LEARN FROM THE BEST SHORT GAME ON TOUR

PATRICK REED SHARES SOME SMART TIPS FOR SCORING AROUND THE GREENS

- RON KASPRISKE

Swing coach David Leadbetter likes the nickname Magic Hands for his student Patrick Reed, citing his ability to visualise and create short-game shots that most can’t. It might seem like hyperbole—even blasphemy— to compare Reed’s wizardry to that of the late Seve Ballesteros, perhaps the best short-game player of all time, but there are similarities.

“There’s a conventional wisdom about how to execute these shots, but just like Seve, Patrick does it his own way,” Leadbetter says. “He sees what he wants the ball to do, and then his body and hands make it happen.” Reed says his short-game prowess was borne out of necessity. Decades ago, his full-swing shots could be described as an all-out assault on the golf ball, which left him in some exotic places on the course. Without skill around the greens, his pro career wasn’t going to amount to much.

“The short game is a huge equaliser,” Reed says. “The guys who can save themselves around the greens when their full swings are off are the ones who win golf tournaments.”

Acknowledging that countless hours of practice fine-tuned his short game, Reed says anyone can copy some of the things he does without spending all day chipping and pitching. (He will share his advice on the following pages). If you focus on short-game practice when you do fi nd time, you’ll reap a lot more benefit than hitting a bucket of balls, Reed says. “It’s three-fourths of my practice time,” he says. “The better you get with this area of your game, the easier it will be to turn 5s into 4s, 4s into 3s and 3s into 2s.”

AIM SMALL, MISS SMALL