Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover "Pitch vs. Full Swing | the Difference You Must Know"

While you’re on the course, most of the shots you make are full shots…

...so it can be extremely difficult when you have to transition to a pitch (or any non-full shot).

You see, when you’re not hitting a full shot, your swing is completely different.

In fact, there are a couple of aspects of your swing that are big no-no for a full swing…

...but, they’re actually a GOOD thing for a pitch (or partial swing).

So, if you’ve struggled with making the transition in the past…

...today, you’ll find out why (and you can put an end to your troubles).

 

 

 

 

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 11:14

Video Transcription:

Clay Ballard: Now there are a couple really important things that you need to know when you’re hitting a full swing or making a full swing versus a pitch shot, and they’re not interchangeable, you’ve really got to know the difference here.

First let’s start off with the full swing. Now this could be anything from a sand wedge all the way up to a driver, doesn’t matter which club you’re using, but if I’m swinging it at full power, this is how I’m going to be doing it.

Let me hit one here, and then I’ll go through the technique that I used to get these kind of results. There we go, hit that one nice.

For me, that was just my second shot of the day, I know if my technique’s good, I’m going to get some pretty good power out of it. 205 yards carry with a 6 iron, 213 total distance. Very happy with that. Nice draw.

Well, if I want to get those kind of results, there’s a couple things I need to do if I’m going to be consistent while that’s happening.

So let me put this airplane on the club, and I’m going to walk you through exactly the technique that I use and I think is incredibly important with all your full swings.

The cool thing about full swings, again, you can use any club, you’re going to get great results if you have these same key check points.

Now, let’s go to what I call the Power Position here. This would be kind of last parallel in the downswing. Now I’ve got this plane lined up where the face is straight up and down.

When I get in the Power Position, that’s when my club is in what’s called last parallel, meaning that it’s parallel to the ground, the last time before impact.

Now from there, my hands are going to be in front of my right thigh, and then here’s a big key with this. I don’t want this shaft pointing down the target line.

This would be outside the target line, this would be inside the target line. No matter if you’re hitting a fade or a draw, I want this club shaft inside the target line.

The best faders, the guys that hit a power fade, this club is coming from the inside like this. So you have to shallow this club out, you have to get it coming from the inside, the slot, however you want to phrase that when it’s in last parallel, everybody’s doing the same thing.

Now one other key piece here is I’m going to go ahead and tilt this plane to the left as this is in this position. That helps me to square up the face, and deloft the club.

You see when I do that closing of the wrist like that, to turn just to twist the shaft that way, that closes the club face and then I can get the hands in front to square that face back up.

So if you struggle flipping the ball, if you struggle not getting a draw, that’s a big part of it. I need to bank this airplane to the left in this last parallel position.

I’m inside, all great positions from here. As I release this club out in front, I want to feel like this plane turns to the left very quickly.

So that face goes ahead and releases, turns on over, and if I get to about parallel in my follow through, or maybe just a little after that, you notice how I stayed in my posture with my shoulders.

So my shoulders are still tilted here. If I’m going toward this view my forearms are tilted also. That’s how you release the club.

So if you want to have a lot of lag, you want to have a lot of power, you want that club just to take off and snap through there and get great distance with all your shots, that’s exactly how you do it.

Let me go ahead and hit one more, and then we’ll jump over to a little pitch shot which is almost the complete opposite of this.

So again here, I’m going to have this lag position. Club’s inside, face is a little bit closed there. Then I’m going to release that club, let it turn on over, let that plane bank to the left while I stay in my posture.

So essentially, I’m keeping my body in this posture the whole way through contact, and I’m letting that club get lag and then release and turn on over.

Especially if I’m going to hit a draw, I really want that to be turning over very quickly as I come through contact.

Let’s give it a whirl. There we go, another good one, nice little draw. Again, almost same results. Got a little warmed up on that one, that one went 210, 223 total. You can see, the same kind of pattern over and over again.

Now when I go to a wedge, if you don’t mind, I’ll get my video guy here to jump over on the screen, click it over to a sand wedge. We’ll get a fresh screen so it will read it right on my FlightScope radar.

Now I’m going to put this plane on here and we’re going to talk about how it’s almost exactly the opposite when you’re dealing with a pitch shot.

So now I’ve got this plane on there square. Well, when I’m doing a pitch shot – oh, one last thing I didn’t go over there. In the full swing, I’m tilted away from the target. At contact, my body is tilted away.

That’s what I call the Stable Fluid Spine in the Top Speed Golf System, it’s one of the five fundamentals you have to do to hit it well with a full swing.

With a pitch shot, all that goes out the window, everything I just mentioned. When I set up to this golf ball, I’m going to be very much more straight up and down.

So my spine angle, instead of being tilted away like this and me keeping my nose behind the golf ball through contact, so my weight shifts left, my nose stays behind it, and that gets me from the slot, from this inside, much more easily.

When I’m hitting a pitch shot, so let’s call this just a basic 15-to-20-yard pitch, 12-yard pitch, doesn’t really matter. My spine is going to be pretty much straight up and down.

I’m going to feel like my weight is favoring my left side, and I may even feel like my nose instead of staying behind the golf ball with a full swing, almost gets in front of the golf ball. Like if you drew a line down from my nose, it’s hitting right in front of this.

Now from there, I’m going to feel like I keep going left all the way through the shot. So let me go ahead and hit one.

Again, straight up and down with the body, weight favoring the left side, nose almost in front of this golf ball, and then on the downswing, I just keep everything moving left all the way through there.

There we go, so a little pitch there, it doesn’t look like hardly anything on the screen. We saw 21-yard carry distance, and again, this is all going to be the same, 10, 15, 20 yards.

This FlightScope does a little better on longer shots, I hit one about 20 yards there, but I’m staying in front of it, moving left all the way through.

Now, when I’m in the backswing, I might get a little bit inside, but it’s not as important. It’s almost OK for it to be straight down the target line.

I’m not going to, on these pitch shots, really have the face turned like this in the backswing. What that does, is it delofts the club too much, gets that leading edge digging, and I can get too diggy when I’m hitting these shots.

With a pitch shot, I almost feel like that club is going to be a little more up and down here when that happens.

In the follow through, this is way different. Remember in the follow through we did in the full swing, I stayed in my posture. My forearms were in their posture. On these little pitch shots, I want that plane to level out but I want my elbows to be level also.

If I took an alignment stick here, I finish in that finish pitch shot position, I’m going to have that club, that airplane level with the ground, and I’m going to be much more like this.

Level elbows, level shoulders, almost like if I hit this shot, I’m just standing up and talking to somebody, level body, 10-15 feet in front of me.

That’s what I’m just thinking, hey, this would be the way that I would stand just to have a normal conversation with somebody, where this is totally different, what we’re doing with our full swing.

So that’s a big piece to it. With these pitch shots, the main thing ere and the reason for this, we’re just letting the body work together. Everything’s working kind of as one unit.

So I stay much more vertical  — my sticky stuff is working off here – I stay much more vertical, and then when I swing back and through, it’s all just coming together as one piece and that kills the speed.

We actually want to take speed off of this. I want to use a technique that doesn’t get a big flash of speed like I would in my full swing, that way the shots are much more consistent in where they’re landing.

So again, let me hit one more here and we’ll notice how this isn’t going to go very far and the follow through will be totally different. So again, body in front, my nose is in front of the golf ball.

I’m a little bit more up like that in the backswing, and then when I finish my follow through, my elbows are level, my chest is level, and again there, 21 yards.

I felt like I swung a little too hard on that one, but because it’s such an unpowerful technique, it went about the same distance, 21 yards carry.

That’s really important to understanding how to be good close to the green and how that’s different than a full swing.

Now, we know these are different, how do we actually incorporate these into our game? Well, in the Top Speed Golf System, the fastest way to get this release pattern like I’m talking about, to get that club shallowed out, to get it flat and from the inside, to square up the face early, is what’s called The Move.

That’s the exact move that I’m teaching you there, that’s what is one of the biggest differences between players that struggle to hit to the ball well, and players that compress the ball and get it to draw every single time and feel great out on the golf course, can’t wait to play a round of golf.

Head on over to the Instruction tab on the website. Go to the Top Speed Golf System, and then go to The Move.

I’m going to show you a series of drills that are going to help you to ingrain what we talked about here today, and man, you’re going to love it. You can’t wait to hit te course to hit some amazing shots.

Now as far as the wedge side, we also have something that’s got you covered there. Go to the Instruction tab, Top Speed Golf System, then go to the Short Game section, and I share some really cool drills and tips not only about those short pitches, but chip shots.

Then one of my most favorite ones here, if you’re going to make birdies, you have to do that from inside 100 yards.

If you look at all the stats where pros make the majority of their birdies is par 5s, they hit it up somewhere close to the green, anywhere within say 50 yards.

They wedge it close, and make a short putt. That’s the way you’re going to make the majority of your birdies.

So if you like making birdies, you need to get really good with this club and knocking it stiff. You’ve got to get good with those wedges.

One of the ways that I do that there is have something called The Clock Technique. What that does, is that teaches how if we go back to here and we use a very specific timing and rhythm with this, then we’re going to hit it a specific distance.

If I go back to, let’s say my arm is a clock and let’s say this is six o’clock, we go to seven, we go to eight, we go to nine, that correlates to a different distance that you’re going to hit this wedge.

So now you can get super dialed in, and that’s how the pros are so good at hitting it right on their number.

I’m going to show you this technique, and be very certain to watch in that video, it’s not just how far the arm goes back, but a little trick that gets your timing to match up with that.

That’s what makes all the difference in the world. If I get the length of the swing and the timing down, all of a sudden I’m going to be a birdie machine.

Number one, because your full swing’s going great. You’re doing The Move, you’re hitting great shots.

Number two, because you either crush a couple drives and get close to the green inside 100 yards with a short wedge into a par 4, or, you’re always around those par 5s in two within 30 or 40 yards, and you need to wedge it really close.

The birdies are going to go through the roof when you learn those two techniques. So head on over to The Move, just do one video from there, you’re going to be hooked on the full swing.

Then if you want to do a little extra, head on over to the Short Game section, do the clock video series, or the clock drill there from that Short Game series and you’re going to have the one-two punch.

You’re going to be hitting it great, you’re going to be wedging it great, you’re going to have a blast.

All right, I’ll see you soon.