This article appeared in the August Edition of Momentum Newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, click here.
Todd Edwards
GolfTEC Coach, Middleton Improvement Center
Working on your short game will not only drop your scores, but could magically assist you in making changes to your full swing!
Everyone knows that improving your short game is a great way to lower your score. But to get the maximum benefit from short game practice, golfers must divide their time between indoor technique practice and outdoor performance practice. Technique practice involves focusing on the motion and performance practice puts your focus on the outcome. Using the technique you and your Coach have developed inside can truly round out your short game practice.
The best way to evaluate your short game strengths and weaknesses is to go through the GolfTEC Short Game Challenge. This indoor, fact-based performance test will reveal many things about your short game and provide you and your Coach with a game plan for improvement.
While both technique and performance practice will put you on the road to lower scores, the technique side of short game practice provides an added benefit: learning to rid yourself of the dreaded golf club flip that many clients battle in their full swing. Fighting the flip in your full swing is a longer process starting at address and working through the takeaway, top and downswing to correct the root causes. Short game practice, on the other hand, can help accelerate the progress you’re making by working on the flip at lower club head speeds. Lower club head speeds make it much easier to feel the proper club motion through the high-speed moment of impact that is very difficult to feel at full swing speed.
A couple of my favorite drills to address this very problem are the straight arms chips drill and the punisher drill.
Straight Arms Chips Drill
The straight arms chips drill provides a great feel as you learn to use your body and your arms to create the motion of a small chip shot without using your wrists. This is done at a slow speed and you should only hit these chips about 10 yards. By chipping in slow motion, we are able to monitor our body, arms and wrists and create excellent muscle memory. While the body makes a slight turn toward the target, the arms stay straight and the left wrist stays flat throughout the stroke. This drill is very beneficial to the short game as you to learn to use the loft of the golf club while having a forward leaning shaft and a descending strike.
Punisher Drill
The punisher drill achieves the same thing for your short game, but with a little more feedback. Using your Coach’s punisher, a golf club with an extension coming up and out of the grip end, you will hit very small chip shots. If done correctly with no flip or scooping, the extension will stay in front of your body and you will not be “punished”. If, however, you break down your flat left wrist, causing the club head to pass the hands you will feel a love tap from the punisher in your side! Remember to only do small chip shots with the punisher, no full swings!
Doing these two drills daily will greatly accelerate your full swing progress while benefitting your short game technique practice. As your short game technique improves, consult with your Coach and get outside for some performance practice and watch those scores drop!
Please don’t neglect short game practice. You may not realize how much it can help your full swing motion! Spend at least 25% of your time with your GolfTEC Certificated Coach on short game and you’ll be surprised at the overall difference.
