What club do you use for 50-80 yards in?

[Lihu]

Here are some rough stats for my full swing lob wedge (as full as I make it with this club anyways) 60 degree wedge 7 degree bounce hit from a flat lie on 1" thick grass:

Ball set back in my stance by 2 balls: 80 yards +/- 3 yards

Ball centered: 70 yards

Ball set forward in my stance by 3 balls (almost at my lead foot instep): 60 yards

I can reduce any of the yardages by choking up on the club by an inch. This shaves off about 5 yards from each distance on the lob wedge.

If I need 30 to 50 yards, I do the same thing with the ball setup, but use a half swing (A6 to A8 positions), and I lock my wrist.

Closer than 40 yards is usually a chip anyway, since I don't want to risk an errant blade.

The 52 degree is pretty much the same, but up to about 105 yards.

Pretty happy about the swing changes that made this possible.

This ended up working like crap.

The problem is that with the same amount of back swing angle, I can generate +/-10 yards of variation in distance with any partial swing.

I think it has to do with the speed I move my torso relative to my arms, and the amount of pressure on my pectoral and bicep region of my lead arm.

If I let my arms hold back a bit during my downswing and by doing so apply more pressure on this junction, the ball goes further. Counter to this, when I let my arms swing out faster than my torso by ever so slightly and in doing so apply less pressure, the ball goes shorter.

So, how does one gauge the feel to get a "nominal" reading for how the shot is going to feel versus how far the ball will go?

[Hammer 4]

This ended up working like crap.

The problem is that with the same amount of back swing angle, I can generate +/-10 yards of variation in distance with any partial swing.

I think it has to do with the speed I move my torso relative to my arms, and the amount of pressure on my pectoral and bicep region of my lead arm.

If I let my arms hold back a bit during my downswing and by doing so apply more pressure on this junction, the ball goes further. Counter to this, when I let my arms swing out faster than my torso by ever so slightly and in doing so apply less pressure, the ball goes shorter.

So, how does one gauge the feel to get a "nominal" reading for how the shot is going to feel versus how far the ball will go?

Not much of an answer but, I only have a 75 yd marker, and about 20 yards to the left a 100 yd marker. It's hard for me to judge the distance of my 60-04, I know that I can pass the 75, but how much, I don't know. I know for sure I can't hit the 100 yd marker. What I can say is, that IF I swing properly, i.e. with my hands ahead of the club head, and I maintain my tempo, and I place the ball about in the middle of my stance, this is where I get the most distance from solid contact. This range I go kinda sucks for yardage markers, but I get great deals on range balls..lol plus I'm hitting off mats. Sorry for the not so great reply..

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lihu

This ended up working like crap.

The problem is that with the same amount of back swing angle, I can generate +/-10 yards of variation in distance with any partial swing.

I think it has to do with the speed I move my torso relative to my arms, and the amount of pressure on my pectoral and bicep region of my lead arm.

If I let my arms hold back a bit during my downswing and by doing so apply more pressure on this junction, the ball goes further. Counter to this, when I let my arms swing out faster than my torso by ever so slightly and in doing so apply less pressure, the ball goes shorter.

So, how does one gauge the feel to get a "nominal" reading for how the shot is going to feel versus how far the ball will go?

Not much of an answer but, I only have a 75 yd marker, and about 20 yards to the left a 100 yd marker. It's hard for me to judge the distance of my 60-04, I know that I can pass the 75, but how much, I don't know. I know for sure I can't hit the 100 yd marker. What I can say is, that IF I swing properly, i.e. with my hands ahead of the club head, and I maintain my tempo, and I place the ball about in the middle of my stance, this is where I get the most distance from solid contact. This range I go kinda sucks for yardage markers, but I get great deals on range balls..lol plus I'm hitting off mats. Sorry for the not so great reply..

Yeah, and on top of that the partial swings I'm trying to make are even worse. It takes some serious skill to make consistent half swings.

Maybe I just need to do 10,000 A6-A8 drills before I can do partial swings effectively. @mvmac

[Hammer 4]

Yeah, and on top of that the partial swings I'm trying to make are even worse. It takes some serious skill to make consistent half swings.

Maybe I just need to do 10,000 A6-A8 drills before I can do partial swings effectively. @mvmac

IIRC, my 1/2 swings go about 55-60 yds, just a guess, as I have no way to accurately measure my shots..

BTW, I have done about 300 1/2 shots with my 60-04 in the last 2 weeks...

[MS256]

I don't have much of an answer either. I just see it and hit it hard enough to get there. To me it's the same as if I was shooting a basketball from 30 feet and the next one from 20 feet. I don't know how I know how hard to shoot the ball, but I just do. My son and I used to get out in the yard about 70 to 100 yards apart with a ball and our pitching wedges and basically play a game of "catch" for hours and hours. The object always was to hit the ball so the other didn't have to walk anywhere to hit it back.

[jetsknicks1]

I actually found an old, old, Cleveland ladies gap wedge in my buddy's garage. I love it! From 60/70 yards out,it's just a nice full swing and it lands soft. I of course, get a rash of shite from my buddies because it's a ladies club but I just don't care. :-D

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lihu

This ended up working like crap.

The problem is that with the same amount of back swing angle, I can generate +/-10 yards of variation in distance with any partial swing.

I think it has to do with the speed I move my torso relative to my arms, and the amount of pressure on my pectoral and bicep region of my lead arm.

If I let my arms hold back a bit during my downswing and by doing so apply more pressure on this junction, the ball goes further. Counter to this, when I let my arms swing out faster than my torso by ever so slightly and in doing so apply less pressure, the ball goes shorter.

So, how does one gauge the feel to get a "nominal" reading for how the shot is going to feel versus how far the ball will go?

I don't have much of an answer either. I just see it and hit it hard enough to get there.

To me it's the same as if I was shooting a basketball from 30 feet and the next one from 20 feet. I don't know how I know how hard to shoot the ball, but I just do.

My son and I used to get out in the yard about 70 to 100 yards apart with a ball and our pitching wedges and basically play a game of "catch" for hours and hours. The object always was to hit the ball so the other didn't have to walk anywhere to hit it back.

This is a good idea.

[mdl]

This ended up working like crap.

The problem is that with the same amount of back swing angle, I can generate +/-10 yards of variation in distance with any partial swing.

I think it has to do with the speed I move my torso relative to my arms, and the amount of pressure on my pectoral and bicep region of my lead arm.

The 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 method never worked very well for me for exactly this reason.  With my 60˚ I can make a pitch style swing (something similar to ) in a non-ridiculous way (i.e., not trying to smash it from there, not swinging down in slow motion) with the hands to waist high and the club a bit past parallel to the ground and hit the ball between something like 25 and 50 yards.  For shots too far to hit even a slightly elongated a pitch style shot, I do take advantage of some of the other things you mentioned, choking up or putting the ball up in my stance a little and trying to hit a higher, shorter shot.  I've come to system where I have a sort of general "easy" full swing style swing that I can mix with those adjustments that let me hit shots between full 60˚ distance and long pitch style shot distance.  This is fairly reliable at this point, though I've been starting to mix in practice with pitch style shots with longer clubs, like PW-8i, to see if I can have more options that might be more reliable when the situation allows.

I don't have much of an answer either. I just see it and hit it hard enough to get there.

To me it's the same as if I was shooting a basketball from 30 feet and the next one from 20 feet. I don't know how I know how hard to shoot the ball, but I just do.

My son and I used to get out in the yard about 70 to 100 yards apart with a ball and our pitching wedges and basically play a game of "catch" for hours and hours. The object always was to hit the ball so the other didn't have to walk anywhere to hit it back.

My trouble with the 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 swing style distance control has led me to take an approach similar to this.  I've just learned through practice to get pretty good at taking my 60˚, picking a spot in the range I know I can hit a pitch style shot, and just hitting it that far by feel.  In the 20-50 yard range I've gotten pretty good at this.  But there's a major weakness of this approach for me: when I can't see my landing spot.  For uphill shots or when there's a tall bunker lip in the way and I can only see a spot much shorter than I want to fly it and a portion of the flag stick, my distance control is much worse, and I'll often make mistakes either only hitting it to near the crown of the blocking hill/lip or hitting it just past the flag.

In fact I did this twice yesterday.  Was hitting my 60˚ quite well when I could see my landing spot, but twice hitting over a tall lipped bunker I landed it on the near side of the lip and rolled it back into the bunker, once on my 3rd shot on a par 5 and once on my 2nd shot on a short par 4.  Both times I went from thinking good birdie chance to hoping for a sandy par (I hit okay but not excellent bunker shots both times and bogeyed both holes).