How to Play a Pitch Shot
Posted February 26, 2018 in Short Game, Play Better Golf by Trevor Cigich
A pitch shot, which typically ranges from 30-60 yards, is out of the comfort zone for a lot of players. You can play the ball high and land it soft, low and let the ball run out, or in some cases low and spin the ball. However, it is all dependent on the pin position and a number of other factors. For the average golfer, this is a very confusing shot because you need to get the ball in the air without taking a full swing. In this Play Better Golf segment, PGA Tour Pro and Titleist Staffer, Blayne Barber, shows us the proper way to hit a pitch shot to a back pin location with a lot of green to work with.
Blayne Barber: Hi, I’m Blaine Barber and this is Titleist tips from the tour. We have a shot here of about 50 or 60 yards and it’s halfway to the green and then the rest of the way is all green back to a back pin and so a lot of times when I’m playing with amateurs or in Pro-Ams, I see guys try to fly the ball all the way back there or hit a kind of a special shot that’s gonna hit and spin and that’s a difficult shot to hit.
A tip that’s helped me a lot and I think that would help a lot of amateurs is to just get the ball onto the green and then just let it run out as long as you can. I like to use that as much as I can anywhere around the green because it eliminates a lot of the mistake that you can that you’re gonna have from there.
So with a shot like this, I have a pitching wedge. Whereas if I was trying to fly it all the way back there I might use a sand wedge or something. And I’m gonna put a little bit more weight on the forward side of my stance and put the ball back just a touch, just kind of get that low ball flight, and then I’m kind of just gonna let the club do the work and rotate from there. So set up kind of just slightly forward and then just let the club do everything for you. I hope that tip improves your game it helps lower your scores.