A ‘pitch’ is a shot typically played when the ball is further from the green than where you would chip from. Ball flights can be low, mid or high. The shot can be visualised similarly to what was discovered with a chip, where throwing the ball under arm, this time with more energy, can give you a good representation of the ball flight but with more power due to the increased distance required.

The following steps will help you get set up to play this shot, along with a simple exercise to nail it to perfection.

The set-up

• Place the left hand (if right-handed) towards the top of the grip and the right hand below. Left-handed golfers would normally have the right hand on top of the club and the left below. You can hold lower on the grip

• Stand with feet together and create a ‘Y’ shape with the arms and the club as shown

• Hold the club at waist height, horizontal to the ground.

• Bow to the ball, which will be achieved by bending from the waist.

• Create a little flex in your knees, this will allow you to move the body when swinging the club

• Take a small step with each foot so the ball is centred.

 

The swing

Get a feel for moving the club, this will be bigger than it is when chipping, just as it would be if you were to underarm throw the ball, a longer distance will require your swing to also get bigger

• Explore getting the arms and the club to move past your waist on the backswing

• A visual of creating an ‘L’ shape with the arms and the club shaft can be quite useful

• You’ll notice that you’ll start using your wrists for this to work

• Swing the club back toward the ground making sure to make contact with the ground with the club brushing the mat or grass where the ball would be 

• Keep the club moving forward Finish the movement when the hands reach waist-high on the target side

 

Bread and butter

The low point is the bottom of the swing where the club changes from a downward direction to an upward direction. This is where we want the club to make contact to the ball. A great way to help with this is to use the ‘bounce angle’.

The bounce angle is the angle between the front and back of the club ‘sole’. We want to use this correctly in order to create more forgiveness as we discover pitching. If the sharper ‘leading edge’ of the club was to make contact with the ground before the ball, it would dig into the ground causing ‘heavy’ contact resulting in large loss of distance. A little like using the knife blade to spread butter across bread, the knife would dig in and tear the bread.

If you can create a low point with the club shaft more vertical, instead of leaning towards the target we can ‘activate’ the bounce as this then becomes the part of the sole that interacts with the ground when you hit the ball. Going back to the bread and butter analogy, the butter is spread across the bread with the flat wide part of the knife thus eliminating digging. This all ensures a larger area for the low point and you gaining confidence in making vital contact to the ground at or even before the ball.

 

The exercise

Place a golf tee in the ground where the ball would lie. Now swing the club to a length which would be longer than a chip shot. From here you will try and strike the tee in the ground and then finish the swing to a similar length to the backswing.

To control distance, we can shorten the swing for shorter carry distances and lengthen the swing for longer carry distances. We can also adjust the distance and the flight of the ball by simply using different clubs.

Experiment with the clubs such as the 9-iron or sand wedge and explore how the higher lofts need bigger swings and lower shots require smaller swings, you will get good at finding out which provides easier and better contact, get good at those as a base line and then start explore the other options.


Conor Thornton is a member of the PGA Professionals team at Golf Saudi-managed Riyadh Golf Club