In this video, top 50 coach John Howells demonstrates the wedge distance triangle - a foolproof, three-part system which is going to help golfers get up and down more often from inside 100 yards. It's an underrated and under-practiced skill but if you can improve your short game from inside this distance, your scores should start to tumble.
Video shot on location at Infinitum Golf Resort, host of the DP World Tour Qualifying School.
Video shot on location at Infinitum Golf Resort, host of the DP World Tour Qualifying School.
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00:00So let's get you better dialed in from inside 100 yards.
00:03We're gonna be looking at something really cool
00:05called the distance wedge triangle.
00:07Let's get into it.
00:20So the distance wedge triangle is made up of three aspects.
00:24The first is centeredness of strike.
00:26The second is making sure you've got
00:29a nice low dynamic loft at impact,
00:32usually less than 15 degrees.
00:34And then the third is altering your swing length
00:38to increase or decrease the amount of clubhead speed
00:41you've got at impact.
00:42All three of those aspects are absolutely critical
00:45to be accurate inside 100 yards.
00:48We've often looked at the third one, swing lengths,
00:50that's been well coached and well documented,
00:53but the first two have often been neglected.
00:55So we're gonna really focus on those.
01:00So number one, centeredness of strike.
01:03What we're trying to do here is make sure
01:05that we hit the ball out of the horizontal center,
01:09i.e. not out of the toe or the heel,
01:11but also out of the vertical center as well,
01:13which means not catching it fat or thin.
01:16In order to do that, we're gonna need to do
01:18a couple of quick things at setup.
01:21I like to see the ball just forward of center
01:23of your stance, left foot turned out,
01:26a little bit of weight favoring your left side,
01:29and maybe even invoke a little bit
01:30of forward shaft lean at address.
01:33We're gonna make a nice centered backswing.
01:35That means that we're not swaying our head way off it
01:38or moving our weight excessively over to the right,
01:41because that's gonna cause us real contact problems
01:44with where we hit the ground.
01:46We're trying to make sure that we hit the ground
01:48either level with or slightly after the golf ball,
01:52just like that.
01:53If we can do that, we're gonna get ball first,
01:56divot second, that nice compressed contact with the ball.
02:01Once we've learned to hit the ground in the right spot,
02:04what I like to do then is do the runway drill,
02:07which is all about trying to make sure
02:08that we land the club in the horizontal position correctly.
02:14So what I like to do is set up this little tram line,
02:17set up to the middle of it here,
02:19and I've given myself a little runway
02:21or a tramway there that I can swing down.
02:25You can see I just hit a little bit too close to me
02:27on that one.
02:28We'll have another go.
02:29Set up those tram lines again.
02:32Just go a little bit further back.
02:38On that one, I landed it a little bit too far away from me.
02:41So this third and final one now,
02:43I should be able to land it exactly on the correct spot.
02:49Perfect, right down the tram lines.
02:52That's gonna give me a really nice opportunity
02:55to hit it exactly out of the center
02:58and also out of the vertical center.
03:00Those are gonna give you really consistent ball speeds
03:03and it's gonna allow that ball to come off
03:05with a controlled amount of spin and launch
03:08to get the ball landing nice and close to the flag.
03:16So the second aspect of the triangle
03:18is having that nice low dynamic loft.
03:21The best players will probably de-loft their wedge shots
03:24around 15 degrees for a distance wedge shot
03:27in this region of 70 yards or so.
03:29What we're trying to do is make sure
03:30that we've got plenty of shaft lean through impact
03:33and that we're delivering that club,
03:35if it was a 58 degree lofted wedge,
03:37I would de-loft this to around 43 at impact.
03:40The reason we want that is it's gonna give us
03:42that nice low launch angle, high spin, plenty of friction.
03:47The ball will grab nice and low on the grooves
03:49and it'll come in and get that nice one hop
03:52and stop type effect when it lands.
03:55So how can we do that?
03:56Well, I like to use the alignment stick drill.
03:58So what you're gonna do is grip the club
04:00with the alignment stick
04:01about halfway down the alignment stick
04:03and just try and take your normal grip,
04:05try and fashion it up
04:06so that you're still holding the stick next to the grip.
04:10And you're gonna have the alignment stick
04:11just outside your left hip.
04:13And what it does is it invokes a nice amount
04:16of forward shaft lean even at address.
04:18We're not looking for that necessarily,
04:20but it helps certainly with the drill.
04:22But what I'm trying to do is make sure
04:23that when I swing through,
04:25I'm not allowing this stick to touch my left rib cage.
04:29If I do, I'm gonna get really bruised on my left rib cage.
04:32So making little shots back and through as a drill,
04:36trying to just brush the ground
04:38with that nice low dynamic loft.
04:41So let's give it a go.
04:42Let's try and hit a shot here.
04:44I've got GC Quad running,
04:46get into my normal setup position.
04:50Good centered backswing as I've said before.
04:53Ball just forward of center,
04:54little bit of weight on my left
04:56and I'm really trying to de-loft the club through impact.
05:03Nice low flying,
05:07distance wedge shot.
05:09GC Quad's there telling me,
05:11I actually de-lofted that there to,
05:14what's it coming up with?
05:15About 7,044 spin and it was de-lofted
05:19to 44 degrees of loft at impact.
05:21So a nice 14 degree de-loft.
05:24That's exactly what we're looking for.
05:25Low flying, a nice spin on the shot.
05:33So the third aspect is dealing with
05:35the different club head speeds
05:37that can control the ball speed
05:39and how far the shot carries.
05:41So how can we easily monitor that?
05:44Well, this is something that's been spoken about a lot
05:46by various different instructors over the years
05:48and it's how to use the clock system in your wedge game.
05:52What we can almost do is imagine
05:54where would our left arm swing to in the backswing?
05:57You could swing your arm, you know,
05:59from down here at address at six o'clock.
06:01We could swing it to sort of 8.30,
06:04maybe 9.30, 10 o'clock,
06:06or indeed all the way up to a full backswing.
06:08Those three different sized backswings
06:11will obviously give you three different club head speeds.
06:14Now, obviously when we're doing this,
06:17you can call it what you want.
06:18You can call it a small swing,
06:20a medium swing, a large swing.
06:22You can call it half, three quarter, full.
06:24It really doesn't matter.
06:25What's important is that it's individual to you
06:28and you know how far each of these shots goes for you.
06:32What I recommend to players is
06:34get the numbers written on the back of your wedge.
06:37Try and see if you can actually practice them at a range,
06:39a top tracer range or a trap man range,
06:42and put them down on the back of your wedge
06:44so that when you pull the club out of your golf bag,
06:47you know exactly what your three swings are.
06:49So I've got a 50 yard shot here.
06:51I know my small 8.30 swing
06:55goes about 46 yards carry.
06:58So let's give it a try.
07:00Again, as I've mentioned,
07:02monitoring my setup,
07:04ball just forward of center,
07:06little bit of weight on my left
07:08and a nice 8.30 backswing.
07:16Little bit left of the pin,
07:17but it's gone the right distance.
07:20So give those three aspects
07:21of the distance wedge triangle a go.
07:24Make sure that you're focusing on centered strikes,
07:26on a nice minus 15 dynamic loft at impact
07:30and get those distance wedges dialed in
07:33with three different backswing lengths.
07:34And you'll watch your proximity to the hole
07:37get way, way better inside a hundred yards.