GolfPlus Aug 2018 Digital Edition (August 2018) | Page 41

COVER FEATURE
START DOWN Even on pitching, it’s important
Dustin rotates hard as he starts down. This
mitigates the closing and delofting that typically
accompanies a shut face.
Dustin hits bad shots when he gets slow,
when he babies it, and that’s across the
board, not just wi th wedges. With pitching,
the number one thing I’m always telling
him is to keep his body and chest speed up,
hit it harder, perhaps to fi nd shorter
positions on the backswing and follow
through so he can hit with the speed he
wants.
If he’s not hitting the
numbers he wants, how do
you handle it?
We basically quantify it by looking at the
fi gures. Say he’s looking at hitting a shot of
125 yards and he’s hitting it 130-135; we’ll
tend to look to make that motion a little
shorter and tighter, keep the speed in and
control the distance. But one thing about
Dustin is that he doesn’t care if the shot
misses to the right; it’s just not an issue for
him. But he hates the one that misses left.
In 2016 and 2017 he pretty much took the
whole of the left side of the course out of
play by fading the ball; he looks to fade
every shot he plays, even shorter pitch
shots. We know that if his path is three
degrees left of the target and his face one
degree closed to the target, he will hit a
IMPACT There is no retaining of angles here; Dustin
releases the club through impact, allowing him
to deliver loft and helping him swing slightly left
through impact.
nice soft fade, and that’s a great lesson for
the club player; fi nd a good relationship
between the face and path and you can
play from anywhere. If he hits a wedge shot
left, you can guarantee it’s because his
path isn’t left enough, and his body doesn’t
rotate. From here, he can overdraw it.
So, in a nutshell, what can I
take from your work with
Dustin that will improve my
wedge game?
I’d love to tell you there has been some
intricate and convoluted process to
improving Dustin’s wedge play, but there
wasn’t. Ultimately, the road map to turning
a weakness into a strength is pretty simple.
Just like the work DJ has done in the gym to
improve his shape, this is simply a question
of standing there and putting the time in.
It’s all been about gaining the control that
allows him to hit distances at will;
he’s used a data-led approach, and
there’s aff ordable technology out
there that will allow anyone to
follow the same process. It worked
for DJ… and it can work for you.
FINISH Compare Dustin’s hand height to his top
of the backswing position and you can see how
close the two are for length. This helps regulate
speed and promotes distance control.
The ordinary golfer doesn’t have £20,000 to
splash out on a TrackMan; what can we do?
This is true, but there is technology out there anyone can
use that do a similar job, especially the Arccos shot-
tracking system used by Cobra in its Connect technology.
The system uses a sensor in the butt of the club to send
data to your phone. Its Smart Distance function gives you
an average distance for each shot, with the accompanying
Smart Range feature showing you the spread of that
distance.
The great thing about this system is that unlike pretty
much every other technology it works on the course, giving
you a true picture of how you perform when it counts.
Track your wedge shots over eight-12 rounds and you
will get an average distance for each wedge. Having got
those distances, you can go to the range and use a
rangefi nder to practise hitting them. You can then work on
tightening the dispersion fi gures thrown up by Smart
Range.
After all, pitching performance is not about hitting it
further, it’s about hitting a specifi c distance. As Sam
Snead once said, “If you u want to know how good you are,
t your 9-iron, perch up a single
go to an empty fi eld wi
with
yours s to hit the ball exactly 125
ball, and program yourself
yards. H
Hit the shot, then pace off the
yard
d
yardage.
If you came within fi ve
ya a you’re a player.”
yards,