Rule The Short Game!

4 steps to developing consistency and touch around the greens.

- Michael Breed

My first year as a head pro, I gave a clinic one afternoon on chipping. After we finished, a student came up to me and said, “I didn’t like that. You never told us what club to hit on those shots.” Even though I was a novice teacher, I got it right that day. I could have told her what I would do in those spots, but she would have tried to memorise that and not discover it for herself. The right way depends on the golfer - the shots you like, your comfort level in different situations, the clubs you have confidence in. It’s not one size-fits-all. In this article, I’m going to give you a few mechanical keys for playing around the greens, but then encourage you to try different variables that affect the shots you hit - variables that alter trajectory, distance, spin and roll. So it’s part mechanics and part feel. If I gave you only mechanics, you’d be a robot and not very good at reacting to situations on the course. If I said it’s all feel, you’d have no starting point - no structure. My goal is to get you started, then set you on a path to self-discovery. A great short game is not given; it’s learned. Learned by practising a few musts, yes, but mostly through experimentation. Let me put a bow on my story. Months later, the woman came back and said she understood what I was doing. She had developed a system for picking clubs and playing shots. She owned her short game - and so will you.

1 SWING THE HANDLE TO THE HIP