Plus Another Chip and Pitching Tip.
Ya'll did a good job the other day catching and pointing out the two big mistakes I made in the daily article. The key is I would like to say they were intentional. But since I don't want my nose to grow longer, I have to admit that they were bona fide mistakes. I got the stats directly from the PGA Tour web site in the stats section under the scrambling list. The Tiger's scrambling stat was correct at 68.16%. Steve Stricker's 68.46 was a typo and should be' 66.46.' So tiger is definitely #1.
The second Faux Pas was the gas gauge tip. I wrote, 'When addressing a chip or pitch your forward arm is the full side of the gauge and your left arm is the empty side. The key is to make sure that when you hit a chip or pitch that you keep your gas gauge needle ALWAYS on FULL.' As many of you correctly pointed out, the empty side, since I started with forward, should have been the back arm. I have been asked, and am trying to write and say, when I teach more forward and back rather than right and left, it's to help out the lefties to not have to play switching arms when reading my articles. I obviously got twisted around between the forward/back and right/left and missed it in my rereads as well. My editor also missed it! I was rushing as I had to get to Charlotte for an afternoon lesson.
While giving that extra long lesson to JF from Philly, we covered the swing from the setup to the finish. We also discussed chipping and pitching. When covering those I mentioned the two tips I just wrote about for the daily article. I described the gas gauge needle that stays on full and the bicycle pole down the hole in the grip, which should never hit you in the left side as it stays under the forward arm. But then I thought of and gave him another tip/drill that will help you feel the setup and swing needed for judging the launch and loft of a chip or pitch shot, which can also help you choose the club for the shot.
I demonstrated this using two techniques as a way to judge, sense and feel the impact, follow through, launch angle and roll out of a chip or pitch. The drill is to imagine tossing a golf ball underhanded to the spot you want the ball to land on the green for the air time, then the roll out you want to the hole.
The first way is I get around 15 to 20 feet from the student facing him/her. I tell the student I am going to toss an imaginary ball to them and to watch where my arm swings to and releases the ball, and the height of the ball. The first toss is toward his/her feet, like a chip shot. I swing my arm back and forth and release the ball when my hand is still low in the arc, just barely past the bottom. My torso/spine is actually bent forward/down a little for this low release. Next, I tell them I am tossing it at their knees. The release point is higher in my forward arc, and the spine bent forward less. Next I toss to their belt buckle. The release is higher, the spine stays higher and the ball is tossed higher. Lastly, I toss it over their head. My arm backswing is longer and the forward swing is also longer with a much steeper forward upswing, which causes my spine to tip a little backwards. Naturally, this toss is simulating a real high launch, similar to a pop or lob shot.
For the second tossing demo I use the golf cart as my prop, standing around 10 to 12 feet from it. Now, instead of tossing the ball to the student, I toss the ball, like hitting a chip, toward the side of the cart on the driver's side. The student is still standing in front of me face on. The point now is that he/she can see the shoulder and spine angles change as the release point goes from low to high to match the launch angle desired. In other words, 'The setup determines the motion.'
Starting from the low launch, I toss the 'imaginary' ball under the cart floorboard. My setup has the spine tilted forward and weight forward on the front leg and the shoulders are level to the ground. The release point is just past the bottom of the arc in the forward swing as it was in the face on toss. My spine stayed forward to cause the lower release. The point is that like hitting full shots, 'The setup determines the motion.' From this view the student sees that my spine moving forward set my weight on my forward leg. In a real low chip shot, we set our weight on the forward leg in the setup, which sets up the lower release.
Next, I toss the ball between the floor and the steering wheel. The setup is less forward, with the spine more neutral and the shoulders still somewhat level. But with the slightly higher release point, the right shoulder will slightly tilt downward to swing the hand up more to release the ball higher between the floor and steering wheel.
Next the toss is between the steering wheel and the under the roof. The setup moves back a little more neutral with the weight evenly distributed between the feet. The spine is now neutral but the shoulders now have a slight tilt front to back. This allows the arm to swing more up for the higher release point and you may feel the back shoulder move downward a little to increase the upswing.
Finally, I toss the ball over the roof. The weight shifts to back more and onto the back foot in the setup, the spine tilts more to the back foot and the shoulders tilt more downward. This arm swing is 'extreme up' and similar to a lob or flop shot. This also means the shoulders will swing down and stay under and back more. You will also feel the weight stay back on the back foot longer as this lob swing is somewhat of a reverse weight shift. This hang back or stay back weight position is one of the big reasons why the lob shot is difficult. It takes practice to get a solid swing under and nip the ball impact and not chunk it or skull it.
These drills take some explaining but they are really simple. It helps you to sort of melt right into the needed setup position for each release needed for the desired launch angle of the shot you want to hit. It helps you feel and sense how changing and controlling your spine angle controls the swing and release point. The 'Bonus' of the 'Cart Toss' drill for chipping and pitching is that it also relates 100 percent to the 'Full Swing.'
The Surge!