The Short Wedge Game

The Towel Drill

The goal of this drill is to groove and tighten good pitching technique by learning to keep the torso and the arms connected. Squeeze the ends of a towel between the chest and both upper arms, take your normal setup position and make smooth partial swings. Don't take your arms farther back or through than parallel to the ground. Your focus should be on tempo and making a perfect, clean strike on the back of the ball, always hitting the ball before the turf. Finish with your chest facing the target. If the towel falls out on either side, it's a sign that your arms are not swinging at the same speed and on the same plane as your chest. In a good wedge shot, your sternum (not the arms and hands) is the primary source of tempo, power and accuracy. The more closely your arms link to the rotation of the torso, the more aggressively—and confidently—you can fire through the ball, even on short partial shots.

The Clock-Face System

You won't find a better method than this for calibrating how far your wedge shots carry. The first thing you need is a practice area with distances marked off every five or ten yards, from about 40 to 120 yards. Placing towels or piles of balls along the edge of a practice range is one way to do it.

Then grab your favorite wedge and hit balls using an imaginary clock face as your guide. If the ball at setup is at six o'clock, start by moving your arms back to the eight o'clock position and then through to the same position on the opposite side of the clock face—in this case, four o'clock. (Our concern here is the position of the arms, not the shaft, which will be higher on the clock face.) Making sure your shoulders and clubface are square to the target at setup, hit shots with this eight o'clock swing until you have arrived at a consistent average-carry distance, and record that number on a card.

Next, hit more balls using a nine o'clock swing (shown below), a ten o'clock swing, an eleven o'clock swing, and finally a full swing. Record the average carry in each case. It doesn't matter if your arms are precisely at the desired clock position. What is important is that you sense your arms are at that position and that you can re-create that sense of where your arms are each time you set out to make a swing of that length.

There are two key things to work toward. First, use an identical tempo with each swing; that's the key to consistency. Second, have the swing stop naturally. You don't want to put the air brakes on to stop the ten o'clock swing at two o'clock; you want the length of your backswing and the amount of momentum you generate through the ball to determine where your arms stop.

Record your carry distances for all three (or four) of your wedges and carry the card with you when you play. Whatever the distance, you should have one or two close options.

FALDO'S WEDGE YARDAGES

SWING	60° wedge	54° wedge	48° wedge
Full	85	115	130
11 o'clock	70	95	120
10 o'clock	60	85	110-115
9 o'clock	50	75	100
8 o'clock	35-40	60	85-90

Advanced Wedge Play

Once you've perfected your bulletproof tempo and have your distances pegged, you can work on variations. The simplest way to take a few yards off a shot, for in-between distances, is to grip down on the shaft and make the same swing. Depending on how far down you grip, the ball will land two to four yards shorter after flying slightly higher.

When you open the clubface slightly, the ball will also carry two to four yards less and fly higher, but in this case it will have a slight left-to-right curve (for right-handers) and, because it will have more spin, will stop faster on the green. Closing the clubface will create a lower trajectory shot that will carry a few yards farther and roll more after impact.

To get really fancy, work on holding the club open after impact (above left), which creates a higher, shorter shot that will not go left—useful with a tight bunker on that side. Then work on turning over your wrists more aggressively after impact (above right), which creates a lower, running shot—useful into the wind or on greens that slope from back to front.

The Faldo Golf Institutes

Chip Koehlke, U.S. Director of Instructional Programs
The curriculum at Faldo Golf Institutes is built around fundamentals. Each site offers schools, private lessons and club-fitting sessions.

Marriott's Grande Vista; Orlando, FL
Marriott's Shadow Ridge; Palm Desert, CA
Seaview Marriott Resort; Galloway Township, NJ
Marco Island Marriott Resort; Marco Island, FL
Brocket Hall Golf Club; Hertfordshire, England

For the U.S. institutes, call 888-463-2536 or visit gofaldo.com. For Brocket Hall, call 011-44/1707-368-786 or visit brocket-hall.co.uk.

Nick Faldo on the Air

Nick Faldo's wit, insights about golf and candid assessments of fellow Tour professionals can be heard on the following ABC golf telecasts:

June 10–11, Barclays Classic (Westchester Country Club)
June 24–25, Booz Allen Classic (TPC at Avenel)