Pitching from Tight Lies - Quick Pitching Tip to Improve Your Pitch Shots

[mvmac]

Simple tip to help your pitching, especially off tight lies.

For more details on pitching technique....

[boogielicious]

Simple tip to help your pitching, especially off tight lies.

For more details on pitching technique....

Thanks Mike.

[saevel25]

Simple tip to help your pitching, especially off tight lies.

For more details on pitching technique....

Excellent video, looks to be specifically made for me since I like to do the drag the hands forward, fear the ground and blade the ball technique.

When I get my mind around brushing the ground and striving to think about doing that, over striking the ball then I hit some good shots.

[David in FL]

Nicely demonstrated, Mike. For us mere mortals, I would NOT recommend practicing pitches on the practice green of your local course however! ;-)

[iacas]

Here's how I recommend you practice pitch shots once you get "reasonably good" at them.

1. Find a very, very hard surface, though one that won't scratch your club. Maybe you can lay a piece of wood laminate over a concrete floor or a thin rug or something over your paved driveway or something.
2. Hit pitch shots off that.
3. Simply let the swing happen. If you just swish back and forth, you'll probably just bump the ground slightly every time, even on the backswing.
4. Let that happen on the full swing.
5. On the course, since you've practiced off basically concrete, every pitch shot will look easy to you. Even the tightest, firmest of lies.

[georgep]

That does make it look like a piece of cake. Like lots of others, I tend to get a little too tense over the short shots and try too hard to get the blade on the ball (hands forward), forgetting that there's bounce on the club for a reason.  Brush, brush, brush... I like it. Thanks for the video, Mike!

[Wanzo]

@mvmac It looks like you opened the face a little in the video to expose the bounce more, yes?  Do you open your stance a little?  this is a shot I really need to practice and I look forward to trying the recommendations Erik gave.  I have a tendency to really dig and hit the shot that way.

[Golfingdad]

2 minutes ago, Wanzo said:

@mvmac It looks like you opened the face a little in the video to expose the bounce more, yes?  Do you open your stance a little?  this is a shot I really need to practice and I look forward to trying the recommendations Erik gave.  I have a tendency to really dig and hit the shot that way.

@Wanzo, not speaking for Mike, although I did learn my pitching from him and Erik, I don't need to open the face to activate the bounce.  I will open the face some if I want to try and hit it higher and softer or if I'm in the bunker, but most of the time it's pretty square.  The ball a bit forward and the hands a bit back, and the pivot, is what activates the bounce.

Also, here's another great thread about pitching (though not exclusive to tight lies, it's still the same concept): 

 

[iacas]

Opening your stance effectively moves the ball back in your stance so I generally don't support that.

[Slowcelica]

On 6/5/2015 at 7:14 AM, iacas said:

Here's how I recommend you practice pitch shots once you get "reasonably good" at them.

 

1. Find a very, very hard surface, though one that won't scratch your club. Maybe you can lay a piece of wood laminate over a concrete floor or a thin rug or something over your paved driveway or something.
2. Hit pitch shots off that.
3. Simply let the swing happen. If you just swish back and forth, you'll probably just bump the ground slightly every time, even on the backswing.
4. Let that happen on the full swing.
5. On the course, since you've practiced off basically concrete, every pitch shot will look easy to you. Even the tightest, firmest of lies.

I'm going to give this a shot this year, thanks!

The shot I have the most trouble with is the deep rough shot where the balk I sitting up in the grass. My club seems to just go straight under the ball and Thd ball either goes a few feet or it ends up way short. Any tips on how to hit and practice these?

[natureboy]

As you look at your wedge in setup, is it soled flat or is there some toe-up?

Does the apparent lie differ from your full swing setup?

[Josh90]

On 6/5/2015 at 7:14 AM, iacas said:

Here's how I recommend you practice pitch shots once you get "reasonably good" at them.

1. Find a very, very hard surface, though one that won't scratch your club. Maybe you can lay a piece of wood laminate over a concrete floor or a thin rug or something over your paved driveway or something.
2. Hit pitch shots off that.
3. Simply let the swing happen. If you just swish back and forth, you'll probably just bump the ground slightly every time, even on the backswing.
4. Let that happen on the full swing.
5. On the course, since you've practiced off basically concrete, every pitch shot will look easy to you. Even the tightest, firmest of lies.

I've been practising my pitching off of a practice mat and gotten fairly decent at it with the technique mvmac is describing but lately I've been having a problem with blading it about 45 degrees to the right and I can't figure it out. It's almost like a case of the yips. I'll hit 40 or 50 nice shots then out of nowhere it happens and once it starts it's impossible to stop. Very frustrating!!! I've spent countless hours getting this technique down packed and then this started happening about 2 weeks ago and I have no idea how to fix it.

[boogielicious]

11 hours ago, Josh90 said:

I've been practising my pitching off of a practice mat and gotten fairly decent at it with the technique mvmac is describing but lately I've been having a problem with blading it about 45 degrees to the right and I can't figure it out. It's almost like a case of the yips. I'll hit 40 or 50 nice shots then out of nowhere it happens and once it starts it's impossible to stop. Very frustrating!!! I've spent countless hours getting this technique down packed and then this started happening about 2 weeks ago and I have no idea how to fix it.

Could be just a random shank. Sometimes, if I am doing repetitive work, my set up gets a bit closer to the ball. I will change what I am doing then come back to it. You can try to put a club or line down at your feet to keep the distance constant.

[Josh90]

26 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Could be just a random shank. Sometimes, if I am doing repetitive work, my set up gets a bit closer to the ball. I will change what I am doing then come back to it. You can try to put a club or line down at your feet to keep the distance constant.

I went back out last night and hit about 50 in a row of perfect shots so I don't get it lol. I swear its a mental thing with me, once it happens i cant stop it from happening again and everything normally goes downhill from there. And I haven't filmed it but when it happens it feels and looks  like I'm blading  it straight off the edge of the toe. Could that be why it goes right or do all shanks normally go that way?

[DaveP043]

4 hours ago, Josh90 said:

 And I haven't filmed it but when it happens it feels and looks  like I'm blading  it straight off the edge of the toe. Could that be why it goes right or do all shanks normally go that way?

I can't guess why you're having the problem, but I do want to clarify a little terminology.  A bladed shot off the toe is hit on a completely different spot on the club than a shank.  The first is, as you say, off the outer end of the club, the toe.  A shank, on the other hand, is contacted at the very inner (close to the body) side of the clubface, so that contact is at least partially on the hosel.  Both shots go to the right, but they're hit on different spots on the club.  Since the contact points are so different, the causes are likely to be different too.