Pitching Theory

Video Transcript

I’m sure if you ask most golfers what percentage of their time they should spend practicing they would say something like one-third the full swing, one-third the short game and one-third putting. But who really does that? Mostly only your Tour Pros. Most amateur golfers spend nearly all of their time practicing the full swing, so when it comes to a short shot like the pitch their coordination system really only understands the full swing, so it might look something like this when you have a 30-yard pitch. The set up to the ball and make a huge backswing, and then their brain says ‘this is way too much power’ so then they decelerate on the downswing and stop on the shot as they try to harness it and get some control over it. The key in pitching is to make a longer follow-through than backswing. Now that is hard to do if all you have ever done in practice is make a full backswing. So it’s best to start with the little pitches first of all. Take your hands back to thigh high then through to waist high, that would mean that your follow-through is longer than you backswing so you have an accelerating stroke which is much more likely to create solid contact. If I take the club back a little bit further now, take it back to waist high and through to chest high, I will come up with a longer shot. I look like I am hitting these shots aggressively but the ball won’t fly very far. The key to solid contact in pitching is to make a longer follow-through than backswing. Try that, it really works.

Steven  Bann
385 Centre Dandenong Road
Heatherton
Victoria Australia 3202
Tel: 61 3 9558 3688

Steven Bann is director of the Pure Golf Academy in Australia and instructor to PGA Tour Pros Stuart Appleby, Robert Allenby, and K.J. Choi.

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