We have a question from Gene Klefman and it's really good about a number of issues, especially for those of you who have had problems with your spine.
Gene says, “With surgery fusing 6 of the first 7 vertebrae in my spine and a total right shoulder replacement my flexibility became quite limited. I am a solid student of the PPGS. Now my handicap has dropped 3 strokes and continuing to drop. Learning the value of the arm swing and limited to the 3/4 swing has really helped me. It has also taught me how to smooth out my swing when trying to fines the short pitch shots up to the flag. I no longer slam the ball and go way past the flag. The biggest problem is between the ears. For example, learning to read the green and properly identify the proper short club, especially when there is a bank to hit into. I usually come up short because the bank kills the ball and I get no roll. I think maybe going to a bigger short club and playing it back further off the right foot to keep the ball down and get more roll would be the right way to play. What are your comments?'
First I'm going to start off saying I'm really excited to see that Gene has figured out that the shorter backswing is also helping his short game. One of the biggest issues that kills a lot of short game shots, which is probably his issue, is if you over swing on the short game you're going to decel on the forward swing ,which you'll either chunk it or skull it or anything in between.
So shortening your backswing in the long game where you're going to be short and accelerate through works really good on the short game. So that's a great comment from Gene.
Now, about his problem of hitting into banks. Historically, even in myself, as having always been a pretty darn good player — I think within about a year and a half of taking up the game I'd worked myself all the way to scratch — it's amazing how we're still learning, you can learn every day, and you can play a shot a certain way for a long time and you keep getting perplexed with it, like this. I had this problem too.
It always befuddled me of how poor a player I was when I felt my only option was to hit a ball into the bank and knock it up on the green, whereas one of my buddies in high school that played on the team with me, would rather bank a shot than lob it up on the green. He was phenomenal at it. So it's a case of doing enough and practicing it enough to get the touch for it. But there's also another issue.
I finally figured out that many times when we're down below the green, especially if it's a pretty good steep bank, we're in there trying to bang a sand wedge or a pitching wedge into the bank. I finally figured out one day that's too much loft, that's putting too much spin on the ball. You need to probably back off to a nine or eight iron, or even a seven iron if it's really steep. That way it's got less spin and the ball will skip off the bank more. If you're using that more lofted club and the ball is getting a little air time and it's getting some arc in its flight, it's going to hit into the bank and it's very likely the bank will kill it. So if you keep it lower and use a less lofted club, I believe Gene was kind of alluding to that, it's got a chance of skipping.
So first off, play around with the shots. You've got to check the bank to see if it's soft, is it hard, is the grass really thick, is the grass against you or with you. I think if it's growing against you, that's not a good play because the grass will kill it. So you've got to check out the bank and start practicing it enough and figuring out what club and what conditions works the best for you because, again, practice makes perfect. That's one of the best ways to do it.
So try a little bit of less loft, but also check your bank out and I think that will start helping you out.
The Surge!