Why Your 60° Wedge Isn’t Always The Play….

Why Your 60° Wedge Isn’t Always The Play….

Hey lads, we’re back with another training with the lads. This time we’re going to uh speak specifically just on chipping drills. [Music] Now, we have some of the lads here um that are going to demonstrate the the chipping drills. But the first drill that I would actually like to talk about is called a four club drill. Uh it’s a 60, 56, 52, and an 8 iron. And what you essentially do is you have four balls. You chip from the same location with using the 60, 56, 52 and 8 iron and you go to one hole. And the premise behind the four club drill is that sometimes using a 60 is not the answer. We, you know, on even us on tour, we use 60 a lot. Um, I think understanding that it’s okay to use a 56 or a 52 or an 8 iron sometimes is is okay. And we want to to learn to use those clubs and utilize those clubs so that you have more options when you play so that you can get up and down a lot more. So, we’re going to go along with Brucey. Um he’s got a shot down this hill here. Um going up to four pin. Okay, Brucey. Ready, lad? I’m ready. Okay, this is the first shot. Now, uh Talon, if you want to come across here and you can look back up. We have a chip shot that goes up a hill and has about five paces from the fringe to the the cup. Now, Bruce has four uh balls here. He’s got his What? What club do you have there, Bruce? 60. Okay. And you’re going to start with 60 and work your way down to to an eight iron. I’ll do that. Okay. So, he’s going to go 60, 56, uh, 52, and an 8 iron. We’re going to see how he plays those shots and then we’re going to determine and he’s going to talk about what club he really liked the most. So, the next time he’s in a position like this, he may not use a 60 or he may use a 60. So, or a different club. So, I’ll let let’s uh watch him hit some shots and then go from there. 60° little tea grind with my Vokei. This looks like uh quite an easy shot landing it on the green and see how I go. Okay, solid. Mish hit it a little bit, but still work. So that’s nice. 56 now. I got a 54. I go 60 then a 54. Why do you have uh Do you don’t have a I got a 52. I split the 56 typical sand wedge and a 52 gap wedge. I got a 54 degree. So I’ll use this. Now, this one seems a little more difficult for the shot only cuz my landing spot with this is on the edge of the green. So, it doesn’t give myself a lot of room for error and I feel like I have to manipulate it one way or the other. But I’ll try and hit a higher 54 degree and land it just on a little bit. Not too bad. Pretty solid. Yeah. Might be misreading it a little bit. I hit that really nice. Uh, okay. Next shot is the pitching wedge. I can land this one a little short of the green. Bump it up. See how I go. I wouldn’t typically use that shot, but that was that was really easy and it’s probably my closest shot so far. I would never hit that in a um in a round of golf, but it was probably the easiest one so far. And now I got to the eight iron. Similar shot. Just need to pick my landing spot with this which seems to be just here. Feel like these got a good chance of hauling it. Right. More run towards should be. Okay. See how I go. I’m not familiar with that shot. Okay. So, out of those four shots, what shot did you love the most? Just rank them and then we can talk about it a little bit more. I was most impressed with the pitching witch. Most impressed because you find that it was the easiest shot to play. Yeah, it was the easiest. Yeah. Okay. Even though I wasn’t familiar with it, I didn’t feel very good over it because I’m I don’t usually do it. Yeah. But cuz I just see 60 there all day. Yeah. Well, and typically in the past like and like we were saying before that when you sometimes we handcuff ourselves to the point where we only like to use one club and that’s fine. you know, like if you’re confident and you’ve chipped a million chips with the 60, sometimes you you that’s just what you’re confident in. And there’s no, you know, right or wrong answer. The the whole premise behind this four club drill is to really understand that you have other options. And the good thing about this drill is that it opens up the creative side of your brain where you have to see and visualize different flights. You have to visualize the bounces and roll on the green and it comes out with different trajectories and spin. So, like we we we were looking at before, I would say that he was the most uncomfortable with the 56 just because the first kind of words that came out of his mouth, he’s like, “Ah, I kind of he I don’t have a lot of, you know, room for error.” Um, he did play a phenomenal shot there. So, we have three really close ones. Probably the closest one is the pitching wage. Uh, he surprised himself with the pitching wedge. He actually thought that the probably most likely was the easiest and then obviously the eight iron is the worst. So, you know, looking at that now going forward is that not only does he have a 60 that is probably the easiest shot for him to play because I would play a 60 here as well, but if he wanted to have another option where he could get something rolling towards the the pin with a little bit more roll, the pitching wedge might be a better answer. he might choose the 56 last or the 89 last. But uh that’s the the reason behind why we do this drill. Not only to understand that we can uh find potentially a better club that you can be a little bit more comfortable with, but also work on the creative side of your short game as well. So we’ve got Bat over there and we’re going to have him do do one as well. Rick, we have Bat here for the for the second shot of the four club drill. We uh we got about 20 yards and it’s relatively flat. We got a lot of room to work with. He has about six, seven paces before he gets onto the green and then another 10 to 12 paces of room from the edge of the green. The only thing here that’s a little bit different is that about four to five paces there’s a ridge that goes up and into that pin location. So, we’re going to be going back towards here. He’s going to start with 60, work his like we did with Brucey, work his way through the the four shots, and then we’re going to discuss it and then go from there. Okay, I got my 60. I’m basically playing a it’s a simple or a basic chip shot, trying to land it just below the slope there. There’s a little bit of a a slope there. One bounce and then skip up on top of the slope and then just kind of roll out nicely to the cup. Couple of practice my practice swings. I’m just trying to visualize and see the ball flying to my spot. Get in there. Nice. Well done. All right. Uh 56 56y. Okay. So now with the 56, my spot is going to be about two paces or a pace short of the slope. Second bounce on the slope. Check. And then roll out to the pin. Couple of practice strokes. I’m trying to see my flight. Nice bat. Well done. Nice chip there. 52 now. 52. Again, I’m going to bring that landing spot back towards me a little bit more. It’s probably probably 10 ft on the putting surface and then kind of just trundling a little bit more along the ground here. This one practice stroke. Same thing. Trying to visualize to my spot. Okay, good shot there again. And then the eight iron. The eight iron. I’m almost landing this only just on the green. And then it’s going to get to the slope and just roll a little left to right here. four very good shots. So, if you were ranking them from 60 all the way to 8 iron, what would you say is the easiest to the hardest shot that you would say? I mean, on that, the eight iron was the easiest shot. Um, but how did that make you feel? Did it did it feel easy or did you feel like you had to think about it a little bit more? I thought about a lot less. A lot less with an eight iron. Yes. So, if you were in this situation because you hit a great you hit four great shots, would you choose an eight iron? No, you would always choose a 60 cuz you you’re right. Out of habit, I would just choose 60 unend. So, there’s nothing wrong, like I said before, there’s nothing wrong with choosing 60 all the time. If you are if you’ve chipped with a 60 your whole life and that’s what you know and that’s what gives you the most confidence, great. 60 is perfect. Um the great thing about once again about this drill is he’s opened his eyes to an eight iron. Um and the other clubs too because as you just watched um he hit four great chips. Um and there’s a chance that he may if he’s not feeling comfortable with the 60 or something’s not right, he can he’s got three other options that he can choose from. So, this is why it’s so important to try this and and kind of utilize this drill is to to not only once again work on the creative side of things, but he’s just hit an eight iron that has run up to the pin. It was like a putt really. It was essentially like a long lag putt. Did it feel like that? Yeah, it really did. Simple. Very simple. Very, very simple. So, that’s that’s another good thing. So, we’re going to get rough in here now and we’re going to work on the third shot. And he’s our third uh third one. What I didn’t mention that I want to mention is that in the last when Bat was going through each shot because he’s using a 60 5652 and an 8 iron he was talking through his shots um kind of letting you guys know what he was going to do which is a good thing because what that is doing is it’s actually telling him a story. He’s trying to go, hey, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to land it here. It’s going to bounce up, do this, roll around to the hole. And what that is telling him in his brain is it’s giving him a story and something to visualize on. And then that way he can go in and execute the shot. So that’s one thing that I did forget to talk about, but now we’re here with Rough and we’re on the edge of the green, which the first two shots with Brucey kind of up to a uh like a little plateau. Uh Ricker had a long shot that you know had you know a decent amount of run up to the flag. This one rough has a 60. And if we come around here Talon we have a very very long way to the hole. There is in this ridge here there is a ridge here or a spine that kind of goes e either way and then it kind of goes down and back up. So this is going to be a good test to see what you know club he will like best. I know most people will choose 60 and like I said before that’s totally fine. Um but he might like using a lowerended club or lower degree club just because it might get a little bit more roll. So let’s uh leave it to rough. You could also putt this probably. You could as well. Yeah. But for this sake yeah we’re just doing a uh a full club. All right. Uh first shot is with 60 which I honestly don’t think is the club here for this shot but we’ll find out. Is it because of the thin grass or is it just because you have to land it so far? Yeah. Like I just feels more work. Gotcha. Yeah. Gotcha. Pretty well played, right? Yeah. Clipped it nice. Just that’s why I kind of thought it might not be 60 cuz I’m kind of landing it over and then on a down slope and then it’s got some check. But we’ll I mean we’ll see. Yeah. What do we need next? 56. I’m interested to hear what you would use off this, but I most likely use 60. I’m one of those guys that uses 60 everywhere, unfortunately. But I do use other clubs. Easy, easy, easy. Okay. 52. Just kind of got onto the down slope there. Now, this is kind of the club that I would use. 52. It looks like a 52 to me. Like that’s the f if I’m not going to putt this, the first club that comes to mind here is 52 because I can land it more on the flat here and then get it rolling like a putt. Yes. As opposed to the other side of that slope. Gotcha. I blated it. It’s going to work. Probably one of the best ones out out of the Well, that’s kind of why I thought it was that club cuz I had a bit more margin for error. Okay. That eight iron. Always sneaky good. The eight iron. Sneak. Always sneaky good. So, okay. Rank from 60 to 8 IR. What was the easiest to hardest? I’m going to say 52 felt the most comfortable. Y but the 8 iron was probably the easiest honestly because I only needed to hit 8 there and then it just rolled the rest of the way. I think 56 was the trickiest cuz it was that middle ground of hitting the down slope and going too far but hitting the up slope and going too short. Uh and then 60 was the third because I felt like you can be a little bit aggressive with 60 knowing that if I fly a little too far I’ll have some check. Yeah. So that’s kind of how I see it. Yeah. So, with that being said, we’ve kind of we understand that it’s not always 60. Um, and going back to it again, it’s okay to hit 60 anyway. Like, there’s there’s no right or wrong. It’s just what makes you feel comfortable, you know, at the end of the day because we’re trying to get the ball either in the hole or as close as possible to save your shots. So, can I give you one? What do you want? Four shots for you to play. Yeah. I don’t care. I wanted you to go down the slope there to that one little peninsula. So, like a couple where you’re flying it up and then a couple banks. But getting back to it really quick, the he was surprised by the 52 because he he said that he that was the one that he was going to uh would probably find the easiest. He didn’t hit a great shot like contactwise, but it was probably the closest to the to the hole, which means that it made him feel a lot more comfortable. It made him feel a lot more confident in the actual choice that he was going to why he was using that. And that even with that missit, it gave him more margin for error. And that’s why it probably pulled up uh the closest. So once again, we’re like we’re looking and we’re trying to find different ways of practicing. A good way to utilize this drill is to use the four clubs and then you’re trying to get a total of 12 ft. That means you’re averaging 3 ft on every shot. If you can do that, that is very, very, very good. So that’s something that you got to strive towards. if you can get 12 feet and under on this drill. And you can just kind of do this like off and on during the week um to make yourself, you know, a better chipper or a more creative chipper. So, let me go get my clubs. This is a uh very interesting one because we are probably four to 5 ft below uh the actual green surface here. Um, this is an interesting one that I’ll probably just take you through each shot. But as you come around here, Talon, that when you watch uh the between the 60, 56, 52, and 8 iron, you’ll see that this is kind of a bank shot that we some people can struggle with, but it it’s all in the flight control and what type of club you use that will generate enough, you know, bounce forward and run on the greens. But I’m going to start with 60. I’m going to probably play this higher but with a little a little bit of spin. Um this is probably what I would play with um out in a tournament. Very rarely will I kind of in this scenario bank it in there. But um because it is soft, I can I know that I can get underneath it and hit a little bit higher and get some spin on it. So, just slightly mishit it, which is fine. Just got it on top. It’s short. So, okay, that was more execution there. Uh, we got 56. Now, if I take you up here, the the difference between 60 and the way that 56 52s land into the hill, 60 will essentially kind of land into something like this. it’ll bounce up kind of high and typically it it’s going to kind of have a little bit of check on it and won’t run. So, if the pin was here, it was it’s definitely a bankshot 60 into the hill. Now that it’s a little bit further up, I can probably bang a little 56 or 52 into the slope knowing that once it lands, a 56 is going to kind of have this little trundle towards it. So, we want to make sure that we get enough energy into the shot where we go bank. And I know once we get that first initial skid up it it up the hill, it’s going to roll on there pretty good. So, just kind of like that. And to be honest, the 52 might actually work out a little bit better. So 52 next cuz I think the 52 is going to just come in a little bit hotter. It’s going to have a little bit more roll on it, too. Like that more. So, okay. So, we got 56 and 52 are 4 ft just short. Um 60 is 7 ft short. Now, granted, what you can’t really see over there is that there’s a ridge behind it, too. So, if I was playing this in a tournament, I’d make sure that I’m a little bit short, but um for this sake, 56 and 52 are current leaders in in the clubhouse right now with uh the shot. So eight iron. I’m going to have to kind of probably land it somewhere around here. I would I would assume kind of just making sure that I get at least one probably two to three bounces off the green and then it running up. Always always play these shots with a putter grip, too. So I don’t I don’t know why. It just feels better. feels like it stays a little bit more connected than if I was like this. I can kind of move my wrist a little bit more. When I’m like this, it feels more like a putting stroke, which is good. That’s that skidded a long long way. Um I didn’t think it was going to do that. My vision was about here, here, about here for the third and then kind of running on. I felt probably that the eight iron was the most uncomfortable uh for me there. 60 is always comfortable for me even though I didn’t execute it uh correctly. But I will I still take that shot uh with a 60. I found that the 52 was probably easiest and obviously the 5 uh 6 was the second easiest there in regards to like just having a stock standard chip shot. Um the 60 I needed to open the face a little bit more u and have kind of elevate it a little bit more. So if you’re not really kind of liking that type of shot, you’re probably moving towards a 56 and a 52, which ultimately was my uh closest shots there. So once again, uh this is a really good drill to understand that 60 is not always the option, even though there’s nothing wrong with uh you know, using the 60 everywhere. Um, but knowing that you can utilize these clubs for your benefit and know that it’s a good way to practice working on creativity, uh, working on being able to go out there and have more confidence on the golf course knowing that you just don’t have to use 60, you know, there’s other options. So, give that a shot. Let me know what you think uh, in the comments if you guys like that drill. Um, and you know, we we got another drill coming up here soon. And uh hope you guys enjoy. Cheers. [Music]

What’s up Lads! Were back after a couple weeks. Today we have the 4 club drill. A drill that Jason came up with a while back, that we all now use for daily maintenance as well as a fun way to mix up some chipping comps.

This is a fantastic way to calibrate your chipping, find out what club works best on a wide variety of shots, as well as potentially getting you to explore some new shot variations that you may not have thought of before. Hope you enjoy! Make sure you like and subscribe so you don’t miss any upcoming videos!

——————
Music by:
The K Club & Jacquire King
“Costal”
Stream full versions here – https://linktr.ee/thekclubmusic
@the.k.club
@JacquireKing