This Rock sits on the left side of hole #7 Tee Box at Evergreen GC.   The arrows point at 2 Rock Badgers who sit and watch as golfers tee off.  They live in the cave beneath the rock.

I read today that 70% of all golf shots take place from 100 yards in to the pin.  The article went on to say that the pros spend 80 to 90% of their time practicing in this area of their game.  Having a long game that will get you to the green in few shots is great, but you don’t have to be long in order to score well.  Here are some golf short game tips that will help you to become lethal around the green.

In his book the “Short Game Bible” Dave Pelz talks about how he spent years collecting data on pro golfers and their shots.  He discovered that they were very good at selecting the right club and swing for their distance into the green but the landing pattern was often a spray to the left or to the right. In other words their distance was usually very accurate, while their direction was not always what they were hoping to accomplish.  For us non professional golfers, I suspect that generally this would be true as well.

So this means that once we know the distances that a given club will fly, our next task is to get extremely accurate.  The first obvious task is to build a repeatable method of aiming.  The best way I know is the “intermediate target”; pick out a spot directly in front of your ball, imagine the ball flying over this spot on its way to the hole.  You would select the spot when standing behind the ball but make sure that you can see it when you align yourself for the shot. As you go through your set-up routine you should insure that your club face, shoulders and hips are aimed directly over this spot.  This should be an automatic part of your set-up routine.

Next is your attitude, the professionals generally consider anything from 120 yards in as a make-able shot.  Think about it, do you see the ball going into the cup when you are 80 to a 100 yards away?  I call it a “Hole in One Mentality”.  It may sound like voodoo, but I assure you, your body will cooperate in helping you to make the best possible swing to achieve this goal when you incorporate it into your thoughts.  You do this on the green, so why not use it from 120 yards in.

The next aspect of scoring well around the green is what is referred to as “touch”.  Touch is the ability to get close to the hole, leaving yourself with a make-able putt.  Touch can be developed with practice. Use a three club system at the practice facility and learn how far a chip will go with a 7, 8,9 or any combination of wedges. Learn your distances in correlation to your back-swing. If my ball is considered 6 o’clock and I swing back to 8 o’clock; how far does it travel?  Now learn those same distances for a 9 o’clock swing and an 11 o’clock swing. When you arrive near the green armed with this knowledge you will perform with touch.

As a long time student of the game I have read my fair share of theory and articles on golf. A few years ago I picked up the Purepoint Golf Short-Game DVD.  Bobby Eldridge finally helped me to develop a repeatable swing for my short game.  His series has now expanded to include  Pitching and Bunker-shot DVD’s as well as written PDF’s so you can study in a variety of ways.  For less than the cost of a single lesson from a Professional you can add a terrific resource to your library. It is currently on sale for the next few days as a bundle package but that will not last for long.  It deserves a serious evaluation and I might add Bobby has a guarantee that is unlike any I have ever seen.  See for yourself.

Hit them Straight and Seldom

Michael Brown

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