Face The Target
Another key to distance control is swinging to a full balanced finish position. Don't just focus on the first two parts of the your swing, the backswing and downswing. Focus also on the through-swing. Try to keep your swing speed consistent with every club and more importantly, in control. Not only to regulate distance, but when you swing through, that smooth rhythm should allow you to face the target and hold your finish position without losing your balance.
Improve Your Turns- Drill
Simple shoulder drill for better understanding of the spacing between the hands and the body as well as how the torso should turn. To feel a full backswing, take your set up up with a 5 iron, rest the shaft on your right shoulder. Turn so your back is facing the target, with the club still on your shoulder. then raise your hands in the air so your left arm is extended. That's exactly where you want to be at the top. Do the opposite to feel a full follow-through. Take your setup, and rest the club on your left shoulder. Turn your chest to face the target. Now raise your hands, extending your right arm. There's your finish turn.
Where the clubhead contacts the ball is the most important impact factor in determining the starting direction of any shot. Seventyfive percent of that starting line is due to where the club hits the ball, swing path accounts for the other twentyfive percent. You want the club to approach the ball from inside the target line and make contact on the back of the ball. To do this, transfer your weight to your left leg on the downswing. Initiate this shift by pushing off the inside of your right foot. This gets your hands slightly ahead of the ball at impact and brings the club into the back of the ball from the inside. If you don't initiate that forward shift on the downswing, your hips will be moving away from the target at impact. The only way for the club to get back to the ball is to come over the top and approach it from the outside. You'll cut across the ball, the clubhead will be ahead of your hands, and the shot will start left of the target.
Turn Your Chest
One of the keys to consistently good pitiching is keeping your chest turning towards the target on the through-swing. Your arms and shoulders follow your chest, not vice vera. Look at it this way; if your chest moves away from the ball on the backswing, your shoulders and arms also move. Therefore, if your chest moves back towards the target, your shoulders and arms will follow. That positive momentum, not the hands and arms moving by themselves, is what propels the ball. Try to "hit with your chest" on the pitch shots, you'll make better contact with the ball and hit it closer to the hole. Turn your chest back and then through on pitch shots. Golfers who stop turning through make poor contact.
Drills: Untangle Your Swing
Step 1: Let it swing; without a ball, make some practice swings using only your right arm. It will be hard to pull the club off plane like this, because centrifugal force works to keep it in balance. You'll want to feel that same balance after you add your left hand to the club and try to keep the same grip pressure, too, throughout your swing.
Step 2: Move the whoosh; once you feel the club balance with one hand, grab it by the clubhead end and make some baseball swings at waist height. Because you're not bent over, it's a more intuitive, natural movement. Feel your weight transfer back and through. Next, make the grip end whoosh through the air early off your right side, then late in front of you. You can move the point where the whoosh happens by changing when you release your hands and arms.
Step 3: Speed over the ball; Before you hit a shot, make a full speed practice swings a few inches over the ball so that the clubhead whooshes at the bottom of the swing arc. Focus on making that sound of acceleration, not on the ball. Take three or four practice swings, set up and hit it, keep thinking about speed instead of impact.
