Troubleshooting your common wedge issues

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Welcome back golfers. Hopefully you don't need much of this section, but if you

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do know

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that it's here. So in this section, we're going to cover troubleshooting your

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stock

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finesse wedge shot. So the major issues we're going to look at can be either

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seen from the

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face on view or the down the line view. From the face on view, we can look at

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axis tilt

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sequencing, some shoulder rotation, arm extension changes, radial versus ulnar,

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or sway and

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slide versus turn. Those are kind of going to be your big buckets from the face

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on view.

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And some of these are interrelated you'll see. So oftentimes if you have one

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problem,

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you have a complementary problem that make them sometimes work but create a

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level of

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inconsistency. So from the face on view, if we're looking at axis tilt, you

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want to

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check axis tilt first at impact to see if your upper body is too far back. If

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that's

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the case, then you want to figure out, well, did I set up there? Did I get

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there too much

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there in the backswing? Or did I get there during transition into the downswing

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? So look

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at the timeline of when the axis tilt is developing. That will help you figure

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out the likely

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cause of why you might be doing it. With sequencing, we want to see as we don't

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want

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to see any one particular area really outracing the other. We want everything

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to be moving

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together. So as your lower body and your core turns, you want to see your

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shoulders

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and arms work back down kind of in front of each other. That can be really

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helpful when

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we start struggling with distance control. So with poor sequencing, you can

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still make

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solid contact on a chip shot, but you will have a lot of problems controlling

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distance

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typically. Shoulder rotation. So if you're looking at the more of the constant

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radius

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from the face on view, you want to see the shoulders kind of stay nice and

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stable on

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the way through. And you want to see a little bit of arm rotation in the back

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swing. So typically

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on the way through, the two, the major issues you'll see with the shoulders are

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either that

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lead arm kind of pulling or going, I should actually say lead arm going into

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external,

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which oftentimes means that it didn't go internal in the backswing. But that

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lead arm going into

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more of this retraction or external rotation on the way through, or that trail

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arm kind

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of throwing around your body. In general, it's going to have more of a look or

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feel of

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kind of like that, as opposed to more of a feel of just working out or even

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slightly

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behind your body. And then your pivot being the mechanism for bringing all that

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through.

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Arm extension rates typically work with this, or follow what's happening with

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the shoulder

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rotation. So if you have too much, typically this, it would be the trail arm

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bend on the

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way through and then the trail arm straighten or the lead arm bend a lot on the

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way through.

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But it's typically more from this trail arm. So working on drills where that

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right arm stays

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a little more packed from the elbow through the shoulder can typically help

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with consistency

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of contact and smoothness of acceleration. Radial versus ulnar. So from the

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face on view,

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if you see the club kind of hinging up really quickly like this, which is often

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accompanied

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with it rolling over, that's typically going into radial deviation on the way

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through or

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rehinging the club like this rather than smoothly unhinging. I think of that

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like if I was using

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a hammer, it's like as I was hitting it, I was trying to pull in right at the

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exact timing.

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That timing creates some of the inconsistency and going radial tends to remove

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bounce so

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it can give you more diggy contact. And then lastly as a power source, the

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majority of,

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so we say turn but the majority of the force on these finesse wedge shots

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should be more

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up and down. So kind of loading into that lead foot and then getting more

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extension

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with the turn. So the feeling is a little bit more of an up and down movement

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rather

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than a really big weight shift. If I have my feet wide, I can shift forward

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backward.

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This is not what a good wedge shot feels like. I use the analogy of if I was

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shooting a free

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throw, that would be almost like moving side to side like this. In order to

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help control

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the low point, I need to keep my sternum in line with the golf ball and in

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order to keep

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my sternum more in line with the golf ball, there's going to be a blend of a

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little bit

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of extension with that rotation. So typically when you see too much slide or

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turn, you're

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not have sway or slide I should say, you're not having enough extension. From

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down the

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line, we can look at whether the swing is too much under plane or over plane,

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but that

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usually shows up in one of these pivot problems. We can look at loss of posture

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, so if I'm

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dramatically changing height one way or the other, especially if I'm going too

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far down

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in the backswing, that can create some problems if I don't come up. But the

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bigger problem

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is actually going down on the way through. That usually is accompanied by the

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upper body

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staying more rounded and then the arms kind of throwing away a little bit like

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that creates

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a really big change in the location of the club head. So it makes it a lot

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harder to

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control the depth so it gives me poor ground contact. So the loss of posture

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early extension

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can show up either way, but the really one big one for looking for loss of

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posture is

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more of what kind of diving down in the downswing. And then lastly from down

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the line is looking

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at the amount of rotation. A lot of golfers who struggle with these wedge shots

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kind of

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pull the arms behind and have this arm rotating in. So the elbow ends up

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pointing up kind

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of like this, as opposed to letting it rotate so that it's pointing a little

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bit more out.

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I describe it a little bit more like a barrel roll kind of like that. So these

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are the big

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buckets, but we'll have a couple. You can always look back at the video

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analysis section

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to see what might be going on. And then we got lots of drills here to help you

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solve it.

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So hopefully if you're struggling with one of the big skills, your issue shows

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up here

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and you'll have a system of how to improve upon it.