Swing Length Training

WEBVTT

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This distance wedge video is length of swing training.

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So when it comes to dialing in your distances, there are two big factors, or

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three big factors.

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One is controlling loft, which hopefully you've worked on in the trajectory

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section.

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And then the other two are the length of the swing and kind of the smoothness

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of the force

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or your tempo.

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So for working on length of swing, you either have to go off of fields and body

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positions,

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which case I recommend using video to kind of calibrate and make sure that you

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're actually

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doing it.

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Or I like using some type of visual barrier.

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Sometimes if students have a big trouble, I'll move it in so it's actually a

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physical

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barrier.

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But I've got this far enough away that it's not really going to impact my swing

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.

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What I'm going to target here is more of a visual.

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And now just because of the droop and the wind, I'm going to raise it.

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So it's about belly button height, maybe a touch above that.

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So this will be kind of my baseline target is to swing the club up until I can

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still

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see it out of the corner of my eye.

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So I don't have to move that just a touch closer so I can see it a little bit

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better.

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But I can see it out of the corner of my eye, I don't have to be fixated on it.

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I'm trying to kind of visualize its extension here and make a backswing where I

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get to about

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that point.

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For most golfers, I like to teach three different ones where we're going kind

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of belly button

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height, which would be a little bit below this.

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Chest height, which would be pretty much added or just above it.

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And then all the way up to shoulder height as kind of like your full swing with

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your

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distance wedge.

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The one that I think is the most important is that chest height or just above

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belly button.

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So I've got this kind of at the targeting about that level, kind of just below

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your nipples,

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belly button, chest height kind of somewhere in there.

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That seems to be the length of swing where you get kind of the one hop stop or

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the ball

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typically will stop pretty quickly when it lands.

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The fuller swing, if you have a lot of club head speed, tends to spin back a

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bunch and

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the shorter one has more release.

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Keep that in mind if you need shots that use those, but the ones that tend to

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be the

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most accurate is this chest height.

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So we're going to try and work on that.

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I've got some cones or some pool noodle set out there at 30, 40, 50, 60 yards,

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just to

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kind of help me see where this ball is landing.

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Ideally, you do this on a flat driving range of ours has a little bit of a

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slope here.

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So it's not ideal, but you got to use what you got.

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And if they don't have targets out there and you don't feel safe or it's too

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busy of a

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range, you can always laser some things and just kind of pick a couple of

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different targets.

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There's going to be more of almost like a block training station where we're

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just going

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to work on trying to make the same swing repeatedly until we feel like we've

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got a little bit

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of groove with it and then we're going to vary it by going back and forth

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between these

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three different length swings.

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Okay, so demo time.

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First one we're going to do, first time doing it, I like to do a little bit

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more of a pause.

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So you're going to bring it back to that height, pause, and then swing down and

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through from

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there, and the pause doesn't have to be anything elaborate.

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Like you don't have to hold it there for five or ten seconds.

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It's just enough that you've stopped, checked in, paused and that landed, those

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landed pretty

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close to the same distance.

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We'll say plus or minus two yards is kind of tore, tore goals.

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I give most of my amateurs plus or minus five.

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So if that blue noodle is 50 yards away, maybe my 60 degree wedge is going to

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be 55 or something

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like that on the three quarter shot.

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I'm trying to get it plus or minus five.

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So if I'm targeting 55, then a point or a good shot would be between 50 and 60,

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something

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like that.

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What you'll usually do is once you figure out what are your golden numbers,

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like your

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three quarter with your most lofted wedge, your sand wedge, and then your gap

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wedge,

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those become the numbers that I want you to train the most and those become the

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targets

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that you're going to lay up to either on par fives or if you get in trouble on

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par fours

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or if it's a long par four and you've got to lay up to kind of one of your

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golden numbers.

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I find that if you get really good with certain numbers that'll help you hit it

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close a little

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bit more consistently.

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I remember seeing Dustin Johnson getting interviewed where he was hitting some

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distance wedge

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shots like this and they asked him to hit 50 yards and he kind of looked at

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them sideways

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like, I never hit 50 yards.

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If I have 50 yards, it means it was a bad strategic error.

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They questioned him.

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He said, I like to hit 70 yards.

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I practice that one a lot.

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So that was kind of his more three quarter or, you know, chest height, 60

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degree wedge.

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He was really good at that one.

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I want you to have that confidence for your numbers as well.

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Okay.

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So we did that one.

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Now let's do a shorter one, so now I'm going to go to underneath this.

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So this is going to feel like I bring it up to about belly button height kind

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of there,

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caught that tiny bit fat with the pause drill, but not too bad.

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If I'm making a swing, so I can feel that I'm getting a little slidey on that.

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But let's see if we can clean it up pretty quickly.

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It's always a sign that we're making some good strides there that was better

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hit that

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maybe a little bit harder to avoid.

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I think if that, because I went close to 40 yards in there, so that was pretty

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good.

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Okay.

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So we'll say that we checked off the stop drill for the lower loft at one.

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Now we're going to go all the way up to shoulder for, even though that one was

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harder for me

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today, oftentimes it's the full length pause drill that's the hardest, but this

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pause

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drill working on length of swings helps give you a solid kind of checkpoint

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feedback and

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helps with the overall rhythm.

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So like I said, I really like doing this length swing training with a pause

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drill.

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So now I'm going to take this up all the way up to shoulder height, so I'm

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going to make

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sure I get above this thing in my backswing, or up there pause.

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Like I said, that's usually the hardest one for me to make solid contact on the

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pause

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drill, felt a little tweet there.

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So we'll go up, pause, that was pretty good right there, we'll take a whole

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bunch of

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those.

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Okay.

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So that went closer to my, my full 80 yards or so towards the back of that

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bunker.

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So I got that laser.

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All right.

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So that would be kind of stage one of, of going through pausing at each one.

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And then I'm going to try to do the same game where I'm jumping from different

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length

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swings while doing it in continuous motion.

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If you work on this, you'll get much more comfortable with the length of the

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swing and

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your tempo being independent.

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So your tempo is going to be consistent regardless of the length of swing.

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That's one of the ways, if you control loft, to get really accurate with

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controlling your

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distance with your distance wedge shots.

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Okay.

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Quick demo.

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We got belly button height.

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There we go.

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Next one up to chest height.

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Tiny bit fat, but we'll count that.

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That wasn't, that was probably plus or minus five yards.

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We're going the amateur standards today, not to war.

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All right.

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And then last one all the way up, little high, got to clean the face on those,

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but hit it

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pretty good distance.

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Just see if we can do that one more time.

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I would count that.

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So if you're working on your technique, you can be as tough or as lenient as

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you want.

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I was going for more solid contact, didn't quite control trajectory on that,

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but I think

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part of that is just I need to grab the towel and clean the face, or it might

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have been just

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a tiny bit on the scoopy slide side.

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Let's see if we can do it one more, a little bit better.

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So that was better.

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Goes about the same distance, just feels better for the ego.

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So I recommend working on your different length swings as you're improving your

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loft.

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That will be one of the big factors for controlling your distance control with

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your distance wedges.