Golf: Drawing with a Sand Wedge

Series Summary

Although it is a popular game amongst people of all ages, the game of golf can be challenging. Whether you are an absolute beginner, or someone who has been playing for a while, golf lessons can help you improve your game at any stage. Golf, like most sports, is one where practice makes perfect. Unfortunately though, it is a sport where practice can often be expensive. Since you can’t practice your game in the backyard, it is necessary to be able to maximize your time at the range or on the course so you can see the most improvement. In this free golf instruction series, a professional golfer teaches you how to use drawing to set up your great next golf shot. He instructs you how to properly draw a golf shot with each club, starting with a sand wedge and ending with a driver. Under his careful instruction you should be able to avoid hooking a ball and keep each shot under control. Impress your golf buddies by making your golf shot bend from right to left with complete control.

Video Transcript

"Okay, the sand wedge. Now we're going to try to draw the ball, which is really a controlled hook. So a hook for us right-handers is when the ball goes from right to left. And so it's a very valuable shot to be able to draw the ball, which is a controlled hook, because the pin might be on the left side of the green and if you hook it, if you draw it, it comes right at it. So it's, and it may be covered, protected by bunkers and water and trees and all that good stuff. So if you went straight at it, you'd, if you were off a little bit on that straight shot, you'd be in the muck. But, so you use the draw to kind of go around these impediments to your success. Well let's say there's a tree in front of me and I, and I can draw the ball around it. So if you went straight, you'd hit the tree, but if you could hit a hook, a controlled hook/draw, you can control the ball and go around it. So there's a lot of uses to this shot. It may or may not break you, but it definitely can cut your game by a few strokes. So if this club here is the straight line to my target and I'm set up right here to hit the ball straight, what I do to draw the ball, is I aim, I'm aiming to the right now, and I close the face of the club like this. And then I'm going to try just swing normally. So that was pretty good. A sand wedge, you're not going to get as much draw as you will a three iron because there's not as, there's a lot of loft on it. So there's going to be more back swing. It's going to be a more subtle draw. But it's a really good shot to practice because when you need to do it, it can really save you that stroke, crucial stroke or two."