Tip Tuesday: How to Handle Nerves on Your Pitch Shots

Picture this: you have to hit a pitch shot off a tight lie, and you’re clearly nervous. Steve Dresser from the Steve Dresser Golf Academy at True Blue Golf Club in Pawleys Island, S.C. has a drill that might make you feel uncomfortable at first, but will really help fix your chipping woes!

Steve Dresser:
Hey, if you get nervous over a little chip shot or pitch shot next to the green (and a lot of people do!), some of us as we get a little bit older we start getting a little flippier and wristier and that can lead to skulls and fat shots and just all kinds of mis-shots. So here’s a little way to make it a little easier to make solid contact.

It feels really awkward at first. You get really, really close to the ball and you get so close that you have the heel of the club off the ground. So the toe is down. You’re going to have to grip the club about any way you can. I can’t really take a conventional grip on the club and get in the proper setup position, but you can see I’m really, really close to the ball.

The heel of the club is off the ground. And now, I can just make a little putting stroke. And you see it goes up in the air a little bit? That’s a pitching wedge. It didn’t go really high. Sometimes you might want to take a little extra loft for this shot. It’s also really, really effective if you have a downhill chip because if you putt it from off the green, you have to hit it hard enough to get through the longer grass before it reaches the green.

So if you do this little shot again, toe down, heel up putting stroke, the ball will come off very softly. So it’s effective on downhill chips also. Give that a try. It takes a little bit of practice, but I think you’ll find if you do get a little flippy with your chipping, that’s going to help!