May 2008

I had a question from a reader the other day, where he revealed he only carried the pitching wedge that came with his irons and a 60 degree lob wedge – and of course, from there told me all about his problems in scoring range.

I think I’ve touched on this sometime in the last year, but thought I’d revisit the notion that, for most golfers, their set make-up is costing them strokes.

As the carts were staged for a tournament at my club this past weekend, I took some time to look into the bags to see what players were carrying. What I typically saw were 4-5 clubs with covers on them – driver to hybrids, and usually only 1-2 wedges. In my opinion, that is just backwards . . . regardless of what handicap a player has.

Let me try and explain.

It all begins with the driver.

In my experience, most golfers over about a 15 handicap would be better off without one at all. A 3-wood delivers more reliable performance, is straighter and less intimidating. It will leave that high handicap player in the fairway more often, and average distance will be better. At the very least, make sure your driver is not longer than 44”. It will be longer and straighter than what’s on the shelf at 45” plus.

But after that, how many “long clubs” do you really need ? For the average golfer, I’d say not more than 2 clubs to go from your longest RELIABLE iron to your driving club. In that regard, I think the 4-wood is given short shrift. It’s plenty long, lofts the ball higher than a 3, and if you’re that far from the green, probably don’t need to be hitting “at it” anyway. For all but low handicap players, a shot over 190 or so is just to get somewhere around the green.

So, I think almost all golfers would be best served if they carried only two “woods” – a driving club (even if it’s a 2- or 3-wood) and 4 or 5-wood for longer fairway shots.

Hybrids are wonderful.

But few golfers really need more than one. A 19-20 degree hybrid will give you a great option from 175-200, depending on your game. It lofts the ball high, and is easy to hit from tough lies. If you don’t have one – get one. If you have 2-3, consider dropping one.

In your irons, the “modern” set is really a 4-PW or even 5-PW, depending on your length. Again, make sure you have a 15-yard gap between your longest iron and your hybrid. That’s plenty of precision at that distance. So, if you’re carrying not more than two “woods”, a hybrid, and 4-PW in your irons, that’s only ten clubs. The putter makes eleven.

Are you ready to score ?

Now, after making the above mentioned adjustments to your set, you can put three “scoring clubs” in your bag to make sure you can get it on the green and in the hole efficiently when you are inside 100 yards. And those will help you tame any course much better than a bag full of long clubs. If you’ll get a 52, 56 and 60 degree wedge, and spend just a little time with them around the practice green, you’ll always have multiple options when you face any pitch or chip. By selecting the right club, you won’t have to try to manipulate your hands or swing to hit it higher or lower, with more or less spin.

It’s a fact that the simpler and more consistent the technique, the easier this game gets. So, I’d love to hear from all of you as to what your bag make-up is. Please chime in and we’ll publish results.

Click here to take the What’s In My Bag survey

The Wedge Guy Live !

Tune in to the Golf Smarter Podcast on Tuesday, June 3rd and you can listen to a 30 minute interview I did with Fred Greene. We talked about wedges, the short game and lots more.

Not only was it a lot of fun, but it was good practice for me. I’d like for you to listen to the interview and come back here and let me know what you think and what other topics you’d like to “hear” more about.

In my last article I mentioned that I had switched to graphite shafts in my irons as a concession to reducing the shock of impact to my hands. And it certainly has done that, but what I’ve also gained is a few more yards and very significant improvement in feel for working the ball.

I’ve been on this search for the optimum graphite shaft for my irons for some time, and we’re talking about blades (y’all know how I feel about them). For the past ten years, I’ve played the Reid Lockhart blades I designed when I was President of that company. These were among the first to push some mass out toward the toe to make them more forgiving, while not compromising the amount of muscle behind impact that makes blades so devastatingly accurate.

But we’re talking shafts here, so I’ll try to stay on track.

I’ve been through a number of different shafts, with various results, but recently came upon what I think is the finest iron shaft – of any material – I’ve ever played. It’s the new ProForce V2 Constant Weight from my friends at UST. I’ve known many of these guys since my days at Hogan, and they are really onto something here.

“Constant Weight” means that each shaft weighs 94-95 grams, and there is a different shaft for each iron – you don’t cut the tip, thereby reducing weight, to make the shaft shorter for each club.

Let me tell you, my friends, this shaft is superb. The short irons keep their weight and balance and offer great trajectory control. The middle and long irons provide just the right height and offer great forgiveness and feel. I’m just overly impressed with this product.

The one thing you have to be aware of - if you want to experiment with graphite shafted irons, consider it an investment. The V2 shaft is about $35/club, plus assembly cost. And there are a lot more ways to do it wrong than right!

In my opinion, the best right way is to have a qualified independent clubmaker/fitter do it for you. At the risk of sounding negative, I wouldn’t buy a “stock” set of graphite shafted irons from any major brand. Their “bean counters” are too influential in what shaft they buy (low cost) and how they are assembled (fast).

You just will not get the quality or consistency you want in your iron play. But if you are thinking of doing that, insist that the store put your set of irons on a frequency machine to see the consistency first hand. There are no standards in this industry for what is “Regular” and “Stiff” flex, nor for what club-to-club tolerances are allowable. [Mine are built to +/- 2 cpm tolerance.] If the store doesn’t have a frequency machine, make them give you a return guarantee and get to a clubmaker for an analysis before you ever hit a shot with those irons.

So, that’s another of my opinions – high quality graphite shafts in your irons can make a world of difference. One way to experiment with this is to have only one iron reshafted and see how you like it. I’d suggest the 8-iron to start. Once you are sold, you can do the rest of them.

This is kind of a continuation of the Examination of Impact article I wrote previously. But it deals with a different aspect to the “Thin To Win” impact principle.

As I’ve gotten older (I’m 56 now!), I’m noticing soreness in the fingers of my right hand during or after practice sessions or rounds of golf. I suspect it’s arthritis or arthritis-like, but why wouldn’t it be? I’ve spent countless hours in my life hitting hundreds of thousands of golf shots, and that’s a lot of pounding of the clubhead into the turf.

The first concession I made to this was to shift to graphite shafts in all my irons and wedges, and let me tell you, not only was this helpful in reducing impact shock, my shotmaking feel improved dramatically. But graphite shafts in irons is for the next post. Let’s stick with this subject for now.

What I decided is to change my impact so that I began taking shallower divots, or no divots at all on most iron shots. As I’ve begun to do that, I’ve greatly reduced the soreness, and you know what else? I’m hitting better quality iron shots than ever before. Here’s all I did to change my shotmaking.

1 - Move a little further from the ball. I adjusted my ball position at address so that the ball is just a slight bit further away from me. That allows me to swing more around my body, making a slightly flatter swing plane, and delivering the club to the ball on a shallower downward path.

2 - Widen the Swing. My takeaway move is now a little more of a “push back” with minimal hinging of the wrists. I think of getting my left shoulder under my chin and letting the backswing get a little wider.

3 - Rotate the Core! My singular swing thought through impact is to make my body core rotate all the way through, leading the arms, hands, grip and clubhead. This insures a shallow angle of approach to the ball, shallow or no divot, and consistently solid impact.

So, there you have it. If you’re looking for a little less wear and tear on your hands from lots of golf, I strongly suggest you get away from digging huge divots and learn to pick the ball a little more. One of the other advantages of this principle is that your game “travels” better from course to course, various kinds of turf and on wet days.

The next post will be about graphite shafts in irons, so bookmark this site or subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss it.

Last time I dissected spin into six aspects that affect how much a golf shot will have. We discussed the “hardware” side of it – the ball, the grooves and the loft. You can affect these regardless of your swing technique.

We then talked about clubhead speed and angle of approach, and hopefully you’ve at least begun to realize that “hitting down” on the ball is what makes it get airborne and have spin. We’ll talk more about that here.

But what I’ve come to zero in on as a major determinant of spin and the sharpness of your wedge play is the precise quality of the connection of the club and ball at impact. Let’s get down to ground level and examine this, and then I’ll leave you with some fun experimentation.

“Thin to Win” - Haven’t you heard that before ? And haven’t you occasionally hit a shot from the fairway, thinking it was just a little “thin” only to watch it hit the green, take one hop and spin to a stop ? Hmmmmm. How . . . and why, did that happen ?

Well, the truth is, under close examination, a perfectly struck iron shot, particularly with the shorter irons and wedges, is hit “thin” in a way. You’ve heard the term “trap the ball against the turf”, but what does that mean ?

Well, what it doesn’t mean is to try to smother the ball with the clubface by having the hands dramatically ahead of the clubhead at impact, and taking a huge divot. What “trapping” the ball refers to is the physical “pinching” of the ball against the turf with the leading edge of the clubhead so that it then shoots out with spin and a lower trajectory.

On a perfectly struck shot, the leading edge of the clubhead is traveling slightly downward at impact and makes contact with the ball right around its equator. The clubhead pinches the ball into the turf before the clubhead then makes contact with the turf. The effect is similar to pinching a watermelon seed between your fingers until it squirts out with high velocity.

In fact, the clubhead making contact with the turf isn’t really a necessity, if the ball is struck properly. Sometimes you’ll see only a “ball divot” where the ball made a mark on the turf, but the clubhead never actually made contact. That is often what happens on those “thin to win” shots.

So, here’s a drill that I like. Get a bucket of balls and go to the range with only your sand wedge. Play the ball in middle of your stance, but practice “skulling” the ball, making no divot whatsoever. You’ll find the occasional shot takes a great trajectory, goes further, and has lots of spin – you can even see it on the range. This is just a “lab experiment” so that you can learn what top quality contact really feels like.

And then tell all of us your findings, OK ? This dialog could be your most useful this year, so let’s have some fun together.

I get dozens, if not hundreds, of questions like, “How do I get more spin with my wedge shots?”

It’s obvious that too many golfers really don’t understand the dynamics of what makes a golf ball spin, so let me see if I can’t break it down into pieces here for all of you.

First, understand that the amount of spin imparted to the golf ball is affected by six things – the quality of grooves on the face of the wedge, the loft of the wedge, the speed of the clubhead at impact, the path of the clubhead as it approaches the ball, the specific “quality” of impact . . . and the ball itself.

The great thing is that you have control over all these factors, though some are easier to improve than others. Let’s examine each, but in the order of easiest to most difficult.

The Ball - This is one very simple way to improve the spin you get with your wedge shots. Many of the more premium balls feature a softer urethane cover that allows the club to grip the ball better. The harder, and usually less expensive, balls typically have a Surlyn cover which is more durable, but doesn’t allow as much spin. You should experiment with various balls to see which gives you the optimum combination of distance and spin.

The Grooves - There’s a page on this on our new EIDOLON website under “About Wedges”. But very simply, if you are playing a wedge that you’ve had for years, it’s costing you strokes. And if you buy a new wedge that does not have milled grooves, you are wasting your money.

You wouldn’t buy a driver that was advertised to be “up to 20 yards shorter than the competition”, would you? Well, that’s exactly what you are doing when you carry a wedge that does not have the most modern technology in groove design and production.

The Loft of the Wedge - Very simply, your 56* wedge will impart more spin than your pitching or gap wedge, because it has more loft. And your 60* will give you even more. That assumes, of course, that they all have modern milled grooves.

I do know for a fact that an EIDOLON V-SOLE Gap Wedge, for example, will outspin an off-the-shelf sand wedge with cast-in-place grooves. But generally speaking, when you want more spin for a shot, choose a higher lofted wedge.

Now we get into the technique aspects of generating improved spin. Let’s examine these:

Clubhead speed - It’s pretty simple physics, actually. Given all the other parameters the same, the faster the clubhead is moving through impact, the more spin will be generated. That’s one reason why most of us amateurs should not lay up on par fives and long par fours to that awkward 30-70 yard range. Not only is it an in-between swing we probably don’t practice, but you don’t have the clubhead speed at that range to generate optimum spin.

Angle of approach - We’ve read thousands of times that you have to “hit down” on the ball to get spin. Well, that’s true, but can also be misleading. I mean, the ball is sitting on the ground – how would you hit “up” on it anyway?

I contend that’s practically impossible. When you’re hitting practice shots, you want to think of making contact with the ball . . . and then the turf – it’s that simple.

The thought of hitting “down” on the ball causes many amateurs to make an overly steep swing path, which is undesirable.

Just realize that you do not need to “help” your wedge get the ball in the air. We club designers have given it 56-60* of loft to make sure it will get in the air. All you need to do is swing the club and make sure the clubhead is traveling slightly downward at impact. Slightly.

Quality of Impact - In my mind, this is possibly the most important and misunderstood aspect of good wedge play, and is worthy of an entire article. So, think about these other five aspects of spin, and come back in a couple of days and let’s examine impact in detail.

Thanks.

In the post on three putting, I touched on grip pressure, but this is a subject worthy of an entire article, so here goes.

If there is any single core fundamental of putting that applies to EVERYONE, it is that the grip has to be L-I-G-H-T !!!!! I can assure you that there is no possible way to hold your putter too lightly.

I had the opportunity to spend lots of time with Ben Crenshaw when I was running Reid Lockhart, and I was amazed at Ben’s phenomenal sense of touch with the putter. You could actually “see” how lightly he held the putter during the stroke, cradling it like it was soft chocolate (I just thought of that analogy!)

Once, when he was rolling putts (I don’t like to think of “hitting” putts), I stuck a putter grip in the path of Ben’s putter before impact – AND HIS PUTTER COMPLETELY FELL OUT OF HIS HANDS ! I assure you that no amateur holds their putter that gingerly.

The killer for grip pressure with all clubs, but especially with the putter, is the thumb and forefinger, particularly with the lower hand (in a conventional grip).

We do everything with our “pinchers”, so we naturally want to control the putter with the thumb and forefinger. But those are the key to feel, and they can’t do that well if we are squeezing the putter with them. Think of other “feel” activities – throwing darts, tossing coins, handling a needle and thread . . . whatever.

All of them are done with a very light hold on the object.

Now, get your putter and try this drill. Hold the putter as lightly as possible in the last three fingers of both hands, with your thumbs and forefingers completely off the putter grip. Make slow back and forth strokes, concentrating only on the path of the grip, not the putter head.

Now, as lightly as possible, just lay your thumbs down on the top of the grip, keeping your forefinger disengaged. Concentrate on “feeling” the putter move back and through, rather than “making” it go back and through.

Then put down some balls and roll some putts this way, not “trying” to make them, but to feel the ball impact the putter face, and watching it roll. If you have a decent carpet, putt toward the baseboard, but not to a particular spot. The key is to “FEEL” the putter moving, and the ball leaving the face.

I highly recommend working on this for a while. You’ll need to “re-learn” how to hold your putter, and make this your new habit. But when you do, your putting will improve dramatically – I promise.

A month ago, I put up a pair of EIDOLON V-SOLE wedges as a prize for some lucky person who left a comment, as a way to compensate all you readers for a technical glitch with TheWedgeGuy.com.

Well, we got hundreds of comments (entries ) in this “contest”.

I’m happy to announce that Greg Bartz of Webster, Texas was our winner. A new 56 and 60 degree EIDOLON V-SOLE wedge are on the way to Greg.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank all of TheWedgeGuy readers. We have reached over 50,000 readers since we started and hope to add more.

Thanks for the kudos and feedback.

Please let all your golf buddies know that we’re here and are eager to address your questions and concerns about scoring better.

Thanks for all your support !

There is hardly anything more frustrating in this game than to hit a good drive and approach, then 3-jack to put bogey on the card. I always think, “Two shots to cover 400 yards, and then three to finish the last 30-50 feet. What a waste !”

Even the pros three putt occasionally, but most of us amateurs do it way too often. So, let’s examine some things that cause three-putts and figure out how to eliminate most of them, at least with greater frequency.

There are three main causes of three putts, and for most golfers, one of the three is the major nemesis. Which one is yours ?

Missing short second putts. - To avoid three putts, you have to be efficient in converting the second putt of 2-5 feet. Even tour pros don’t make all of them, but if you are missing short putts too often, it is demoralizing. So, if missing short putts is your weakness, here are some things to try:

1. Lighten your grip. We tend to squeeze the putter too tightly when faced with a short putt. Particularly lighten the pressure in your thumbs and forefingers, as that is where tension sets in first. Feel the putter in the last three fingers of each hand.

2. Slow down. Make your practice strokes very s-l-o-w-l-y. This sets up a good tempo – it’s a stroke, not a hit ! I see golfers make these quick back and forth practice strokes – what kind of tempo is that setting up ?

3. Stare down the hole. Your eyes are the key to putting, so pick a small target at the back of the hole (for a straight putt) or on either side (if a little break is to be allowed) and focus intently on that spot.

Bad distance control. - Probably the main cause of 3-jacks is poor distance control on the approach putt. This is a feel thing, so let’s start with the first two tips I outlined above – a light grip and slower tempo. Those are imperative fundamentals to good putting – of any distance.

Then, take some time to really analyze the putt’s probable speed. Is it uphill or down hill ? It helps to walk to the hole and back to get a good feel for the distance.

And one of my favorite “secrets” – have someone tend the flag. Having a person standing beside the hole (I prefer the high side) gives your eyes more feedback for distance than just that obscure little cup.

Finally, make your practice strokes while visualizing the path of the ball tracking toward the hole. Make them while looking at the hole, not at the ball. You are not rehearsing technique, but the speed the putter has to be traveling at impact to roll the ball the correct distance.

Misreading the break. - When you’re playing a course that has large sweeping breaks, it is not hard to miss the hole 6-10 feet either side on a long approach putt. One of my favorite techniques is to analyze the putt from the hole backward. Start with the last ten feet and determine what direction the ball will need to approach the hole from. Then back up another ten to “see” where the ball will need to be in order to get to that spot. Then back up another ten to see how that segment of the putt will break. Once you see the putt in pieces, you can visualize the entire putt and choose your starting line and speed.

Let me know if these tips help you get some three putts off your card and use the Ask Terry button if you have any other golf questions you want answered.