“Success is actually a short race—a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.”

– Gary Keller, The ONE Thing

I started working on pitching a couple of weeks ago and I’m using a great method I found in a book by Phil Rodgers   It is a pitching idea I think I can use and groove to fix my pitching woes.  I have not practiced enough yet to really own this way of pitching nor make it a habit, but I’ve learned quite a bit about additional problems in my pitching, and something important to consider.  Start with this video of some practicing from yesterday.

First of all, I love the reaction by the camera person!  Secondly, notice I’m dropping my head down, which is going to make me have to compensate with my arms to not hit the ground and stub the pitch like Bill Haas on Saturday.  Haas lost in a playoff that never would have happened if he had not decelerated his club and stubbed it short of the green.   I feel his pain!

I also realized I’m not staring down the blade of grass I want to hit 2″ behind the ball, and not watching leads to a humorous ricochet off a palm tree by hitting it off the hozel, or in the above video off the toe of the sand wedge.

Finally, I noticed a lot of my pitch shots are going left of the flag.  The slightly open stance seems to make me align my club face perpendicular to my open stance.  My club should look slightly open if I’m opening my stance a little.

What does all this mean?  I found a method I like that makes it a LOT easier to repeatably hit decent pitch shots, but it’s never “just one thing”.  If you forget to watch the ball or target a blade of grass for your pitch or a grain of sand during your greenside bunker swing, you’ll not make good contact.  If you dip or sway or have some other issue during your stroke, the best method for pitching won’t mean much.  The following shows that with this method, you can miss a little and still get an ok pitch shot.  You can hear the second pitch was hit a little thin, but it still worked out ok.

“Practice doesn’t make perfect.
Practice reduces the imperfection.”

– Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity