The setup and swing you need to hit perfect pitch shots

Pitching is by far the most misunderstood area of the game. Too many players treat pitching as a short version of long game, rather than an extension of your short game. Once you understand this, it has a huge effect on how you setup and swing as well as how well you can judge distance from 30-80 yards.

If you would like to read more into pitching, head to The Three Releases, page 77, for more!

SO pitching for me is one of the most misunderstood areas of the game and this video is really going to aim to clear that up for you get a lot more understanding about how you should set up and swing to be able to hit those awkward distance between say 30 and 80

Yards that fiddly distance where it’s not a full shot and it’s not a short game Chip Shot so we’re going to get into how you set up how you swing to a to control your distances and actually change your releases a little bit as well to change ball flight so let’s get started

Okay so pitching to begin with I think you got to Define it what it actually is and it is that awkward distance and it isn’t a short green side ship and it isn’t a full swing but you very much have to think of it as part of the short

Game family so it’s the short shots coming out into pitching it’s not long game coming down into pitching so it’s an extension of what we’ve talked about green side so that means really making sure that you create that Pivot Point that runs from the foot through the knee

Hip into shoulder towards your front ear and then from there it’s about rotating your chest around that point so you can see here how my my back foot would barely get off the ground with a good pitching actually and you see all the best pictures of the of the ball in the

World you know they don’t drive through whereas a lot of people who misunderstand pitching they take it from Long game down they’re trying to dial down a long game technique they have way too much hip action way too much drive and look like theyve hit a full shot in

Finish toes all the way down here the foot you’re showing all the spikes on your on your right shoe there okay you’re never going to get any control over ball flight and strike okay you’re going to get lots of heavy shots lots of thin shots so that’s what where you sort

Of understanding needs to needs to begin it’s very much rotating around that point so I’ll just demonstrate a few here I’ve got my 56 Dee tailor made hi toe wedge here I’m going to play some of my standard releases which is a release two for when I play my standard pit

Shot um and we’ll clip some away so we’re going to play the ball position just forward of Center I like to get my elbows and just my triceps and tuck them in a little bit so they’re soft and connected so I really want to get the

Feeling of it’s my chest work and arms working together so I want to get them stuck in there at the dress there grip pressure is nice and light feel like my weight’s left and I’m going to Pivot around and really watch my leg action see so it’s nice and quiet arms are in

Okay I’m not driving away I’m not driven through into a full finish and that’s just massively going to give you a lot more consistency over your strike and strike is the number one thing to get it’s obviously it’s nice to get start talking about how you get distance

Control but unless you’ve got strike you know all those discussions are are pretty pointless really so really work on that heavy feet plant your feet tuck your elbows in a little bit there rotate around and you’ll see how easy it is to get that consistency in the strike okay so

In terms of trap man for those people who like looking at numbers the important number there is smash Factor that’s basically the relationship between the speed of the club head and the speed of the ball and that’s come out there at 1.01 okay so I was 58 mil

Hour on the club P head speed and my um ball speed was was exactly the same so I’m trying to match those numbers up okay and if you can do that that’s really what you’re looking for from a release to pitch up so just in terms of that release two

Pitch I do get asked a lot of questions about this as well the green side release to the soft Landing shot would look like this okay and see that ball really comes off nice and soft you see how the Loft points back at my sort of left shoulder

Area maybe my my face as well if I can cut the wrist nicely and that’s what you want for the green side to allow that ball to spin and land softly if you pitch with that same action you’ll struggle to get any distance it’ll just

Pop up so I can work my body well but that was a green side release it’s a lovely shot but it’s just popped up it hasn’t given me the distance control that I want so the only variation is when you’re pitching with a release to the Sha

Release is exactly the same to the Bel Buckle but you want to feel at the same time there’s a little bit of face rotation so you want to feel like you’re l lining the Leading Edge up with the target it’s not going to be more this way it’s releasing okay and that’s going

To allow you to get more of a square face on the ball allow the face to turn over get the ball launching a little bit lower and getting more distance whilst at the same time still getting that nice release and bounce with the uh with the

Sole so when I pitch you see I want that ball moving maybe a yard right to left and you see a lot of top players when they pitch they do that the ball just moves right to left one yard and that’s what they’re doing they’re allowing the

Club face just to gently rotate through the ball and end up in this position before it goes into the Finish okay so that would be the mid-flight 29 degree launch High spinning there was spinning there about 7 and a half thousand RPM okay and that’s like the standard pit

Shot but the key lesson for you there is the Feet’s been root the feet rooted arms connected to the chest and you’re rotating around around and you can pick and choose your release if you chop my arms off I shouldn’t look any different your difference is how you release the

Clubber case that was the release two stock pitch now sometimes you might have a lie which isn’t as friendly it might be sitting down a little bit might be on a little bit of hard pan and you want to make sure you’re going to get a little

Bit more of that Leading Edge coming in okay so it’s more this way and that’s when you can do a release one it’s all also useful if you’re pitching into the wind or you’ve got a back pin position and you want to skip it up to a back pin

So rather than having the ball just forward of Center you can put it just back of Center put a little bit more sha lean in we’re now going to finish on a release one into there and we’ll see the flight come down bit more divot because we’re

Punching it a bit more so much better into the wind great to that back pin position and you don’t to worry about the LIE cuz pretty much any lie you can still get that Leading Edge into the smash Factor will jump up that’s gone to 1.11 okay because the ball speed

Increases that’s what that’s the byproducts of Leaning the Shar more getting a stronger Loft the ball comes off hotter okay you got to practice both those shots because you need both okay so you need a soft Landing spinny one and then you need that little bit more

Of a driving one as well um there’s an obvious change you can make as well is ADD did that with a 56 and ter it down but if you want it to release out a little bit more get the smash f a little bit higher you can just go to a stronger

LOF so this is a 52 just do the same thing launch is a bit lower okay it’s just going to release a little bit more on the green all depends on what’s in front of you where what the Green Design is like if there any tears

On the green you got to skip it up and something that’s become a little bit of a lost start is going down to something like a 99 and just doing the same thing with a 9 a little release one pitch great for those of you might be a

Little bit lacking in confidence when you pitch the narrow sole of a 99 would will generally make a better contact and The Wider sole with a with a lofted wedge and if you’ve got a a plan of golf course where there’s not too many hazards at the front and maybe the

Summer time and it’s fairly dry you can land that short of the green and let it run up so just play down the grip a little bit ball just back of Center try just connect everything up finish short really simple little shot it will run up the smash Factor has gone to 1.3

There so the ball really came off hot because it’s a much stronger Loft such a simple shot but people don’t seem to do it these days okay but just for the right situation do that now release three pitching isn’t something I would really recommend too much okay the only time I

Would ever do a release three pit shot remember release 3 is there is if I had a tree big tree in front of me and I’ve got to get it up over that tree and carry it a reasonable distance so the key here is not perhaps always going to

Your most lofted club which seemed logical thing to do but the problem of releasing say a 60 that much would be you might get it up over the tree but it won’t really go very far once it gets over it okay so it’s not going to carry the distance so I would

Actually I’ve got the 56 but I really should have get the 52 out here because a stronger Loft like a 52 means I can really release it and hit it higher with more speed and get the distance okay so that’s quite important I think most

People would go for a 60 there but we can do more of a 52 so I’m really going to release this really going to launch it nice and high and there’s the there’s the release 3 that would have get over most trees still carried there 75 yards but the

Land angle was so steep because I released it okay hopefully you don’t have to use that shot too often um but it’s useful one to have just in case you are uh you do have a bit of tree tree problems so there your key points in terms of releases we’ve talked about how

The feet are heavy it’s the chest rotating around the legs the arms are connected we go here into the finish this is the key here not driving the foot up too much okay the chest rotating is what’s bringing the foot up and then we talked about how we can just change

The release a little bit to change ball flight so I’ll now just briefly talk about how you can control distance a little bit but there’s plenty there for you to get it EAS to so distance control until you’ve worked on what I’ve just given you in terms of the actual Foundation the

Setup and the motion of the rotation around there’s no point really working on any distance control because once you get control over your ball flight okay and your smash factor and more importantly than anything just that strike which gives you those two there’s no point talking about distance control

So assuming you’re getting some consistency in strike we can then start thinking about how we get it um people talk about getting clock face system and um I think I think that it could work for some players I prefer to alter my setup which gives me a back swing

Length for free so I get the setup and then every pitch up to me then feels like a full pitch because of what I’ve changed at address so I have an what I call if you read the book you’ll see this I have what I call an A1 an A2 and

An A3 an address one address two address three so address one is one Club bed between the middle of my feet I go down nearly to the bottom of the grip and because I’ve gone down the grip I come in closer to the ball my weight is always left which I’ve already discussed

So that’s still there as the pivot point and if I set up like this and I keep my weight left and I take a back swing that is as far as my left arm will go it will not go any further so almost pulling that shaft and I’m barely

Holding it by the way it just won’t go any further because of the setup constraints that I’ve put into place over the ball I know for me if I can just control my speed obviously speed’s important so I’m concent just making my chest turn nice and smoothly

At an even Pace I know that my 56 will go 30 yards through the air okay from an A1 position right your numbers are going to be different to mine you’ve got to figure out what yours are but these are mine okay so play that pretty pretty perfect and

That’s 30 yards okay now if I want to now hit this a little bit further so I’ve got 50 yards I go to two Club heads my dress two I go middle of the grip I go a bit further away because I’ve gone up the grip my weight is to left I’ve

Now given myself the 9:00 position but having to think about it I can feel that back swing gets sticky there can’t go any further so I don’t need to worry about about having to take my left back i’ left arm back to a certain position I can just let it go

There I can swing through and get that 50 yard carry and then I have an address three which is very simply three Club heads one two three nearly at the top of the grip now bit further away cuz he gone up the grip weight still left now I’m going to

Hit up past 10 okay I’ll be able to feel like can get to that 3/4 position and then I can start getting control that way you can do that of every wedge in the bag if you wish depends how technical you are as a golfer and you can get loads of numbers

For me I quite like just having three numbers I know that if I use the 52 and do the same that’s going to give me another five yards on top of all of those numbers um and then I can easily work between them you know I don’t want

Get too technical but you could just narrow it between a one and a two or you could just change your distance on the grip a little bit to give yourself a bit more control but I think that will really help you distance control for all the golfers who’ve used that that I’ve

Given to over the years it has helped them um I think it takes out the the worry about your length of back swing and your focusing much more about what you’re trying to do this side instead of this side and we all know we play golf

This way don’t we the Target and it gets you more into that so hopefully uh the video’s helped hopefully it’s giving you a bit more understanding about what a pit shot is you can understand how you can use different releases how you can change ball flight and then how you can

Control distance it’s a really coyot game if you focus on this you’d be amazing Ed at how many strokes you can save of your handicap actually pretty quickly so go out there enjoy it and uh let me know you get on