need help checking the ball around the greens.....

[midnightbui]

My question is how do i check the ball from around the green, say 20 yards off the green. Meaning how can i bump and let it run or bounce a couple times and then have the ball check up.

i tried with my wedges (spin milled titliest) but they dont have that line drive aka bump and run type trajectory. i mean from 60-100 i can use my wedges and have it check and/or spin, but not from shorter range without over hitting hit.

hope i made sense, please help for i know this will improve my game significantly. thanks

[BrianW]

Re: need help checking the ball around the greens.....

From 20 yards it's either a pitch shot that drops and stops softly or you must work on a lower trajectory with more spin.

For the latter try a gap or pitching wedge, ball centre, hands forward to deloft the club, choke down on the grip for feel, take the club back with an early wrist hinge, hit down into the ball so that it gets pinched into the turf, follow through fairly high to ensure acceleration.

Success will depend on a good fairway lie, a good soft covered ball and greens that are not too hard.

[GregJWillis]

Re: need help checking the ball around the greens.....

Well, you are asking for a very special shot that not many can perform well, let alone under any pressure.

The problem with short wedges (1/2 to 1/4 length swings) is that because they are only partially at the normal speed throught the ball, you get partial spin rates.

So how to overcome this problem? Increase the speed through the ball and hit it perfectly clean on a very steep decent.

Because your are now hitting is harder, it will go farther (as you probably know from expierence), so start to counter this by relaxing the hands, allowing them to set and release in a very easy way. Reduce the arm swing length, and increase the wrist set and release angle. This increases the angle of decent on the ball. You can now have the club traveling faster into the ball and have a result of more spin and generally, where it lands will have "stopping check" to slow the roll.

But this also now has a downside: Hight. The steeper the angle of decent, the higher the ball wants to fly. If you don't want hight in your shot, start to play it farther back in your stance.

The real keys: Clean attack on the ball. Very clean. Anything other then prefect contact in the bottom part of the face into the exact equator of the ball will give you unpredictable results. So this is first.

Second, is relaxing the hands and allowing the wrists to hinge freely, without forcing anything through. It feels like you are just dropping the club in a free-fall.

Last, hight control. Ball positions, face angle at setup, the club choice, all of them have their ability to control and change the desired flight.