The Secret To Hitting A High Soft Pitch Shot

Hello, I’m Brian Fitzgerald The Golf Doctor.

Today we are going to be doing the high soft pitch.

I did try and do this video several months ago. But my video camera was pretty poor and I’m going to have a go at re-filming it today. I hope you enjoy it.

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So here we have a shot of about 20 to 25 meters. It’s going to be over the bunker and not many people like this shot.

It’s bad enough when your ball is in the bunker, but when you have to hit it over the bunker people really don’t like that one.

So the way to play it is to keep your club low to the ground.I have my 60 degree sand wedge here. A sixty degree sand wedge has a lot of loft. I want to use that loft as much as I can.

I don’t want to try and manipulate the club to make something special happen.

If I just swing the club back keeping the club low to the ground. keeping a shallow angle of attack, the loft of the club should get the ball in the air and that will stop the ball.

When I do that, I’m going to be inclined to stop on it. We don’t want to do that. Stop on it and you might hit a good shot but in all probability you won’t.

As much as you possibly can you really want to try and make sure that you keep that club head moving and I try and get my follow through to about shoulder height.

So I swing it slowly, that stops the ball from traveling too far and I’m gripping the club very light. It took me a long time to actually get the confidence to grip the club light when I play this shot. I kept wanting to grip it tight, the ball went a bit lower and when it landed the ball ran on a bit too much.

So I really want to keep it light. I want to keep my swing slow and I just want to get the club sliding underneath the ball.

I’ll see how I go.

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So you can see the ball went up nice and high, it landed quite softly and it ran just a little bit past the flag stick.

For the lack of practice that I do lately I’m pretty happy with that shot.

But the ball did go high, I didn’t take a massive divot and the ball did land soft. So first and foremost you want to make sure you get it over the bunker. You don’t want to leave it short.

I’m pretty happy with that, I can get a putter out with my next shot.

So give that one a try at home. Grip it light, have a full swing but a slow swing and keep your angle of attack shallow.

I’m Brian Fitzgerald The Golf Doctor. Thanks for letting me help you with your golf.

If you like my videos, you can get further information from my website which is www.thegolfdoctor.com.au that can be found here.

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Or there is my Twitter page which you can click on there.

If you want to leave a comment ah at the end of the video. Just go down to the bottom of the video on the YouTube and you can add comments. I am happy to answer any of them.

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3 Things You Need To Do To Improve Your Golf

There are three simple things golfers of all standards can do to improve their golf.

1. Make your bad shot better,

If your bad shot is a 30 meter slice with your driver and you can turn it into a 20 meter slice your score will definitely improve.

2. When you have a wedge of any description in your hands, get it on the green.

How many times have you found your self hitting a wedge into the green. You have the hole at your mercy and instead of getting the ball on to the green you leave it short in the bunker or blade it over the green. This is quite often compounded by a followup bad shot as you are steaming from missing the green the first time. You may even three putt for good good measure.

3. Stop 3 putting

Nothing ruins your golf score faster than 3 putting.

Look at my putting playlist and try to do the Distance Control Drill.

If you imagine a hula hoop around the hole on long putts. Try to get your ball to finish inside the hula hoop rather than trying to get the ball into the hole.

Alternatively place a club 1 club length behind the hole and try to get four balls between the hole and the club from different distances. Say 4 meters 8 meters and 12 meters. If you get your first putt close to the hole you will 3 putt less.

Titleist Pro V1 & Pro V1X Product Launch

Last week I was invited to the launch of the Titleist Pro V1 & Pro V1X golf balls.

Mike Mahoney The Director of Golf Ball Product Management for Titleist shared with me some amazing facts.

Titleist are responsible for every piece of the manufacturing process of the golf ball. They don’t outsource anything. The do their own research and development, they make their own components including the urethane cover (every other ball manufacturer purchases theirĀ  urethane from a company like DuPont).

A Pro V1 golf ball has to pass 91 quality control checks before it makes it into the box and is good enough to be sold.

A Pro V1 X has to pass 124 checks.

Golf balls made using the exact same formula at different times of the year eg. summer and winter perform very differently. If they are not careful this would lead to a golf ball being made that exceeds the speed limit and would get Titleist struck off the approved ball register. A very bad outcome.

Titleist can change the recipe slightly for the different times of the year so that no matter when the ball is made it will perform identically. Titleist are right on the legal speed testing limit and this process allows them to stay there.

Last year Titleist made close to 1.35 million Pro V1 & Pro V1X golf balls.

The total number of golf balls returned world wide were 15 golf balls.

What this means is they have great quality control and we the consumer get the best ball on the market. It made me think “I would be crazy to use another brand of golf ball”.

Just a footnote. I am not contracted with Titleist and other than the odd sample here and there I actually buy my own golf balls from Titleist. I have been doing this since 1985.

Use your Putter Instead of Chipping To Lower Your Score

One of the best ways of lowering your golf score is to get your putter in your hands more often from off the green instead of chipping (if the conditions allow it).

You will find that your worst putt will finish much better than your worst chip.

When you see Tiger Woods with all of his skill mess up chip shots from a perfect lie what chance do normal every day golfers have?

Get the putter in your hands.