This is a great drill for developing your touch around the greens.
All we ask you to do is to spend 15 minutes hitting a variety of pitch and chip shots using only your 8 iron. Play shots from varying distances and from different lies. Find shots that require you to hit everything from low running pitches to high flop shots.
Pitching and chipping well with an 8 iron, launching the ball high and landing it softly, requires great technique, and it will quickly expose any flaws you may have. An 8 iron not only has much less loft than your wedges, but it also has less bounce on the sole of the club – to use the bounce properly you will have to be very precise and have great timing.
For each shot, go through your process. Assess the shot and pick your trajectory and landing spot, visualise the flight and roll of the ball and make any adjustments you need to strike the ball consistently well. See it and do it.
And after each shot go through your post-shot routine. If it was a good shot that looked just like you visualised, imprint it with emotion, congratulate yourself for being a short game genius!
If the shot didn’t work out as planned, then try not to feel any emotion, be totally objective. Take a moment to consider what went wrong, what the solution is, and imprint that as a cold calculation.
Either way, once you step away, the shot is done, over, gone. Leave it behind and move on to the next shot.
You may never play a flop hot with an 8 iron out on the course, but this drill will challenge and develop your hand-eye coordination and motor control, your imagination and shot making ability.
Take the time to work on this drill regularly and you will quickly become a master in the art of wedge play.
This drill forms part of the Golf Loopy Pitch & Chip like a Champion series, the sensational new pitching and chipping game improvement system that will help you to improve every aspect of your performance around the greens. The improvements will be dramatic, and they will be permanent.
