Pitch it close video

Golf Monthly Top 25 coach John Jacobs has some simple tips to improve your chipping technique and help you pitch it close more often.

Pitch it close video

It doesn’t matter whether you are a pro playing out here on tour or an amateur playing in your first club medal – your wedges are your scoring clubs.

From inside 100 yards you should be thinking only about getting your ball as close as possible to the flag.

Pitching is a game of precision, knowing your exact distances and being able to hit the perfect flight lay at the heart of success.

One of the big things that golfers are often told to avoid, especially in the short game, is decelerating through impact.

While this advice is absolutely correct, it often leads to an overly aggressive move through impact, as players attack the ball with a jerky swing.

This will really hamper your distance control. So the way I teach this is to think about maintaining a 30mph clubhead speed.

To do this, you want to be swinging at that pace all the way through the downswing and into the finish.

No sudden acceleration and certainly no deceleration through impact. Keep the speed under control by swinging smoothly throughout the downswing.

This is key to controlling your pitching distances and getting up and down more often from inside 100 yards.

Key tips

• Maintain a 30mph clubhead speed through through impact
• Swing at the same pace all the way through the downswing and into the finish
• No sudden acceleration
• No deceleration through impact
• Swing smoothly throughout the downswing to control the speed

When you have a wedge in your hands, you should be trying to be as direct as possible and get the ball close to the pin.

If you know the course well and you know that there is a backstop five yards behind the flag, try and land the ball on that. You have to consider the green and then figure out the shot.