Having written a blog and responded to hundreds of questions about wedge play, one question I seem to get very often is something like this:

“On very short par 4s or when I lay up on par fives, and have a 30-50 yard pitch shot, I have a problem spinning the ball enough to make it stop”, or “I have a problem controlling my distance. What can I do?

My answer to these is always the same, and it’s kind of like the old joke where the guy goes to the doctor and says, “Hey Doc, it hurts when I do this”, to which the doctor replies, “Then stop doing it.”

The mid-range or “half wedge” is one of the hardest shots in all of golf to hit to your expectations. Each one is slightly different, which makes it very difficult to groove the precision you expect. I strongly suggest the alternative – playing to your full swing wedge distances when you are facing a short par four or hitting your second on a par five.

I recall back in 2007, when I wrote about Zach Johnson’s strategy coming into The Masters. He said afterward that he had determined beforehand that he would not try to hit any of the par fives in two. But did he hit his second shots as close to the green as he could? NO. He laid up precisely to his full lob or sand wedge distance so that he could hit full swing shots, achieving maximum distance control and optimum spin. That let him actually play the par fives better than any other golfer in the field and win the green jacket.

For each of us, we should have our “comfort zone” swing with each of our wedges, which produces pretty reliable yardage nearly every time. And with just a bit of practice and trial, it’s not all that hard to be able to “dial in” additional reduced yardages by gripping down on each wedge a precise amount. I actually wrote a book in the early 2000s called “The SCoR Method”, which explained in detail how to achieve this level of precision with your wedge play. Maybe I should put that book back in print, huh?

I’ve long been a proponent of carrying a full complement of scoring clubs to optimize your short-range performance. In my own game, for example, from anywhere between 70 and 117 yards, I know that I can make a comfortable full swing and hit most of my shots within only a few yards (only 10-15 feet or so) of my desired distance, by choosing the right wedge and gripping it precisely. And it only took me a couple of hours one day to build my wedge distance chart which includes, for example:

• 110-113 yards? Grip down the 45* wedge on half inch and swing away.
• 103 to 107 yards? Full swing 49*.
• 78-81 yards? 53* wedge gripped down 1 inch.

You can build your short game precision the same way. First, develop your “comfort swing” yardages with your wedges. I suggest that is about an 80-85% power swing to produce consistent distance and trajectory. Then learn how many yards it takes off each wedge when you grip down ½” and 1”. That gives you three precise distances with each wedge. If you carry four, like I do, that means I can hit the ball – with reasonable confidence – twelve or more different distances with the same swing!

There are no real shortcuts to accurate wedge play, but this works. And it beats the heck out of the dreaded “half wedge”, which your goal should be to not give yourself any more of them than you have to.

I highly advise you to learn your comfortable full-swing distances with your wedges, dissect them even more with precise hand placement, and play to those yardages. You’ll see immediate results.