Titleist Tips: Bridging the Gap Between Chipping and Full Wedges

Your short shots, more than any other phase of the game, requires creativity and a great sense of feel. Many players struggle with their short games because they don’t have a good sense of shot weight - the force that is needed to hit shots of different distances. If you have trouble bridging the gap between your full wedge shots and your short chips, Titleist staff instructor John Kostis has the solution. Follow his drills to develop your feel for hitting the infinite variety of wedge shots from 10 to 100 yards in distance. 1. Start with your top-end distances. ° Hit some full shots with each of your wedges and record your average distances ° Hit some 9 o’clock shots (your backswing stops when your lead arm is parallel with the ground) with the same clubs and record your average distances 2. Now move to your bottom-end chips and pitches. For these shots, you don’t want to focus on exact distances. Instead, the goal is to develop your athletic feel for distance, so that you can respond relatively to short shots of any irregular distance. To build this skill, John recommends practicing with his “Chase the Ball” drill: ° Hit a short chip, any distance ° Hit a second ball, trying to fly the ball just a little farther than the first shot ° Hit a third shot, trying to fly the ball just slightly farther than the second shot ° Keep going until you reach your 9 o’clock swing for that club. Your sense for distance will get more finely tuned as you’re able to hit more balls within the range of your short chip and your 9 o’clock swing ° You can also chase the ball down, starting with your 9 o’clock swing and flying each subsequent shot slightly shorter than the previous one. The Chase the Ball drill is a great way to calibrate your feel for tempo, amount of turn and the acceleration that you need to wedge shots of any distance.