The ONLY Way To Strike Your Pitch Shots Every Time - Live Golf Lesson

So I was planning out the video this morning on how to help you improve your pitching from 30 to 80 yards, that really awkward distance. It's not really a full swing, it's not really chipping. How do you strike it every time and how do you control your distance? Well, Leo says, that is my nemesis. I'm really, really struggling. So I thought, well, rather than me actually do the lesson, why don't we just live right now, show Leo how to pitch from this distance? Because Leo's a beginner golfer. If this technique I'm about to share with you works for Leo, I just know it'll work for you. So let's find out. And like, before I get into the video, look, if you're new to the channel, it's one of your first lessons of mine, please consider subscribing. I release videos just like this one every single week to try and help you improve your game. Plus, you never have to remember a thing. Everything we do here, I'll put into a free download or practice guide in the description box below. Let's get started. Cool. Right, Leo, let's find out what yardage we've got. So let's have a quick look. So we've got 52 yards to go to the actual flag. Yeah, it's an awkward yardage. It is. Tell me what you struggle with here. I mean, most of the time, if I'm lucky to have gotten here, it's then my mind going to precision and trying to guide it on. And it can be quite tough, you're spinning at times. It's really inconsistent. Okay. And not really like a fluid swing. I feel like I'm sort of jolting and trying to add, like, especially this distance, 50 yards, I'd be like, right, it's sort of a weird half full swing in my mind. And then, yeah, it might pop over. A lot of people struggle. They don't know whether it's like a chipping action, a full swing action. So I think when you get to this yardage, it's much more down to full swing. You're much closer to a full swing. And that's what we want to be focusing on, right? So let's see you hit a few shots. Sure. See what you've got. So this is definitely more towards full swing mechanics. And then we'll see if we can make some progress. Okay. Okay, I mean, distance-wise, it got there. It's got it. I've got nothing to be afraid of. It got there, okay, okay. That's the first shot of the day. First shot of the day. A little bit heavy. Yeah. That's a good example, isn't it? So first one being a bit thin. Yeah. And then second one, actually going up in the air, but it's caught a bit heavy. It comes off the top of the club and comes up short. So to control distance, the very first thing we need to work on is making sure you've got some solid contact. And we've been doing some good work with your swing, right? And it's very, very similar here. So the first thing, Lee, I think would probably really kind of build your confidence is if you can make solid contact, every single time, right? Now to do that, it's easier than most people realize. You've just got to make sure that the bottom of your swing arc is always ahead of that golf ball. Right, okay. Now on that previous shot, for instance, it was behind the golf ball. Yeah. And on the previous one, it was also behind the golf ball, but now too much and you've thinned it. Right. So we want to get the bottom of your golf swing ahead of the golf ball. Now I want you to just look at my body here and tell me what you notice. Yeah, that way behind, then forward. What have I done? Yeah, shifted your legs and pelvis by the looks of it. Exactly. Yeah. Right, so you can see here, this pelvis is now ahead of the golf ball. So the further this is ahead of the golf ball, the more chance you've got of bottoming out your swing after the golf ball. Sure. And as a by-product, making solid contact. Okay. A simple drill to start with, right? And then we'll work into a proper exercise. So all I'm going to get you to do is get yourself set up here. Ball middle of stance. Important here, shaft lean, forming almost like a straight line between your lead arm and club. Okay. Right? Then what I'm going to get you to do is this. I want you to put, widen your stance a little bit with your right foot and point it outwards. And the idea here is that I'm going to, I'm using that right foot look to do what? Push. Okay. The pelvis forward and leave it there. So you see how my right leg is almost locking out a little bit? Yeah. Now that's going to keep my pelvis forward. If my pelvis is forward, you've seen the advantage look of doing what? Going to keep that bottom of the swing after the golf ball. Sure. From here, I don't want you to just stand still. I'm still going to move and rotate a little bit, yeah? Okay. But I'm now look, almost guaranteeing strike. So that's the first thing we're going to work on is helping you guarantee strike. Keeping that pelvis fixed. Yep. Pivoting over the golf ball. So it's not moving around or falling backwards. Okay, sure. Super, super simple. Right. So you'd say with the pelvis, it's not, I'm moving towards that bit mid swing. No. It's like you're pre-setting it. You're pre-setting it, right. Now in a normal golf swing, in a power swing, where you really have to power, great question by the way, you would naturally want to see that, right? That's going to add power. We don't want that. This is about controlled speed and controlled distance. So we're almost pre-setting it. Sure. So that you just need to do a beautiful pivot back and true. Okay. Yeah. So right foot a bit out. As if I'm locking. Well, yes. Just like you're locking the knee. You feel like you're pushing that pelvis. It's almost like pushing that pelvis slightly further forward. Angle that shaft forward as well. There you go. Beautiful. And then just from there, you're pivoting around there. That's it. Okay. Yeah. There you go. Pause. And you can see here, you're just starting those hands to start to drift back. Behind, yeah. You see that? Yeah, okay. There we go. Keep that lead arm and club forming a lovely straight line. There you go. Okay. That's it. Listen to that sound. Yeah, wow. Way more solid. Head contact. Completely different sound, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. Now, distance control is going to come, but that's a completely different sound, right? You know. So do the same thing again. Make sure there's no flute. Now, the key thing here is this. Make sure as you're doing this, that handle, that shaft lean. Yes, stays a bit forward. Now tell me, what makes this feel a bit awkward? You want to do here. Why are you doing this, do you think? I think it's hoping to get it up more. Right. I always have the vision of really high shot onto the green and trying to make contact under the ball. Exactly right. And I see this a lot with a lot of players. And what you'll see with any great player, I've given you a 60 degree wedge here. Right. Great players will launch that incredibly low. Okay. Now the advantage of using a 60 degree here, a lofted club from 55 yards, is this. It allows us to come beautifully down on the golf ball. So I'm de-lofting the 60. Right. Which gives me solid contact. If you're trying to, if you start, the more you start to kind of add loft and leave those hands back, what are you doing now? Yeah, getting behind. You're going behind again. Sure. So angling it forward. That's why we choose 60, so that it enables us to angle everything forward, lean everything forward, so we can still get enough height to stop it on the green. But the secret here, when you come down on the golf ball, you get back. Right. All right. As well as strike. Okay, cool. So I feel that push. That's it. Pushing that pelvis. Now you're going to pivot around. Lovely. Lovely rhythm, by the way. Lovely rhythm. Get that handle forward. Nice. Yeah, that felt really good. Like I've hit head of the ball, I think. Yeah, exactly. So, and that's the point. The first thing here, all the time, is making sure you've got a motion that guarantees strike each and every single time. Right? Sure. So, a couple more times. Now, what I would say with this one here, is when you're doing this, just be aware that when this foot comes back here, which we're going to bring it back, right? Okay. We keep that next to the, almost like an imaginary wall here. We're not swaying off. Right. We're pivoting on that. That stays on the wall there, and then you come back in. We're not moving into the wall, like we're doing a normal swing. We're pivoting back and pivoting through. We'll start there. Yep. And then there's one more thing I want you to work on, in terms of your arms are just disconnecting a little bit from the body, which is going to affect your consistency. Okay. We'll work on that in a second. Cool. Again, all this is about doing things that are going to control the bottom of your golf swing. Yeah. So imagine that sort of. Yeah. Just imagine that's against the wall. There you go. And you pivot. Yeah. You're holding that against the wall. You're going to pivot. You're not going to, you're not in a sense, it's not rigid, like you're not moving. It's pivoting. Sure. Yeah. There you go. Beautiful. It's going to help guarantee that strike. Love it. Yeah. Nice. Great effort. Now what I like, what you're doing here, Leah, there's a couple of things we need to improve. The strike's not as perfect as I like at the moment. We're going to go into that in a second. But what I do like what you're doing, just come in. I just want to show you. Okay. Just for those watching, because this is obviously not just for yourself, it's for, for those as well. No people out there. So what I like, jump in for a second. What I do like what you're doing, swing back, now pivot. What Leah's doing very well, is as you come through, keep coming through, keep coming through. Can you see here, he's continuing to move this, the shoulders continue to move. This is, look at the left arm and club. We're almost forming a straight line on the way through here. Why that's important is because, what I love about that is because, it enables you then to just let the club flow, and you're completely in control. I see a lot of amateurs, they get here, they get a bit anxious, and they stop. Right, okay, yeah. And that's when this gets flicky. Sure. Right? What you're doing really nicely is, is you're getting the low point here brilliant, and you're continuing to move. But there's one thing that I think, we'll just tidy this up, and help the viewers watching. All you need is a sweater. Right, okay. Preferably a Johnny Orr sweater. Just put this under your arms for a second, right? Yep. Now all I'm gonna do here is this, I don't want your elbows connected to your body here. This is a really old fashioned drill, but I love it, right? Because it's just great in a sense. Now the aim here, is is that, when you do a pivot here, we don't want those arms just slung off the body. Okay. So ultimately, there's a lot of weight there in that head, that you want to swing beautifully free, don't you? Right? We don't be controlling it. So the club's swinging free. Now that's good. There you go. Yeah, it feels pretty good actually. Do you feel that? Yeah. What do you feel? I feel like, my biceps are sort of connected still, but then as a result, my whole body is helping everything move through, quite fluidly. And I can let the arms sort of, I can let the arms go a bit, but this is still feels like I'm in control. Fantastic. Now this is Leo's feels. Yeah. But this is what I love about this. We fix the pivot, by just in a sense, putting a talenter at your arms, your body works out the problem. Well, how do I swing the golf club still? Yeah, sure. And you've just worked it out. Yeah. I'm having to use my bigger muscles here, and coordinate my arms, while still letting this club flow freely, not guide. Right? All right. Cool. Great. Well done. God, you're like a natural on camera. It's the jumper. That's it. Now again, the distance control might not be absolutely spot on to start with, right? It's all about initially the acid, just getting that sensation. Lovely. Felt good. Yeah. So we've got to get more power. Yeah, tiny bit. A little more power, but this is 60 degrees, right? So temptation when you hit a ball short, is just to hit it harder. Yeah. Try and swing faster. Yeah. And that's when the arms start to kind of fly off all the body, right? So what we're gonna do now is this, is we're just gonna swing longer. Okay. So you're not gonna try and hit it any harder. Just imagine the swing going a little bit longer, but doing the same thing. Yeah. And the good thing about this kind of jumper under the arms, it's gonna keep you nice and connected as you do that. Yeah? Yeah. Lovely. Oh, it's gone longer. Longer and longer. There you go, right? We lost it. We closed the face a little bit on that one, but did we get more distance? Definitely. Perfect, right? So we've now got strike. We've now got a bit more distance control by swinging longer, but not harder. Yeah. Right? Cool. Keep going. Just clean that face off, making sure that we haven't got any grass, because too much grass on the face, by the way, it reduces the backspin. Right, okay. It gets the ball popping up a little bit too high. Just imagine the longer swing here, Leo. There you go. That's it. Two seconds. Clean that face. There you go. Yeah, that's already nice. Look at that. Yeah. Beautiful. Take that. And stop it, right? So you've now hit two shots. Now there's one final thing before we finish, right? Because I think you're doing brilliantly well. Thanks. What do you notice about the ground? Where's the ball relative to your feet? Above. Above? Yeah. When the ball, by the way, when the ball, you can take into consideration when you're playing, when the ball is above your feet, the ball wants to go where? Left of target. Right, okay. So the ball is going to want to go left. So you're playing some great swings on there, but with a ball above your feet, you're going to find that that ball is going to go left. Right? Sure. So what do you do? Aim a bit more right. A bit more right? I knew the same thing. Simple as that. That's it. So, you know, we've got stripe, we've got a bit of distance control and connection here. Now what we're doing, we're out in the golf course and we're taking into consideration the wide. Okay, nice. Try and hold it. Yeah, try and hold this one there. And I swear, Leo really is a beginner golfer. This is impressive. I know, yeah. So keep that length up. Pause that, clean the face. That's it. Oh, that was so good. Get in the hole. Oh, we like it. We like it, right. So Leo, you're a superstar. Thank you. We've got to give him a round of applause. Coming on camera last minute. That's really good. No, that's all right. Thank you. Really, really good. So I hope you enjoyed this video. As you can see, look, pitching doesn't need to be something that you fear. Understand what creates solid contact. Pretty straightforward. Once you've done that, you know, create making sure you've got some connection. So that bit, the motion is basically controlled with the bigger muscles and then control the length of the distance control with the length of your golfing. And hopefully we'll have some pretty decent results. Definitely. Like that. I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, give it a thumbs up, maybe share it with a friend. And of course, look, if you're new to the channel, press that subscribe button somewhere around here. If you want to know how to chip or improve your short game, just around the edges of the green instead, click this video right here. But until next week, have a wonderful golfing week.