I am repeatedly asked about my thoughts and opinion on the best way to approach short-range scoring shots that require something less than a full swing. There are reams and reams of instructional content by various instructors regarding approaching these shots with a concise and repeatable “method,” versus other instructors who he felt advised that you just have to develop feel for this part of the game.

My take is that you have to have both in order to score better.

There’s no question that the more “methodized” you can make your approach to the in-between and less-than-full shots, the more consistent you will become. But there are varying degrees of “methodization” that you can build in, and each degree requires a commitment to learning and practice time. The question you must ask yourself – and be honest with the answer — is how much time will you really give it?

For recreational golfers who won’t or can’t spend hours and hours perfecting their yardages like tour professionals, I believe the best approach is to work on learning a basic “half swing.” To me, that is where the left arm (for RH players) goes back only to where it is parallel to the ground. You want good extension back, and almost a full shoulder turn at this shortened end-of-backswing position. From there, you want to make a rhythmic and smooth turn and pull through the impact zone, and into a 3/4 finish.

The key is to understand – like with all golf shots – you want to feel like you are “pulling” the handle of the club through the impact zone with the rotation of your body core and your lead arm, rather than trying to guide the clubhead to the ball with the lower hand.

And realize this part of the game is not about power, but rather repeatable swing length and speed, so that you get consistent results.

Once you learn this half swing, experiment hitting shots with all your wedges, and by those I mean your clubs of 50 degrees of loft or more. Let me diverge here a bit and express my observation that the “P-club” in your bag is not really a wedge, as the loft of that club has evolved to 43-46 degrees. As the greats of the 1950s to 1980s pioneered the playing of the modern game, they carried true “pitching wedges” of 50 to 52 degrees of loft. This is enough loft to get the ball airborne with spin on these reduced-swing-speed shots. That just cannot happen with a club of only 43-46 degrees of loft, which in those days had an “8” on the bottom.

That said, once you get comfortable with the method I’m describing, you might experiment with your “P-club” to see what distances you get, and what kind of ball flight and release each club delivers. With this simple exercise applied to three or four of your scoring clubs, you now have 4-5 new dialed-in distances and ball flights to take to the course.

Now let’s apply feel to the formula. I like to think of feel as it relates to my swing speed, which is governed by the speed of my body core rotation. Going back to that half swing and those new shots you learned, now you can apply three speeds that we’ll relate to driving our cars. I call them “Country Road,” “City,” and “School Zone.”

“Country Road” is what you just learned as “full speed” for this “half wedge shot.” It’s not too powerful, very controlled. Less than the speed of a full-swing 7-iron shot for sure.

“City” is throttled back from that to a more relaxed speed – more precise, more cautious. It will produce a distance result with each club that is measurably less than your Country Road speed, giving you another batch of distances you can dial in.

Finally, I like to think of “School Zone” on my shorter pitch shots around the greens and my bunker play. It’s very relaxed and deliberate, almost “lazy.” A very good short game player in my past told me he thought of “gravity” – feeling like you are almost letting the hands “fall” into the impact zone.

If you will learn to swing at these various speeds with multiple wedges, you’ll have a whole arsenal of scoring shots to call on. I’ll add that a great practice routine is to actually see how slow you can swing. You’ll find that you can move the club in virtual slow motion, and still hit a quality shot.

It’s fun to learn new ways of striking the ball, and I hope this exercise gives all of you new shots to learn and perfect to improve your scoring.