Short Game - Time To Get Reacquainted

Happy New Year one and all. It hasn't been the greatest start to the year with the course being closed, reduce to nine holes due to water logging or on temporary greens thanks to heavy frosts. As a result I've not played yet this year but have been working hard on my swing. It has also given me a chance to get back on familiar terms with my short game. Now regular followers will know that the short game, particularly the chipping side of things was a huge issue in 2013. I got caught between too many methods and techniques and as a result the head was full of mush. I didn't know what I was trying to achieve or how to get there.

This year will be different. It is the one area that will help my scoring more than anything else and so if I can get it working well I should be able to hit the buffer zone more often even when ball striking isn't that good and when it is working well, should see those cuts starting again and the handicap falling towards single figures.

I have decided that I am going to nail my colours firmly to the Linear Method mast. For the uninitiated this is a method devised by Gary Smith. Gary has 14 years experience of working with England’s top amateur stars as an EGU Technical Coach, working with Tour players including Justin Rose, Chris Wood, Ross Fisher, Danny Willett, Gary Boyd, Ollie Fisher, Richard Finch, David Horsey, Seve Benson, Nick Dougherty, Paul Waring and Gary Wolstenholme.
He is a Golf Monthly UK Top 25 Coach and has been awarded the Advanced Fellow of the PGA for his knowledge and experience within golf. http://garysmithgolf.com/your-game/short-game-focus/

I have posted this link before but it shows clearly how simple the technique is and how it only requires a few simple movements. I had some success in 2012 using this method but at the time when it went AWOL there weren't that many coaches au fait with it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzLzmRPmxJU This has now changed. In essence it's all about using the bounce of the club correctly and gives a much bigger margin of error than the traditional chipping and pitching method with the hands ahead of the ball.

In conjunction with this I am going to be using the short game area at Pachesham Golf Centre (http://www.pacheshamgolf.co.uk/) near Leatherhead. They have a fantastic set up which is open to the public and I have linked up with a young pro called Liam McCrossan who is aware and understands the Linear principles.

This is what Pachesham say about their facility on the website:
"We unashamedly boast we have the best public short game practice facility in the area. In addition to our USGA specification putting green we have two purpose built short game areas with plenty of space for pitching (up to 90 yards), chipping, lob shots, chip and run shots, and green side bunker shots. With these superb facilities our Academy is undoubtedly the best place to come for a lesson to improve all aspects of your short game. The best players in the world work hardest on their short game because they know that 80% of shots dropped are from within 100 yards of the hole.

I have booked (well it was bought for Christmas for me)

‘The Scoring Zone’ Programme

One2One Option - 4 x 1 hour sessions with lesson notes. Define and improve your short game. Wedge analysis and fitting. Video analysis. The first lesson is this Sunday and so we'll see what it brings. I did have a chipping lesson with Liam at the end of November and to my chagrin I've neglected to work on what he has shown me. I was shocking in the last few outings of last year when the chipping gremlins came back to roost. This is what I need to be working towards. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roZ8bkuWRm8 If I can get back to the way I chipped with this method in 2012 and improve and refine it then I will be more than happy. Funnily enough it was a lesson with my normal coach, Rhys ap Iolo on Saturday that re-ignited my enthusiasm for all things short game and also made the decision to go back and stick with the Linear method. We were working on pitching including some horror lies such as bare mud. It would be fair to say it took a while for the penny to drop but a lot of what he was trying to do related to letting the right hand dictate and turn the body. The main difference would seem to be the width of stance and ball position and the fact the Linear method involves a degree more body turn on the way back. Having hit some balls after the lesson and playing about (as Rhys suggested I do) with the set up it became clear there were similarities in terms of angle of attack, and more importantly utilising the bounce. I studied the Linear DVDs I had at home and made a conscious effort to take a trip to the practice ground at Royal Ascot Golf Club yesterday and work on pitching technique and then begin to drill some distance control into it. It may have been a case of running before I could walk! Conditions weren't conducive and a heavy frost and chill breeze meant it was mind over matter early on to focus on my intentions and get to work. Initially I was just hitting shots with the 52 and 58 degree wedges, not too hung up on distance but just trying to use the bounce and brush the ground. The results were satisfactory but I seemed to be taking a divot of varying sizes. It became apparent I wasn't rotating back across the front leg or using the right hand correctly. Once I solved this conundrum I began picking the ball much cleaner and getting a lovely high flight with the ball stopping nice and quickly. I set up some distance markers at 40, 50, 60 and 70 yards using my Sky Caddy GPS device to get a fairly accurate measurement and then spent the next hour trying to get a feel for distances with different clubs whilst ensuring the technique didn't suffer. It is definitely a work in progress but the good ones were really good landing close to the right distance and with a tight dispersion. The bad ones were an ugly fat with a large divot where the swing got out of sync or where I caught it thin by rotating too aggressively. Having only gone back to the method that morning it was a pleasing session. The heavy frost had shut the putting green and so plans to move there to work on the chipping technique was shelved. Instead I had to make do with the partially mown area adjacent to the practice bunker. It was far from perfect but gave me a chance to get back into the groove. I don't really like the wider stance especially on the really short shots and so it is something I need to work on and is a question I need to ask Liam at the weekend. I have fallen back in love with the short game and have my head much clearer about what I am trying to do and how I want to achieve it. It was never my intention to end up with two coaches but with Liam being based at Pachesham which has the ideal facilities it sort of fell into place. It is a long way to go regularly to work on the short game and it isn't feasible to pop there after work, but once every few weeks I can go there and spend a number of hours refining my abilities. In the interim, I am sure Rhys will be on hand to refine and improve and I can keep drilling all the facets of the short game up at Royal Ascot. It is definitely going to be the main focus of attention between now and the start of the main season in March and I am hoping all the tuition is going to give a firm base to build the rest of my game. I am watching the DVD on a regular basis and soaking up as much as I can. I am really fired up again to get this side of the game up and running as soon as I can and if I can rely on the technique, switch off the thinking side of the brain and become focused on target and feel I am certain 2014 will see me have the short game I have wanted and which I'll need once I hit single figures and beyond. It won't be a smooth path, golf never is. However now I have a simplified approach and a mind set fixed on the goal I am certain I can be more than proficient. I can't wait to see the fruits of my labours.