A 40-yard pitch, into the wind, a touch uphill. The job was Turn 3 Into 2: get it on the green and leave an easy up-and-down.
I played it twice. The first shot, a 55 degree wedge, came up just short of the green and got away with 12 feet. The second, a 60 degree with more speed, ripped to a foot. Same swing. Andy Walker’s review: “I didn’t know you had that kind of tour sauce in your game.” The difference was decided before either swing started.
Lower the Handle, Not Your Hands
The one-foot ball wasn’t a better swing. It was more speed — and speed equates to spin. The 60 put me on offense; the 55 had brought the front of the green into play. Then Andy showed the part that carries to every pitch: the flight is set at address, at the handle.
He calls it camber, which in his words “really means lowering the handle in both directions.” Three set-ups, one swing:
Low and running. Lower the handle toward the target and follow it, until it sits under your chin. The face shuts, loft comes off, the ball comes out lower and hotter.
Medium. Neutral — handle straight up and down. Same pitch motion, a little more height, a little more spin.
High and stopping. Lower the handle back, and turn your body with it so the club stays in the middle of you. The face opens; the ball goes higher, farther, and spins the most.
The swing does not change. Andy’s only job in all three is to find the bottom of the arc.
The mistake that ruins most amateurs’ low pitch is the shortcut: a normal set-up, then the hands shoved forward. You will never return your hands to that spot: the ball spins and stops, and you wonder why it didn’t release. And opening the face from there isn’t opening it. That’s aiming right (the direction…not the proper process).
The one thing: The flight is decided at the handle, before the swing starts. Lower it toward the target for low, straight up for medium, back for high — then make the same swing. Set up for success.
Two Putting Stats That Lie. One That Doesn’t.
Two lines from this week’s PGA TOUR stats — and what they change about what you should count.
1. The Tour’s one-putt leader is 155th at hitting greens.
Vince Whaley leads the PGA TOUR in one-putt percentage at 45.20%. He is also 155th of 157 in greens in regulation. That isn’t a contradiction; it’s the whole explanation. Miss the green, chip it close, putt for par from short range. Scottie Scheffler leads the Tour in greens hit at 72.86%, so his first putt is usually a long one — and he is 32nd in one-putts.
Whaley is a genuinely elite putter, second on Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting, the stat that measures how many shots his putting gains on the field. But his one-putt number measures how close he chipped it as much as how well he rolled it. The same distortion runs through your scorecard. Two shot-tracking vendors, Shot Scope and Arccos, say it in their own words: more greens hit means more putts. A 34-putt round on 12 greens is better golf than 29 putts on three.
The one thing: Stop counting putts. Count greens hit and three-putts. And the next time someone in your group brags about 28 putts, ask how many greens she hit.
2. On Tour, everybody can make the eight-footer. In your foursome, nobody does.
From inside 10 feet, first place on Tour (Adrien Dumont de Chassart, 90.62%) and 15th (89.80%) are separated by less than a point, and the leader ranks 34th in Strokes Gained: Putting. Tour putters separate on lag putting and three-putt avoidance, because the short one is a given.
For the rest of us it’s the reverse. Shot Scope’s database puts the sharpest break in all of putting at 3–6 feet: scratch players make 76%, 25-handicaps make 48%. From 30 feet, every handicap makes almost none. Three-putt rate runs about 3% for scratch and 13% for a 25. The Tour’s flattest stat is your steepest one — which makes it the cheapest stroke in your bag. Andy practices it at three distances — 4, 15 and 50 feet — and the 4-footer comes with a number: 50 in a row, inside-edge to inside-edge, every day.
The one thing: 50 four-footers in a row, every day — inside-edge to inside-edge, pace up. Get to 48 and miss, start back at zero. It’s the widest gap between you and a scratch player that a practice green can close. Better still, pitch it to a foot. The only way to miss a six-footer is to have a six-footer.
Try it this weekend. Three balls from 40 yards — handle forward, neutral, back. Same swing. Watch the flight change before you change anything else.
Every lesson, free: theedge.show
Think like a pro. Not harder — smarter.