A Short Game That's Simply "Built Different"
Level 5- Mullet Smith
Welcome Avatar! Pulling off a wide variety of shots around the green is my favorite part of golf. There’s nothing better than experimenting with different techniques and discovering new ways to get the ball up and down from anywhere. Unfortunately, people lack an arsenal of shots and struggle when the golf course throws them a situation they haven’t seen before. Today we’ll go over developing touch, practice strategy, a few different techniques, and give you a new way of looking at how to use the club.
This is not meant to be a highly technical post. However, we need to go over a short-game mental model that may or may not be new to you.
Note: keep in mind this first section is covering what should be a default technique, and is most useful for shots off of the fairway or light rough. There is a place for any type of swing/grip/set-up/etc. around the greens, but what follows is how you should think about the majority of shots.
This thing right here is a wedge. We use it for 90-95% of shots around the green. Knowing how to use the back of the wedge is key to *everything*. On most shots, you will be contacting the ground in some form or fashion. The part that should interact with the ground is called the sole of the wedge (the thick part above the BV logo in the picture above).
The bounce of the wedge is the angle the sole descends from the leading edge (the part of the club closest to the golf ball at address). Wedges are designed this way to prevent the club from digging into the turf.
When the leading edge contacts the ground, you have to be extremely precise with the strike/low point control, or else, the you flub it nowhere, or skull it way over the green.
Having the sole of the club sit lower than the leading edge gives you a margin for error. You can contact the ground at a point before or after what you intend, and still end up with a solid, consistent strike.
You’ve Been Taught Wrong (kind of)
Average players generally don’t set up properly. Most chipping/pitching instruction is some form of ball in back of stance, weight forward, lean the shaft forward, keep the lead wrist firm, strike down on the ball, etc.
Usually looks something like this:
Now, this isn’t necessarily wrong. The guy above is one of the best short game instructors on earth, and Phil Mickelson uses a similar technique on most of his shots. I’ll even use this setup in certain situations. However, the average player tends to overdo it. Ball way too far back, shaft leaned way too far forward, angle of attack far too steep, and they do it for every shot and situation.
When you lean the shaft forward to a degree greater than the bounce of the club, you expose the leading edge to the ground (unless you open up the face, but let’s not get in the weeds yet). Then, the club digs into the turf, you hit shots fat, then to compensate, you put weight more forward and lean the shaft even more, and you progressively get worse.
Contrast this with Luke Donald chipping off of a green:
Notice how he’s doing many things in contrast to standard chipping advice:
Ball slightly forward in his stance
Shaft sitting almost dead vertical (no shaft lean)
Weight at address is almost centered (still slightly on his lead side)
Really shallow angle of attack through the ball. More of a sweeping motion.
Doesn’t keep his hands leading the club in the through-swing. He lets his hands and arms soften and allows the club-head to pass his hands (we’ll refer to this as “releasing the shaft”).
This gives him a margin for error. In the second shot of the video above, he catches it a bit fat, contacting the ground slightly before the ball. Despite chipping off of the tightest lie you could possibly encounter, he can still able to hit a quality shot.
Because of the lack of shaft lean and the shallow attack angle, the sole of the club is able to prevent the club from digging. The club ends up bouncing/skidding along the ground, allowing solid contact and leaving no divot or ground disturbance of any sort.
As a rule of thumb, on say, 80% of shots around the greens, you should not be taking a divot. Use the sole of the club to your advantage, come in shallow, keep the body rotating through the shot, and you’ll see far more consistent results.
Note: This does not cover all situations of course. On extremely low spinners, into the grain lies, ball sitting in a divot/depression, extremely soft turf, longer shots (over 25 yards), thick lies in the rough, and more, you’re going to take some turf. There is endless variety in the short game, and while there are principles you should generally adhere to, “it depends”.
Off of fairway, light rough, or tight lies, you should generally aim to:
Take as little turf as possible
Use a shallow angle of attack
Use little to no shaft lean
Focus on brushing the ground just barely in front of the ball
Prioritize making a smooth, rhythmic swing. There should not be any sudden burst of speed; think “continuous motion”.
A good way to think about this is “with the swing I’m using, would I be able to chip off of a putting green consistently, without taking a divot?”*
*Obviously (at least, I hope, *gulp*), don’t actually hit chips off of a putting green unless you have a low single-digit handicap skill, at the very least.
Also worth mentioning if you don’t choke up on the grip on a large percentage of shots around the green, you’re doing it wrong.
In the picture above, if you take the length of the club and decide to put it in a vertical position, notice how the end point would be roughly two inches below the ground. You’d have to manipulate the arc of the hands coming into impact in order to not take a fat chunk of turf. It’s way easier to just choke up on the club and keep the shaft fairly vertical (small amount of lean is fine). This way, all you have to do is make a simple, natural motion and the impact position will match address.
Now that we have that covered, let’s get into the fun stuff.
Single-Arm Low Point Practice Swings
Once you can hit consistent shots with the technique above, work on educating the hands. A good way to prepare for this is taking single-arm practice swings where you focus on *light* ground contact at different points.
Take your set-up, pick a spot on the ground, and see if you can consistently hit that spot. Alternate arms every 5-10 swings. Once you have that down, play around with looking at different spots and brushing the ground. Can I do this with my “spot” in the back of my stance? Up front? Middle? Choking-up on the club? Standing tall? Open-stance? Closed-stance?
Doesn’t have to be every single one of these. Important thing is improving the ability to bottom-out at the point you want.
This is an excellent thing to do while waiting on a tee-box or waiting for your playing partners to finish out on the greens.
Single-Arm Chips and Pitches
Once in awhile, practice hitting chips and pitches one-handed, Cam Smith, who currently has the best short game in the world, LOVES practicing this way.
It breaks the monotony of typical practice sessions, brings a tremendous amount of “flow” to your regular technique, requires you to actually focus, and develops touch.
Lead arm chips/pitches will be easier than trail arm (which is just fine). Focus on making good, clean contact. And. Pay attention to how everything “syncs-up”. While you will primarily feel this in your hands and arms, make sure rotation is driving force of these swings. The arms should stay roughly in-front of your chest throughout the swing.
Final note: you don’t want to restrict the hands and arms either. It’s perfectly fine to let the club pass the hands in the follow through. As long as everything CONTINUOUSLY moves together, it’ll happen naturally.
Tinkering
The next thing to tackle is experimenting with different set-ups and learning how that affects contact and
This includes:
Raising or lowering the handle (ex. heel of the club comes off the ground a bit when raising the handle)
Stance width
Distance from the ball (close or far)
Knee flex
Hands in front of or behind the ball at address
Steep or shallow angle of attack
Swing path (hitting little draws or cuts)
Where your weight is (ex. 80% front foot, 20% back foot)
Closing or opening stance
Closing or opening shoulders
And of course, opening or closing the face
Start slow, don’t go too crazy with this at first. Focus on making good contact while you try out these variations.
The hands are responsible for touch: the ability to hit the ball at the distance you want, at the height you want, with the desired spin.
The hands need varying data-points to learn what movement patterns to use for various situations and how much effort to use for the shot at hand. If you NEVER practice different techniques, or attempt different shots on the course, your hands WILL NOT develop any sort of touch, and you will have a miserable time with contact and distance control.
Yes, develop the basics first. Then, expand the arsenal, or else you doomed with an unadaptable short game.
Quick example: this past winter, I added a new type of flop shot for ultra-tight lies that carries less than 10 yards and lands *extremely* soft. I use it when short sided to tucked pins and the green running away from me. It’s best described as a “glancing blow toe-flop”.
When you open up the face of the wedge, you effectively add bounce. How much depends on how the wide or narrow the sole of the wedge is, plus the degree of bounce itself of course.
Notice how the leading edge is significantly higher off the ground when the face is opened up.
On a standard flop shot, you have the face wide open, lean slightly left, take a large swing, contact the ground an inch or two behind the ball, and the club slides under the ball, popping it straight up.
With extremely firm, tight lies, you cannot use a ton of bounce, because the ground doesn’t “give” and you can’t get under the ball like you need to (for a flop shot). Then, the leading edge strikes the equator of the ball and you nuke it 40 yards over the green.
Thankfully, I found a workaround by taking advantage of my wedge design. The soles of wedges have varying dimensions, with certain areas with less or more “material”, either catering to your technique, improving versatility, or designed for certain situations (e.g. full shots or bunker shots).
I like to have the options. I want the ability to play any shot I can possibly think of, so I use wedge grinds like the one below.
The blue highlighted area is where material is removed. There is less “sole” in the heel, toe, and a portion in the back, which allows you to hit shots with less effective bounce. This gets the leading edge closer to the ground than other grinds when those areas are utilized.
Knowing this, I figured out that if I drastically raised the handle of the club to the point where only the circled area (above) was resting on the ground, I could have essentially zero effective bounce. This allows me to slide the leading edge under the ball (without digging) on my pretty much anything outside of desert hardpan.
Then, I’d aim really far left and make an almost deflecting blow by trying to hit the inside of the golf ball. This reduces ball speed, and the shot comes off extremely soft and unusually high for a shot that carries ≈5 yards.
This is an advanced demonstration of the previously described experimentation process. Would NOT try this particular shot without mastering a standard flop shot. But, I wanted to show how understanding the design of the wedge and a willingness to try out different things in practice allows you to get up-and-down from ALL types of situations.
Like I said before: having a wide arsenal of shots around the green is, to me, the most fun part of golf. Please, take the time to develop your short game; you won’t regret it.