms to shoot out away from the body.
And then you won't be able to hit it in the center of the face.
You'll hit it off the heel.
Same thing.
If you start to spin your shoulders, you can start pulling these left.
If you're letting the club face rotate over, that's going to hit balls to the left.
In order to hit it straight and consistently do that without relying on timing, you're going to have to use your core and then feel and sense that club face in your right hand.
So now as I strike the ball, you're going to see that the club face is still essentially square to my chest.
I'm trying to avoid any club face rotation on there whatsoever.
Of course, it is going to rotate.
And the faster we swing, the more it's going to rotate.
But you'll see in face-on view in just a moment that it's really a minimal amount of rotation.
And that's what you're really trying to feel is none, just like you were in these chipping shots.
But of course, as we add speed, momentum, it starts to rotate more and more.
But we have to have that feeling of the club being very square through the strike.
You can see now it's just now starting to rotate over a little bit more.
And then I feel like at the top of my release, my follow-through, You can see I'm still holding at the club firmly, With those two fingers in my right hand to control that club face and feeling like it's never being allowed to move.
All my pressure is on my lead foot.
You can see my right foot is very light.
It's rolling over to the inside as my core begins to turn.
That pulls that right foot up in the air.
But all my pressure really is on that lead side.
Now let's focus on the face-on view.
Now in face-on view, there's a couple things I want to talk about.
So in this 60-yard shot, I don't really want a very high ball flight.
I like to drive the ball in very low with a lot of spin and hit the ball very flat.
I want it to bounce and go forward.
So I'm playing the ball just ahead of my foot but behind center of my stance.
Depending on the shot that you want to hit and the trajectory you want to hit and your greens, if you play rock -hard greens or really soft greens or what have you, you can change this, of course.
But the main thing we're talking about or focusing on here is club face control.
You can play it further up in your stance.
You could play it even a little bit further back in your stance if you wanted to.
All I really care about is that you're hitting the ball on your starting line and it's flying straight every single time.
Now I'm going to also put a line on my lead hip, because you're going to see that this is an integral part of my forward press.
So you can see that as I start here, my hands are moving forward in that forward press but so is my hips.
Everything is moving forward.
Everything.
So you can see my whole body is starting to rock forward in order to get the swing triggered and getting my pressure onto that lead side.
If you start hitting a bunch of balls fat, you're hitting behind the ball, you've probably got way too much weight on your trail foot.
And so initiating the swing, you can see I've actually moved my left hip.
I still haven't moved the club yet.
Now this is at 240 frames per second.
So this is actually happening really fast.
But we'll look at that in just a moment when we look at the face on view at speed.
But you can see how much I've shifted.
That line started out, my hip was inside of that line.
And then as I do my forward press, that's how much I'm moving.
But again, this is all happening very, very quickly.
As you'll see in just a minute.
So that's increasing the shaft angle.
It's de -lofting the face a little bit more.
And it's getting more pressure on my lead side.
And this is very, very important to be able to catch the ball very clean off any lie.
Now, what I'm really focusing on here is moving my cord or turn my shoulders.
My shoulders are moving that club.
You can see my right elbow pit is facing out away from me.
This is so important for club face control.
As you've learned, you can see my logo on my shirt is moving, turning, turning, turning.
Now, again, this is a 40-yard wedge shot.
My full wedge shot at this elevation is 115 yards with a 60-degree wedge.
So I'm obviously not needing to swing hard for this.
But you can see just how big of a shoulder turn I've made in order to hit this shot.
This is, again, about club face control.
As I'm rotating my body back, my arms are being transported.
I'm not trying to swing my arms.
If you find that you can still see your right shoulder over here, obviously, you can tell that my head has turned.
Your head does not need to turn.
My neck is fused.
So your neck, your head should be still facing straight down at the ball.
But I just simply can't do that.
But you can see that my right arm is still quite straight.
My wrist is not very set at all.
I don't need a lot of wrist set here.
My left knee has not kicked in toward the right, although my hips have been allowed to turn.
But this has really been a core-driven move.
Now, as I start back down, watch my left hip.
I'm shifting even more pressure onto that lead side.
And this is what's going to get the bottom of your swing arc in front of the ball.
So now you know that my left hip was behind this line when I started.
And now it's well past it.
In fact, now the center of my hip socket, or this first belt buckle, is right out basically on that line.
That's how much lateral movement is involved in this little shot.
Again, my arms and hands, not really doing much.
I'm really sensing the club face with that middle right finger.
And now you can see, I've shifted so much pressure onto the right side that I'm going to have a lot more shaft lean that I had at address.
So if we measure this, I have about 13 degrees, give or take a little bit, which is, again, the same amount of shaft lean that we've talked about in the 20-yard shots, the shorter wedge shots, the shorter pitch shots, everything is the same.
And that's what's so cool about what Tiger's done and why he's always been so darn consistent.
Is that his putting stroke and his chipping stroke, and his pitching stroke, and his wedge game, and his iron play, and all of it, it's all the same.
It's the exact same feel, the exact same motion.
So now I don't have to worry because my hand, and this is one thing I want you to check as you're looking at your swing.
As you're coming down, your hands, by the time that that club head is about a foot away from the ball, your hands must be in front of the ball already.
So you can see if we drew a line straight down from the back of my right hand, I'm well in front of that ball, so I know I'm going to get a clean strike.
If you're starting to lose that angle, you've missed something very, Very important in these last couple videos of learning how to control the club face and compress the ball that you need to go back.
You must have control of that club face, and you must be able to de-loft it, and you must be able to get your hands in front of the ball.
So now I'm going to have a clean strike.
Divot's going to start right about here, actually, the next frame up.
I've still got shaft lean.
The ball's already in the air.
I'm not worried about it from there.
You can see I've still got some stress on the shaft because the club face is still working down into the ground.
That's why the club face is slightly, or excuse me, the club shaft is slightly bent back because the club is still working down into the ground, and now it's finally going to release.
The ball is cruising through the air, and I'm, again, holding that club face, what feels like holding off the release the whole time.
So that's what allows me to be able to hit these shots and still only hit them three feet right or left of the target consistently.
If you watch the club face angle, look how little it's changing through the hitting area.
It's still basically looking at the target.
It's changed only a degree or two, and that's the feeling that I have all the way through the release and through the shot, and that's what you're working on, And that's what's going to allow you to be able to have absolute precision and control of your irons as you move into a bigger swing.
But you've got to make this transition move.
So getting that lead, that pressure on your lead side, you can see that my right foot's really not doing anything.
I'm stacked over that left side.
I'm still holding the club face under control with my right hand.
My body has made a big turn through the ball, and all of this is what allows you to have complete control over that club.
Now let's take a look at this face on motion at full speed, and you'll see that that forward press move happens way faster than it looks.
So just as before, you can see me working on turning my shoulders, getting myself into my trail side, and also getting back into the lead side, and feeling like I'm holding off the release.
I feel like I'm holding that club face square to the target as long as humanly possible.
Now you can see the forward press.
It's going to be way quicker and smaller than it looks.
So when we look at it at 240 frames per second, it looks like this huge move that looks like it takes forever.
But as you saw here, it's something that happens very, very quickly.
It's not some massive, massive move.
That's why I think a slow-mo video can kind of be deceiving at times, but you'll see it again here.
I'm going to rock into it, turn my shoulders back, and notice how I'm holding the club face off in the release there.
The follow-through there is very important.
I'm not coming around to a full follow-through.
I'm having to hold the club firm through the strike, as you see me demonstrating here, in order to keep that club face tracking on the line the whole time.
So now make sure that you're able to keep your balance on that lead side each time on every shot.
Now we'll do the slow-mo at the whole pace so you can see it.
But again, Everything that you're working on, that you've worked up to for now is all going to culminate right here in this 40 -yard shot.
Once you have this 40-yard shot down, you're going to be amazed at how much club face control you have on all your full shots.
And that's when the magic is really going to start to happen.
M. (Certified RST Instructor)
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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