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I suck from 130 yds and in....

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Adam earlier in the thread I asked what gapping you have on your wedges. Your signature would suggest PW which will be 46/47 degrees and SW 54 degrees at a guess. This leaves an awful big gap for flag hunting.

If you are pushing and pulling it could be as a result of trying to hit one particular club too hard in an effort to get the distance and stop the ball? If your not trying to hit the ball too hard look at the basics as suggested starting with alignment and grip.

With correct gapping i.e. wedges of 46, 50, 54 and 58 or alternatively 46, 52, 58 degrees it makes going for the flag a lot easier as you only need to use a 3/4 swing for any distance providing you select the right club. An additional wedge makes it much easier and personally I prefer to have 4 wedges, sacrifice my 4 iron to accommodate the wedges as they are far more vital to my game than the longer irons when it comes to scoring points.
 
Hey all

just been reading through the replies... not sure if it was my wording or assumptions made but....130 for me is an 8 iron, 9 -120, pw 110, gw 95, sw 85... I don't carry anything higher loft than that.

I'm a 17 handicap due to (normally) 3 (ish) bad holes per round where I'll blow up. Could be a bad drive, a silly fairway shot or indeed a duffed chip. I'm fairly confident in my play around the green... I find that I do hit greens regularly, just not close enough to make 2 putts easy.
 
Hey all

just been reading through the replies... not sure if it was my wording or assumptions made but....130 for me is an 8 iron, 9 -120, pw 110, gw 95, sw 85... I don't carry anything higher loft than that.

I'm a 17 handicap due to (normally) 3 (ish) bad holes per round where I'll blow up. Could be a bad drive, a silly fairway shot or indeed a duffed chip. I'm fairly confident in my play around the green... I find that I do hit greens regularly, just not close enough to make 2 putts easy.

I mentioned it before but seriously Dave Pelz short game bible could be the best £10 you have ever spent. It's not good enough just to aim for the green with a wedge in your hand. Unless its tucked away behind a bunker you have to be going at it if you want to make those birdies or save some pars. You will have to add at least one maybe two specialist wedges to make the system work but it is well worth it for the control and accuracy it gives you.
 
I mentioned it before but seriously Dave Pelz short game bible could be the best £10 you have ever spent. It's not good enough just to aim for the green with a wedge in your hand. Unless its tucked away behind a bunker you have to be going at it if you want to make those birdies or save some pars. You will have to add at least one maybe two specialist wedges to make the system work but it is well worth it for the control and accuracy it gives you.

I'll take a look mate, thanks.
 
agreed, 130 is always at least a 9 iron........

one of my regular pp hits his PW 130 yards, just not always in the right direction :fore:

8 iron for me, I play with a mate who can hit PW 150, awesome to watch, takes 5 iron off most tees which i can just about get past with my 3 hybrid (if it runs) short game and wedges is shocking though so I can usualy give him a game
 
I mentioned it before but seriously Dave Pelz short game bible could be the best £10 you have ever spent. It's not good enough just to aim for the green with a wedge in your hand. Unless its tucked away behind a bunker you have to be going at it if you want to make those birdies or save some pars. You will have to add at least one maybe two specialist wedges to make the system work but it is well worth it for the control and accuracy it gives you.

It's a good book, but he could have got all the useful information in about a sixth of the pages.
 
Hey all

just been reading through the replies... not sure if it was my wording or assumptions made but....130 for me is an 8 iron, 9 -120, pw 110, gw 95, sw 85... I don't carry anything higher loft than that.

I'm a 17 handicap due to (normally) 3 (ish) bad holes per round where I'll blow up. Could be a bad drive, a silly fairway shot or indeed a duffed chip. I'm fairly confident in my play around the green... I find that I do hit greens regularly, just not close enough to make 2 putts easy.

Practice your putting then if your hitting greens regularly!!


seriously from 130 yards 30 feet isn't that bad for a 17 handicap. Learn how to get down with 2 putts. Don't be so harsh on yourself. The consistency and flag hunting bit will come if you practice properly.

Practice your wedges, nothing will beat this. Try and get a stock distance for various clubs and learn how to use it,

The comments on the vokey wedges is a brash statement, they are perfectly good wedges, one of the best, I personally don't like them but that's just me, my ball striking is good but I always found with the vokeys it had to be REALLY good, didn't find them that solid a strike and the club centre was a must.
 
Practice your putting then if your hitting greens regularly!!


seriously from 130 yards 30 feet isn't that bad for a 17 handicap. Learn how to get down with 2 putts. Don't be so harsh on yourself. The consistency and flag hunting bit will come if you practice properly.

Practice your wedges, nothing will beat this. Try and get a stock distance for various clubs and learn how to use it,

The comments on the vokey wedges is a brash statement, they are perfectly good wedges, one of the best, I personally don't like them but that's just me, my ball striking is good but I always found with the vokeys it had to be REALLY good, didn't find them that solid a strike and the club centre was a must.

I think the point is that he does not want to be a 17 handicap though he wants to be lower. Best way to do that is make more putts which means getting the ball closer from 130 and in and holing more 1 putts.
 
Hey all

just been reading through the replies... not sure if it was my wording or assumptions made but....130 for me is an 8 iron, 9 -120, pw 110, gw 95, sw 85... I don't carry anything higher loft than that.

I'm a 17 handicap due to (normally) 3 (ish) bad holes per round where I'll blow up. Could be a bad drive, a silly fairway shot or indeed a duffed chip. I'm fairly confident in my play around the green... I find that I do hit greens regularly, just not close enough to make 2 putts easy.
There's why he's a 17 handicap, not because he's hitting it to 30 feet from 130 yards
 
There's why he's a 17 handicap, not because he's hitting it to 30 feet from 130 yards

maybe, maybe not. It can't hurt his handicap to be putting from 10 foot or closer. The thread is also 130 yards and closer, I might be wrong as I have not gone back through the previous posts to check but I think he is leaving the same distance putts whether he has 60, 70, 80 up tp 130 yards. Outside say 110-120 then hitting the green is usually the best move but with a wedge in hand it is very much about getting it into the scoring zone and making birdies or saving pars.
 
maybe, maybe not. It can't hurt his handicap to be putting from 10 foot or closer. The thread is also 130 yards and closer, I might be wrong as I have not gone back through the previous posts to check but I think he is leaving the same distance putts whether he has 60, 70, 80 up tp 130 yards. Outside say 110-120 then hitting the green is usually the best move but with a wedge in hand it is very much about getting it into the scoring zone and making birdies or saving pars.

spot on mate... I hit it as close from 80 yards with a sand wedge as i do from 130 with an 8 iron. It's ridiculous really.... occasionally I'll nail one and in terms of aim it'll be dead on the pin, albeit I need to learn more about how to take 5-10 yards off a shot by coming down the shaft or a 3/4 swing.
 
One of the biggest parts in getting your handicap down in knowing your ability and accepting your limitations. Some people would have you believe that from 100 yds in you should be within 10 ft to get to single figures however the reality is that most tour pros will still be 20-25 ft from the flag.

Phil Michelson's stats recorded during tour events are as follows:

Approaches from 50-75 yards 16' 11"
Approaches from 75-100 yards 26' 4"
Approaches from 100-125 yards 21' 5"
Approaches from 125-150 yards 36' 2"
Approaches from 150-175 yards 30' 9"
Approaches from 175-200 yards 36' 8"

It's interesting to note that from 75-100 yds and 125-150 yds the distance from the flag is higher than 100-125 yds and 150-175
yds however that may be due to green distances and proximity to hazards, however the bottom line is that as mid to low handicap players we should be reasonably happy with anything within 10ft of Phil's or any other tour pro's distances.
 
One of the biggest parts in getting your handicap down in knowing your ability and accepting your limitations. Some people would have you believe that from 100 yds in you should be within 10 ft to get to single figures however the reality is that most tour pros will still be 20-25 ft from the flag.

Phil Michelson's stats recorded during tour events are as follows:

Approaches from 50-75 yards 16' 11"
Approaches from 75-100 yards 26' 4"
Approaches from 100-125 yards 21' 5"
Approaches from 125-150 yards 36' 2"
Approaches from 150-175 yards 30' 9"
Approaches from 175-200 yards 36' 8"

It's interesting to note that from 75-100 yds and 125-150 yds the distance from the flag is higher than 100-125 yds and 150-175
yds however that may be due to green distances and proximity to hazards, however the bottom line is that as mid to low handicap players we should be reasonably happy with anything within 10ft of Phil's or any other tour pro's distances.

I cant help but be very dubious about these stats. A player as good a Mickelson regularly missing the flag by 16 foot from 75 yards seems highly unlikely. Averages can be horribly skewed by just a few outliers. Lets say he hits 5 pitches within 12 foot averaging around 8 feet but then one catches a horrible slope and ends up 50 foot from the flag that one pitch throws the average up to 14 foot. His scoring however would be more like 4/5 one putt for birdie and one mickelson special up and down for par and he is 4 under par.
 
G

You've probably hit the nail on the head by, "Averages can be horribly skewed by just a few outliers," however it has to be remembered that Phil is human like the rest of us.

Tigers average from 125- 150 yds was 22 ft 4" and that was taken from 104 attempts however he is much higher up in the rankings than Michelson.

Like any player you have to look at where they are losing and gaining shots. Scrambling and the ability to recover from a bad shot in addition to putting is where these players come into their own and that's not to mention their bunker play where they average less than 10ft from the hole whereas most amateurs are happy just to get out of the bunker.

I also haven't mentioned their course management where they have a professional caddy to assist them and offer guidance particularly with green play and reading the lie, slopes and run of the ball.

When it comes to flag hunting for most of us mere mortals we should be simply trying to make GIR regardless of where the ball lands on the green. Going for the middle instead of the flag makes it much simpler to achieve.

The other thing to remember when we are debating these topics is that we are often talking forum distances but that's another topic :whistle:
 
Take into account that the greens the Pros play into are likely to be faster and generally more difficult to hold than the ones we normally play and you can't really compare our distances from the flag to theirs..
From any yardage, if you change that number to feet, get the ball that close and you've hit a good shot..
So from 130 yards, getting it to 13 feet is GOOD!!!
Take the zero off the end of a yardage and you've hit average one...13 yards away from 130 isn't a bad result for an average golfer
Keep expectations realistic.
 
I cant help but be very dubious about these stats. A player as good a Mickelson regularly missing the flag by 16 foot from 75 yards seems highly unlikely. Averages can be horribly skewed by just a few outliers. Lets say he hits 5 pitches within 12 foot averaging around 8 feet but then one catches a horrible slope and ends up 50 foot from the flag that one pitch throws the average up to 14 foot. His scoring however would be more like 4/5 one putt for birdie and one mickelson special up and down for par and he is 4 under par.

Check the PGA tour website, you might be surprised
 
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