Well, I've been 'fooling around' too....that is, with my pitches
I've been using my
back hand index finger...comes in handy at times
. That is, it is
curled and leaning against the shaft, not completely wrapped around it, so that the shaft settles in the bend of the main nuckle. I use it to push the shaft forward as the club head is hitting the ground/ball (these are little 20-30 foot pitches with my 52-degree) where it is sometimes easy to try and 'hit to easy' and chunk or blade the ball. For me, it has the effect of not throwing the face down and under....by helping to push the shaft forward, imo, it keeps the face angle the same as long as possible. I don't know how to describe my index finger action, except I remind myself to use it to give a little push by forcing it against the shaft as the club is approaching the ground/ball. I'm also concious of not standing the blade up as to hit with the leading edge of the wedge...trying to use the bounce flange. Again, these are short 20-30 ft chips, I barely take any divot on short/tight bermuda fairways, just disturb some of the grass/roots a little.
Even my high school golfer son looks at me like "where did you pull that pitch from?" when I land it within 3 feet of the hole....helps with the 1 putts :-) I keep reminding him that you often do best with the shot you use the most, lol. Had quite a few of those this weekend....but he matched me with some wizardry of his own by holing out for birdie from off the green...twice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigvivec
Hand position for short pitches…
I was fooling around on the practice green this morning before I played and stumbled onto something new…hand positioning for short pitches that made them much easier…previously I set up to every shot with my hands just left of my zipper…I tried putting my hands closer to the inside of my thigh with good results, the middle of my left thigh with great results, and the outside of my left thigh with a revelation…middle of the thigh with the ball positioned middle of an open short pitching stance was very accurate and repeatable, taking a solid divot and contacting the ball first squarely…on the outside of the thigh I got good divots, square contact and by opening and closing the face was able to control spin pretty consistenly with a simple swing and body rotation without depending on flippy hands or big hinging of the wrists which introduces a degree of timing, skipping it in fairly low with a hard check, but able to dig it out of pretty deep rough as well as slap it off hardpan fairly consistently…it was a shot that I had seen watching the Open used quite a bit with lofted wedges, but kept fairly low and still running, no circus flops here…the beauty of the shot was that I was able to take a fairly aggressive short pitching swing ensuring good momentum through impact, keep the ball low, and still only send it about 20 paces with a solid pass thru the ball…this made tricky lies that you need a little more power thru impact to ensure keeping the club on line and digging the ball out much easier to execute, and less apt to be the victim of the dreaded short pitch deceleration through impact…
Just fooling around…
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