Short Game

This Simple Mistake Is Ruining Your Short Game

October 10, 2016

Swing coach Jeff Ritter is here to remind you that golf is played on an arc. What he means is that your clubhead moves away from the target line on the way back, back to the target line at contact, and then away from it again on the way through.

It’s pretty easy to picture that for your full swing, but what about the abbreviated swing you use around the green? Some people have a tendency to lose the arc in their swing when they’re hitting short shots, and end up swinging too straight back and through.

When you stop swinging on an arc, you’re in for a world of trouble. Contact is going to be less solid and you’re going to have issues with direction.

Ritter says a simple drill to get the arc back into your short shots is to grab a wedge and set up next to a wall. Swing back, making sure your clubhead moves away from the wall, come back to the ball with the clubhead getting back to parallel with the wall, and then swing through with the clubhead moving away from the wall again. You can do this by either just taking practice swings, or by actually hitting the ball.

A few reps of this drill will get the arc back into your short game, and improve your consistency.