20 Minutes of the GREATEST SHORT GAME WISDOM You Will Ever Hear from Padraig Harrington

Padraig Harrington shares 20 minutes of his best short game tips including hitting a basic chip shot, choosing the right club for every shot around the green, flop shots and how to hit a solid bunker shot every time.

Welcome to Golf Channel Academy. I’m your host, Martin Hall. We’re here at Grand Cyprus Golf Club in Orlando, Florida. And I am delighted to be joined by Podrick Harrington. He is a three-time major champion, six-time RDER Cup player, 30 worldwide wins. You don’t do that without a fantastic short game. Great to be with you. Let’s understand how you hit so many great short game shots. Yeah, this has always been the strongest part of my game. Uh, I grew up with no practice range. So, all the practice time I did as a kid was basically around the short game area. To be honest, as a kid, I wouldn’t have known what I was doing. I just got the ball close to the hole. But over the years, I’ve learned a bit from watching my amateur partners in proams. So, we’re just going to really start off by covering the basic chip. Once you get this right, then you can start doing the fancy stuff. So, what I tend to see with a lot of amateurs is they set up reasonable, but as they go to hit the golf ball, they want to get it in the air and they fall back onto their right leg. So, essentially, their center of gravity that you’re stirring them as they’re coming in to hit it is going backwards. If this is going to go backwards, you’re going to hit behind the ground and get that double hit. So, for me, because in this chip shot, you don’t have that much time to transfer your weight. I like to see amateurs set themselves very much on their left leg. So, as you can see, once I set up in my left side, my sternum moves right on top of the ball or even left of the ball. So, watch what happens when I take a practice swing. My practice swing is actually about four or five inches left of the golf ball. Whereas most amateurs as they’re coming in, their practice swing is brushing the grass 8 in behind the ball. If you continually practice like this, you’re never going to get a good contact. Your hands are going to be very active. All sorts of funny things are going to be happening. You might get the knees going if you’re back here. So, you’re going to get a lot of this, even have a fresh air like I just did there. Whereas, if you sit on your left hand side and always make sure your practice swing is left, if you’re chronic, even making sure it’s a foot left of the ball. Once you’re on that left side, sit up there, then you can hit that nice quality strike. So, when you are setting up there, Podrick, how how much weight would you feel you have on your left side there? Would it be 70%? Maybe as much as you can get there. Basically, my heel is off the ground. I’m exaggerating it here. I’ve pushed the ball forward. I’ve pushed my weight forward. I’ve taken my heel off the ground. I’m all the way here. I’m I’m 95% over here as my practice drill on the golf course because I’ve got used to it. I’m reasonably comfortable on the golf course. I’m going to be like 75% over here on the golf course. But I I’ve earned that. I’ve worked hard to get in that position. For most amateurs, set it up as far left as you can. get your practice swing left to the golf ball and then your chipping problems will go away. There is an amount of release of the body. It turns a bit, doesn’t it? It it does, but you don’t have to think about once you’re in this position. It’s going to get out away. Okay. It is going to So, I’m not consciously going, I’ve got to turn because sometimes when people try and turn, the club will get behind and then they’ll have to catch up. So, the basic the basic chip shot, the basic contact, the mistake you see amateurs make, weights too far back. So get the weight forwards. It they can either be too far far back to start off with or what tends to happen is they start in a reasonable position and move back. They don’t have the time to get forward. So they’re hitting from behind it and that means their hands get active and they get this funny sort of hit, all sorts of of lack of control. Whereas if they stay here, everything responds. And you can see it’s a much crisper action once you’re left at the ball. Everything responds to that position sitting on that left hand side. Let’s have one more good one. One more good one. [Music] Very nicely played. Now that’s a great foundation to get us going. And when we come back, a little more sophisticated stuff around the green. It’s one of the best in the business at getting up and down. Don’t go anywhere. The strangest thing ever. I was in the zone. I went out of the zone. And by the time I hit that pit shot, I was actually back in the zone showing off like a 15year-old kid trying to see how much spin I could get. This miracle hold it. You’ve seen everything. I hit it really hard low with a lot of spin. And the whole crowd, they assumed I’d knifed it over the green. was coming in that fast. Oh, that needs to get down quick. And in my head, I was going, “Watch this. Watch this. It’s going to spin. It’s going to spin exactly like a kid would be.” Beautiful. And it did. Spun up to about 560 ft. Baby still with a chance. I won’t say I never looked back because obviously when I hit the T-shot in the first playoff, I never looked back. Podrick Harington has won the Open Championship. [Applause] We’re back with Podrick Harrington. When you won the 2007 Open Championship, you were number one in scrambling up and down 76% of the time for the week. Fantastic. Uh that would involve club selection. Uh so we talked about the basic. Let’s talk about club selection now. Where to land the ball, how to see the shot. Yeah. Once once you’ve become confident at your basic chip shot, most amateurs will ask me, “Well, what club should I be playing? How do I play a chip and run? And where should I be landing it?” Well, straightforward when it comes to what club you’re going to be playing. Essentially, I know this is a rule of thumb. Basically, I chip a nine iron one/ird of the way and it runs 2/3. I chip an eight iron a quarter away and it runs 3/4. I chip a pitching wedge two- fifths and it runs 3 fifths. On a basic green, I chip a sand wedge halfway, a lob wedge twothirds of the way. That gives me a rule of thumb on a flat green normal so that I’m not doing something silly when I’m under pressure. Okay? Obviously, it changes when the greens get firmer and faster. But as a basic rule of thumb, a nine iron one/ird of the way in the air, two/ird of the way running. Okay. Outside of that, then we’re essentially trying to pick a spot to land it on. I will always say, here we are. We’ve got 8 yards of fringe and 5 yards of green. For an amateur, if you can use your putter, always use your putter. So, my first choice, and I you’ll see me do this in tournaments under pressure, especially, I will take the putter out. But there’s one difference between me and amateurs. I’ll have practiced this in my practice rounds so that I understand how much drag there’s going to be on the fringe. Now, we all realize the first couple of feet, like if you’ve only got, say, six feet of fringe and you’re hitting a long put, the ball’s going to be going too fast through through that. So, it’s not going to make any difference. But here we’ve got 8 yards of fringe. So, I do need to have a feel for this. I already have hit a putt, by the way. This is my first effort at this. So, it’s going to drag a little bit. That would be pretty good. Be safe. To be honest, I’d be disappointed with that. And yet, it’s still within that 5 foot radius. And and that’s the beauty of putting. Your margin for error is so much greater with a putter. And this is true. A bad putt is always better than a bad chip. That’s what I was brought up Roma brought up being taught about. And the fact is if I can get it with inside five feet, it’s nearly 100% hit rate once you sort of getting into five four feet. I don’t need to get a chip shot or a putt to within a foot. I just need to make sure I don’t leave it 8 ft away. And essentially, I’m taking the risk of me hitting a bad chip out here and and chipping it to 8 ft, which is only a 50% hit rate on the tour. Well, that’s great and very good advice. Let’s just imagine here though the grass is just a little bit too long to use the putter. What would you do then? Okay. Well, this is an interesting one. I would always try and land the ball on the green that if you can because you’re going to get the most consistent bounce off the green surface. If you have to chip the ball through the rough or through the fringe, you can get a funny bounce. Do do it when you have to, but if you can avoid it, please do. So again, usually I’m picking a club that lands about two paces on to give me room for error that I’m not going to pitch in the fringe and then I’m going to let it run to the hole. But I have a very interesting choice on this particular one here. As we can see here, we have a down slope short of the green and then the green is quite flat for the 15 ft of green. So, I’m going to try and land my ball as close to the end of that slope as I can because if I mis hit it and I land on the down slope, it’s going to kick forward to the exact same place as if I hit a good chip. So, basically, I’ve widened my area h of miss here because of the down slope. So, the key is here, if you have slopes in the green, always pitch the ball at the bottom of a slope. And in modern greens, you have a lot of hollows. So, actually, if you have a hollow, pitch it in the base of the hollow. That way, if you hit it too easy, it’s going to hit the down slope and kick forward. If you hit it too hard, you’re going to hit the up slope and it’s going to stop. Would you would you ever open the face a bit to add a bit of loft? I mean, play it back a bit. Absolutely. It depends more on the lie and the shot I’m trying to play. With a lob wedge, you’re more likely to open up. With a sand wedge and down, you’re just keeping a reasonably square club face. Again, it really is about trying to make sure whatever club you’re hitting, you’re getting a good strike on it. again. See, I’ve just jumped that a little bit short and it’s kicked forward. So, I’m getting the benefit of that down slope there very nicely. So, we’ll hit this a little harder. Now, I’ve landed on the flat. Yeah, I like that one, by the way. But, yeah, I know that one went in and that’s lovely. But the beauty of that shot was my bad shots are still going to be close enough that they’re stone dead. All because I chose the right club. Whereas if somebody picked, which most amateurs will do, they’ll pick the lob wedge, they’ll need to throw it two or three yards onto the green. And if they just miss that strike a little bit, it’s going to come up six feet short. If they just get it a little bit heavy, it’s going to go six feet by. Whereas my shot here, because I have the down slope, I’ve got a good margin for error. And the key with chipping is you’re trying to eliminate the big mistake. You’re always I know people think, “Oh, Harrington’s always trying to chip in.” I’m not. I’m trying to take the best option to eliminate big errors cuz I know if I can get it inside this distance, that’s every bit as good as that really on tour because we’re we’re close to 90% close to 100% from that range. That’s great stuff. That’s certainly going to help a lot of people. Now, when we come back, we’re going to talk about the much higher shot, the flop shot, the one that all you guys on the PJ tour play so well. But at home, it might be tricky. Well, it won’t be when you’ve listened to the Irish Wizard. When we come back, one more. Really own that face. Spank that baby. See? Show it again. Look how sound. Love that sound. Always up on that left hand side. Great. Now hang back. Hang back. Bad. Hang back. Very bad. It’s now time for laser focus presented by Bushnell. Okay, we’re in the rough here and unfortunately there’s no way around the rough. It’s about experience. They say hit 2 in behind the ball in the rough. Couldn’t be further from what you want to do. You always want to try and hit the golf ball clean the exact same way if you’re on a tight fairway. But you got to realize it won’t happen. The rough will get in the way. So if I try and hit 2 in behind, what will end up happening is I actually hit there 6 in behind. Whereas, if I try and hit the golf ball clean like so, you’ll see that mark on the face. I’m guaranteed the grass is going to get in the way. So, I ended up hitting about 2 in behind. But, you must try and hit the golf ball clean. That’s when you know the rough will get in the way. The only thing I would suggest on a rough shot compared to a fairway shot is you should try and keep your your center very stable after you’ve hit the golf ball. That ensures you accelerate. So, it’s nearly like a putt in terms of my head. Watch my head stays there. That makes sure I accelerate through the ball. Okay? But it’s all about experience. Get out there and practice it. You’ll find some lies the ball comes out quick. Some lies the ball comes out particularly heavy. But you must learn that yourself. [Music] Uh that would definitely be a wonderful example of a flop shot right there. Uh I’d love to know how you did it. That was first take. Yeah, flop shots essentially obviously these are highend. So, you know, once you’ve mastered the basics, we’re going to move on to this. So, a couple of things are happening when I’m hitting a flop shot. One, I basically put the club down first and establish how much loft I’m going to put on it. And then I work my body around that. Okay? So, that would be the first thing. So, you can see if I’ve opened up the club face, all of a sudden my feet are going to aim left. basically open up. All rule of thumb is every degree you open the face up, your feet will aim left. So if you have a 30 degree open face, you aim 30 degrees left. That would be the the basic rule of thumb. From there, okay, the swing thought you’ve got to have when it comes to flop shots. And this is the opposite of a golf swing. As long as you can go and then as slow as you can go in the down swing. So as a kid, I would have practiced, well, one I would have practiced with the house windows in front of me. I used to practice over a tree, but essentially what me and my friends would be doing is we’d be trying to take the longest swing and make the shortest flight. I think I should learn to do that in the golf course. You see that jump back? So I you actually think of Fred Couples here. He was always great at the flop shot and it was long and slow then coming down. So we’re trying to actually we don’t decelerate but you actually feel like you’re decelerating. So that’s the exaggeration of it. So now once you’re getting the confidence of that, funny enough, for me to get to the hole, which is only 13 yards away, that’s actually quite a hit for me. I have to really get get into this. You can see how hard I went at that to try and get it there. So I practice slow, whereas when I go to play, then I don’t necessarily think about I think where I’m going, but it gives me the confidence of doing it. As regards to technique, again, the biggest key here is as you open up the club face, your stance will open. But what you see people who struggle with this shot do now that their stance is open, they go out on the outside, which is too much. And then all of a sudden, they they’ve nowhere to go and then they drop it back on the inside. And once they get if you get that motion, you’re going to get this funny sort of hit. This is that was actually nice. wasn’t quite a shank, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen. You’ll see that more in the bunkers. If you go out and then you flop inside, you’re going to drop too much in the inside. So, the key here is set up open, but take it back on your body line, which is actually it’s going to be an in toin swing across the ball. So, in make sure you get left as you’re coming across it. Well, that’s terrific for this shorter one under all sorts of circumstances. Um, obviously we’ve got one that’s a good deal farther there. I think probably Oh, I don’t know. What would you think that is that far? I actually do measure my yardages for these things just to cuz even though I’m at the edge of the green here, I’ve actually got close to a 40 yard shot. So, you sometimes need to remind yourself how far away you are from the hole even though you’re close to green. So, that’s 40 yards. Again, all I’m doing in this situation is I’m actually not going to open up the face as much. I’ve got a a 58 degree wedge. So, a little bit open, a little bit hard, but again, I like the fact this is spinning back. Absolutely. One more good one and then we’re going to talk about where we’re going with the last segment of this show. One more good one, please. Okay. So again, sitting up on my left hand side, little bit open and a nice solid contact. So we’ve talked about the flop shot, we’ve talked about the 40 yard shot. The only place we’ve got left to go is the beach, the sand. I think you know something about that, don’t you? This would be statistically where I’m ranked best on the tour. I think can’t wait for that one. We’re coming right back with Patty in the bunker. [Music] We’re back with a superb bunker shot by the Irishman. Now, you teased that this is perhaps the strongest suit in your game. So, let’s let everybody know how you do it. Yes. Statistically, I’d be best on this would be the one that I do the best in on tour. I’m generally top five proximity. So, first of all, for the amateur, the basic thing like the chip and they’ve got to get all the weight planted on the left side. We do not want any movement back into this side. We want none of this back here. You’re going to hit a foot behind the ball and that you’re never going to be able to shift it out. And that’s why you often see with amateurs, they make a big hard swing in the bunkers because if you’re on your right hand side, you have to make that hard swing to get the ball out. But if you’re on your left hand side, planted up here on the left side, you can sit nicely on it and it’s a nice smooth swing. But you’ve got to stay left like so. Always got to stay on that left hand side. Plant it in there. Again, you’ll even see I don’t put my left I don’t put my right heel on the ground in the back swing at all. So, you set up. I actually take my heel off the ground to make sure I’m sitting up there. Trust it. A little bit heavy that time, but pretty nice. There’s a lot of talk and and not everybody understanded about using the bounce. What would that mean to you, Patty? You know, if you get your body in the right place, the bounce will respond. They are talking about the the back end of the club here. And essentially, when it opens up, it hits in the ground and it stops the club from digging. It makes the sand jump up and the club come back up. I think it will work as long as you’re on your left hand side. Okay. Okay. Once you’re in this side, again, a couple of issues with it. Clearly, once you’re on that side, you’re going to start getting a better contact. So again, if you really want to work that bounce, once you’re sitting over here in the left hand side, just let go with your right hand through impact and the left will be moving underneath and working the bounce. In the last couple of years, you found an a newer way, a better a better way perhaps. Uh I wouldn’t say better, but it it changes it eliminates some of the bad shots that I hit. So essentially for an amateur golfer, all he needs to concentrate is getting on his left side. Yes, work that club underneath. Great if you get to a certain level. But for the better player, you’re really talking sort of five handicap down when they have a problem in the bunker. They open up every degree you open your face, you open your stance. That’s what we were told as kids. They take it back on the outside and then they drop it on the inside and they leave with this heel. That gets shanks and low ones coming out to the right. So the one thing you don’t want to get in a bunker shot is any drop back. So I actually set up the opposite now. I set up closed, take it back on my body plane. I’m not taking it inside. I’m taking on my body plane. It is into it. But I actually then because I’m inside here. I actually then work to come over the top, which is the opposite. So most people are trying to swing on plane across the ball. I’m actually shutting myself down. And in practice, I aim right at the flag and I’ll make myself pull the ball. So, I’m actually coming over the top, eliminating any any want to get underneath here and get that squirly one running out to the right. It’s absolutely fascinating. As I said, I don’t see anybody else doing it. H but for me, it’s worked very nicely. I I get on the course I’ll be very square, but in practice I’ll even be a little shut and I’ll force myself to come over the top and pull it. So when you pull it, you get lots of spin on it as well. That was a superb sound as you hit that one. So as we come in here to finish this show, let me thank Grand Cyprus for hosting us here today. It’s a home of a Golf Channel Academy here in Orlando. Let me thank the three-time major champion for so openly sharing these secrets. And let me thank you for watching. I’ve enjoyed it. I think you’ve enjoyed it.