Getting a Pitch Airborne

Video Transcript

I am going to give you a tip if you have trouble pitching the ball up in the air. The first tip is to make sure you are using your sand wedge, 56-degree or 60-degree; obviously the more lofted the club the easier it is to pitch the ball up in the air. Everyone who has trouble pitching the ball has a common mistake that I see, they do not use the club properly. They use too much of leading edge or the digging part of the club instead of the bouncing part of the club. The reason for this is that as they swing the golf club back, poor pitchers of the golf ball bend their right wrist back and take the golf club back inside. You can see the face is closed, my right wrist is bent back and it is going to tend to dig into the ground. When you swing the golf club back the most important aspect of pitching a golf ball, besides for using a sand wedge, is that you open the clubface and you do it with your right more in the open position as opposed to bent back. You don’t need a lot of wrist cock, but you do need to feel that the right wrist is more in an open position, one that will give you loft when you come into the shot. So if you have trouble pitching the golf ball chances are that you bend your right wrist back and take the club to far back into the inside. Open the right wrist as you go back, not a lot of wrist cock, but keeping the club out in front of you with your right wrist more in an open position will make it so much easier for you to pitch the golf ball up in the air and onto the green. Open that right wrist and just let the club slide underneath the ball.

Hank Haney
Hank Haney Golf Ranch
2791 S. Stemmons Freeway
Lewisville, TX 75067
Tel: 972-315-5300

Hank Haney is the instructor to PGA Tour Pros Tiger Woods and Mark O'Meara. He is listed as one of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Teachers and Golf Digest's #4 instructor in the world.

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