Make More Birdies - Pitching Tips

Honma Custom Fitting Specialist and PGA Pro Luke Peterken gives his pitching tips so you can make more birdies.

Make More Birdies - Pitching Tips

In the video above, we're joined by Honma Custom Fitting Specialist and PGA Pro Luke Peterken at North Hants Golf Club for some pitching tips so you can make more birdies.

We start by setting up roughly 80-yards away from the green which is a full pitch shot kind of distance. This is the part of the game that many amateurs struggle with as Luke mentioned below...

'A lot of the time amateurs that I'm either coaching or fitting will either have a club in the bag that they just want to hit full shots with, they don't like to make different length swings with one club.

'Whereas when you get down to that 100 yards and in, sometimes it might require a different length swing.'

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Starting with the basic pitch shot Luke went on to talk about the fundamentals and a drill to help you with better ball-striking on your pitch-shots;

'I would say starting point with the posture and set-up, my set-up with a full pitch tends to be quite narrow with the stance but I am making sure everything is aiming slightly left of target-line.

'I like to use a tee that is just cemented into the ground a few inches in front of the golf ball, the idea being you just want to clip that tee after impact and that encourages that slightly steeper angle into the golf ball and more importantly it encourages us to hit the golf ball first, and then turf.

'Quite often we see amateurs tend to try and lift or scoop the ball into the air and the angle of attack becomes too shallow.

'This drill encourages a nice amount of steepness into our delivery.'

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We then went on to discuss the half-pitch shot and its importance;

'Firstly know how far you hit each golf club and more specifically your wedges.

'Then, changing one length of swing while keeping everything else the same as much as I can, is much easier to manage. If I start to introduce different swing speeds at different lengths I am increasing the number of variables which is harder to control.

'I would still be aiming left of target line but my width of stance would be a bit narrower because I don't need to cover as much yardage. I will also limit my stance just to control how far i can swing back and also how much power i can put into it'

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