Being able to hit long straight drives is very important if you want to play good golf. But it is not much good if once you get within 100 yards of the green you are unable to consistently get the ball up in the air and land it softly on the putting surface close enough to the hole so that you can make your putt. This is when pitching becomes a very important weapon in the search for lower scores.

The pitch shot is defined as a shot that spends the majority of the time in the air, and once it lands, rolls a very short distance.  It is used when you are too close to the green to play a full shot and too far away to chip the ball.

The set up for the pitch is very similar to that of the chip shot. The feet are fairly close together with the ball positioned one club head inside the front foot. Weight is distributed so that there is more on the lead foot than the trail foot, so as to encourage a downward swing on the ball and thus increase the opportunity for a ball first contact. Club selection should be based on the height and length of shot you need – higher and shorter then play more loft like the sand wedge, lower and longer then consider the pitching wedge.

The length of the shot you wish to play determines the swing length. This is the best way to consistently control distance with your pitch shots, rather than having the same length swing and changing swing speed. When you go to the range to practice this shot, start with a 9 o’clock back swing to a 3 o’clock follow through and build your shorter and longer distances from this swing.

The swing itself can be challenging as it opposes our natural instincts on how to play this shot. Our mind would have us believe that the way to get the ball up in the air is to lift or scoop the ball. But if you try this, chances are that the leading edge of the club will contact the ball and send it flying over your intended target. We then think that, “I didn’t get under it enough”, and try to lift the ball even more on the next swing, producing the same shot.

The reality is that the loft on the wedges, as with all the clubs, is what gets the ball in the air. So if you can allow the club to fall to the ball, with the club hitting the ball first and then the ground, the loft of the club will easily get the ball in air. Next time you are on the range, take a few balls and your sand wedge and practice hitting some pitch shots. With a 9 o’clock back swing, allow the club and the arms to fall to the ball and you might be surprised at how easily the ball will get up in the air.

A great drill to help get the correct feeling at impact for pitching is to place a tee in the ground about one inch on the target side of the ball. From you’re normal pitching set up, swing the club, trying to hit the ball first and then take the tee out of the ground. This will encourage you to hit down through the ball, making ball first contact and giving you a nice high flight and good spin to stop the ball on the green.

A good short game can help you recover from some poor longer shots and also give you the opportunity to make a birdie or two. But only if you can pitch a ball with control can you hope to get the ball close enough to the hole to make those putts. So be sure to allocate some of your practice time to work on your pitching and it will save you a few strokes the next time you play. 

None of us have enough time that we can waste it practicing poorly. If the goal is to improve your golf game then you need to get the most out of every minute you have available to practice. That means that every practice swing you make and every ball you strike should be hit with purpose and a specific swing thought that is in place to help you play better golf. To do this means you are employing effective practice habits.

Every time you visit the range to practice you should have a plan for what you will practice and thus accomplish from that session. If your goal is to hit a large bucket of balls with your driver, this is not practice. It is exercise. An effective practice session will have you doing drills, practice swings, your pre-shot routine, hitting varying clubs to varying targets with a set objective in mind. An example of such a practice session is outlined below:

1. Decide how much total time you have available for this practice session.
2. The first 40% of your time should be spent on drills and practice swings. There should be at least two practice swings for every ball hit. At this point your focus should be more about the quality of the move you are trying to improve rather than the quality of the ball flight. As the move improves so will the ball flight. Be sure not to get caught up in it being all about the ball flight at this stage as it will be too easy for you to revert back to your old swing for the sake of some short term ball flight improvement. Stick with the long term plans you and your coach have in place.
3. Have a target for each ball you hit.
4. Give every shot and practice swing your fullest attention – quality is more important than quantity.
5. Spend 30% of your time hitting different clubs to different targets. For each shot take practice swings and go through your full pre-shot routine. Don’t hit the same club to the same target more than twice in a row.
6. Spend 10% of your time playing a game. If you are at a range with target greens, select a target and the appropriate club and going through your full pre-shot routine try to hit the ball on the target green. Then change targets and clubs and repeat the exercise. How many targets can you hit in a row?
7. Spend 20% of your practice time with the fairway woods and driver. Have practice swings before every shot, and have a set goal. For example, how many balls out of 10 can I hit between two designated targets at the end of the range?

 Remember that the purpose of practice to help you get better, not simply to exercise. Follow the above guideline and every time you visit the driving range, practice effectively with long-term improvement as your goal and better golf will be your reward.

If you want to get better at this game there is only one way to accomplish that – practice. I don’t just mean going to a driving range a hitting a large bucket of balls with your driver with no target and no goals for that session. That is exercise not practice. If you want to get better you need to do regular, effective practice.

Effective practice is any practice session where before you begin you have clearly defined what you will do in that session, how you will do it and you will have a measure to know if you have achieved your goal. Only once you start doing this type of practice regularly will you start to see real improvement in your golf game. So how do you devise such a practice session?

If you have researched your game correctly, you will have already identified your areas of weakness and received some instruction from a PGA Professional on how to make positive changes to your technique. Thus your outline for an effective practice session should be:

1. Warm up - Spend a few minutes warming up with some stretches followed by hitting some shots with a short iron. There are no technical thoughts during the warm up. This time is designed to get you lose and allow you to clear your mind and to remind yourself of the goals you have set for this practice session.
   
2. Drills – Slowly work through your drills that were given to you during your last lesson. The quality of each repetition is far more important than the quantity. At this stage of your practice, ball flight results are irrelevant. All you are trying to do is change a swing pattern and feel the differences between what you used to do and what you are trying to do. Don’t get caught up trying to make good contact or making the ball go a particular way. This practice is about changing a swing pattern.
   
3. Test – On completing your drill work it is important to check your progress. An easy way to test your improvement is to choose a club and an appropriate target and see if you can hit three shots in a row at your target. Use your full pre-shot routine and complete a drill repetition between each shot if needed. If you can play three in a row to that target choose another target and another club and try for three consecutive shots again.

 Once you are able to complete the consecutive shot test on the range your next step is to take it to the course and see if your new swing will work out there. Use your full pre-shot routine as you did at the range and again feel free to complete a repetition of your drill if needed.

 What you will see over time is your testing on the range will improve and you will start to play more and more good shots on the course. Keep working through this effective practice outline for every area of your game and you will be able to continually improve year after year.

Before you can go anywhere, whether it be drive to New York City or lower your golf scores, the first thing you need to know is where you are right now. In the case of driving to New York, your actions would be very different if you were starting in Norwich than if you were starting in Miami. Similarly, if your goal is to lower your golf scores your plan is very different if the weakest part of your game is your driving versus you’re putting. But how can you be certain of what part of your game is holding you back from playing better?

Tracking your rounds and skills testing are the best way to find out exactly what needs the most attention. After each round you play simply go back over the round in your head and record your numbers in each of the following categories – fairways hit, greens hit, total putts, green saves and sand saves. Repeat this for a minimum of five rounds so as the patterns are more obvious. If you visit www.pgatour.com you can view the PGA Tour statistics across a wide variety of categories.

The next step is to share these numbers with your instructor so that they can then test you playing shots in the area that is shown to be the weakest. This allows your coach to narrow in on the exact cause of the poor results, whether it is technique, mental, physical, a concept issue or a poor practice regimen. Whatever the reason, the two of you can then devise a Performance Plan to help you improve the area of weakness and get you shooting lower scores.

Once you have started your plan, continue to track your statistics on the course and follow your improvement as you work through the drills and practice schedule you have put in place. When the results in the chosen area have reached an acceptable level, look at the next weakest component of your game and start the process all over again on that area.

If you continue with this process of assessment, set a plan, execute the plan and then reassess, the Performance Plan, then you all but guaranteed to see improvement in your golf game.

It is almost impossible to achieve anything worthwhile without first setting a goal for what is you want to accomplish.  On rare occasions, the stars may align, luck goes your way and you achieve a good result in something, but these are not circumstances that can be relied upon to give you consistent results.

 Goal setting is a skill that is used by successful people the world over in areas of business, sport, and personal life to help them achieve great things.  It has been well documented how Tiger Woods has set himself the goal of beating jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major titles, and that he is so familiar with what Jack accomplished that he as many of his records committed to memory.  Tiger's goal setting in this example has been so complete that he is current on track to realize his goal and it seems the only thing that may stop him is injury.

 Do you have goals for your golf game?  Let's look at how to go about setting S.M.A.R.T. goals that will help you play better golf.

 Specific - The goal must be an exact and detailed description of what you want to accomplish.

 Motivational - The goal must have the emotional power to excite you enough to invest the time and energy that it will take to accomplish your desired outcome.

 Attainable - Given your talent, dedication, physical ability and time commitment the goal must stay within the realms of possibility.

 Relevant - The goal must be in line with your overall goal of becoming a better player.  For example, it is of no use having a goal to hit the ball longer if you already hit the ball over 300 yard but still can't break 90.

 Trackable - It must be possible to objectively measure your progress.

 The power of goal setting should not be taken lightly.  Every athlete who has ever accomplished anything in his or her chosen sport has done so because they had a dream of achieving greatness.  They then turned that dream into a series of goals that when attained resulted in them living their dream.

 What is your dream for your golf game?  Is it to play average golf for the rest of your life or is it a dream of something more.  Maybe it's one of low scores, or trophies or playing professionally.  Whatever it is, start today by setting goals as stepping stones on the road to realizing your golfing dreams.

I recently had the good fortune to play at our Troon Golf sister property, Black Diamond in Florida with a good friend and Lake of Isles member Paul Slosberg.  Black Diamond is a spectacular facility consisting of 45 holes of golf set inside a private gated community in central Florida.  One of the nines is built around an old quarry and provides some spectacular views as well as demanding some precise shot making.

This was the first time I had played the course and thus I wasn't always certain of the shot to hit and more importantly the yardage i had to my target.  I have always stepped out yardages for every shot using the markings on sprinkler heads, used a yardage book for green depth and pin placement and then chosen the club from there.  But on too many occasions when I compared what I had paced with the distance my playing partners had shot using a laser I was out by a full club.

This raises two very important points to consider when you are playing a course for the first time:

1. Get an accurate yardage for every shot you are going to play.  GPS systems and lasers are ideal for getting the most accurate yardages for every shot.  If you don't have access to either of those, consider using the courses yardage book if they offer one, and be sure to factor in where the flag is located on the green which can be sometimes mean adding or subtracting a full club.

2. Once you have an accurate yardage, trust it.  Make a definite decision that you are going to commit to the club that will hit the ball the distance you have measured, and then go ahead and swing positively with faith in the fact you have chosen the correct club.

I hope you will have to opportunity to travel and play some golf this winter.  If you do, remember to get accurate yardages for your shots, choose the club carefully, and the commit to the shot.

I recently took our Junior High Performance team to Newport National Golf Club for their end of season golf trip.  It was a wonderful day for many reasons.  We all had a great time playing a fantastic golf course, and it was very pleasing to see the improvements that each of them had made throughout the year.  As a result of their hard work, several of the team will be bying for places on College golf teams in 2011.

2009 was the first time we have conducted such program and it was born out of a need to give the best young golfers in Connecticut the opportunity to learn the skills required to play the game at the highest level.  During the year we had regular instruction sessions and tracked each participants technical and physical progress very closely.  At the conclusion of the season every person had made significant changes physically, technically and mentally, which was shown in their results. 

Their skills test results improved 32% over the year, but more importantly they're on course results showed significant improvement.  On average the players achieved the following:

• Increased their greens in regulation by 23.5%
• Decreased their total putts per round by 3 strokes
• Decreased the three putts per round by 47%
• Improved their chip and pitch up and downs by 95%
• Reduced their average scores by 4 strokes.

The feedback we have received from the juniors in this program and their parents has been extremely positive.  WE will continue to work with this group through the winter and then start our in season program again in early April.

If you or someone you know has shown they are willing to work hard towards achieving their goals and are committed to being the best player they can ge, contact the Academy for more information about what we can do to help achieve those goals.