Golf Swing Tip#3 – Mastering The Approach Shot

The tee boxes on most American golf courses set up so that your approach shot on the majority of the par 4s on the golf course will be from around 150 yards. The approach shot is your last full swing to the green. The goal on every approach shot is to make your next club your putter.

Here are couple general rules about approach shots.

1. Pick a club that will fly to the middle of the green and make the middle of the green your target. If you have anything other than a wedge in your hand that you have practiced with enough to know the distance that it will fly within a couple yards and can take a full swing from a perfect lie, going for the pin is almost always the wrong choice. From the middle of the green you can two putt, at worse, and take the par. A miss left or right usually means adding at least one more stroke to your score for the hole.

2. Focus on alignment not distance. Choose a club that you can make a full swing with and the distance issue takes care of itself.

Alignment is the key to improving your approach shots and getting on more greens in regulation. Most golfers find it easier to align themselves properly when they walk to their stance from behind the ball. Those few extra steps give you a little more perspective and make you a little more conscious of the necessity of aligning your feet and your shoulders correctly. When you go to the range stop just banging balls trying to get a feel for the big swing. Practice your alignment too on every swing and it will become natural for you to do the same on the golf course.

Proper alignment is covered in more detail in the Simple Swing but the fundamental take away is that you want your shoulders squared and parallel to the target line and not pointing directly at the flag.

Most greens are deep enough front to back that if you fly the ball to the middle of the green even with a low spin ball that you will still be putting on your next stroke. If you start off already misaligned left and pull the shot, or start off misaligned right and push it then your next shot is either going to be from a bunker or from the waste area off the side of the green. Both of these situations increase the probability of a big number.

Practice your alignment until you do it perfectly and naturally every time. It does not take any special golfing skill to align properly and it will almost automatically improve the accuracy of your approach shots and lower your score if you do.

• Golf Swing Tip#1 – Avoiding Trouble With Your Driver
• Golf Swing Tip#2 – Maximize your Distance by Hitting Triples instead of Home Runs
• Swing Your Sand Wedge to Warm Up When Pressed for Time
• Golf Stretches for a More Fluid Swing
• Indoor Putting Green