Tip #28: Get Hungry Around the Green

Two words will do you more good than anything else I can tell you about the short game.

Get hungry.

There's no reason you shouldn't play your short shots with all the skill and confidence of a tour player.

Get hungry for the bottom of the cup. Because that hunger, that aggressiveness, is what makes the difference between a player who wastes strokes around the green and one who consistently turns three shots into two.

If that's not your attitude, change it. Change it because there's no reason you shouldn't play your short shots with all the skill -- and confidence -- of a PGA Tour player. You may never hit your drives as long as I do or make your irons stop on the green the way mine do. But with a basic short-game knowledge and the refinements I'm about to discuss, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to go chip shot for chip shot against me or any other pro in the game.

All you need is the right attitude -- the right focus. When I'm hitting a tee shot, my goal is a fairway 40 yards wide. When I'm playing an approach I'm hitting to an area the size of a swimming pool. But once I'm inside 100 yards, I have only one target in mind -- the bottom of that little round hole. Adopt this focus, and you'll take the first step to a sharp short game.

The second step goes back to the idea of teaching yourself touch. Once you have a good grasp of the basic short game shots -- the chip, pitch, and lob -- start experimenting a bit. Go out to a practice green with your pitching wedge and fiddle around with your setup. Not your swing -- your setup.

Experiment with different ball positions -- move it up in your stance, then back -- and note how those changes influence the flight and roll of your chips. Then vary the openness of your stance and see what that does. Play around with the clubface too -- open it as wide as you can get it and see how high you can pop the ball. Then close it down and hood it and watch what that does to your chips.

Then back off a few yards and see what happens when you introduce these variations in your pitch shots. Watch the way each shot flies, and how it rolls -- or stops -- after hitting the green. Open your clubface and stance as far as possible and see how high you can lob the ball. Then close them down and see how low you can punch it with the same club. Get to know how all these changes produce different results, and you will give yourself a postgraduate degree in the subtleties of the short game.

What that knowledge will give you is freedom -- freedom of choice. You'll be able to select your shots. One of the subtle things that separates people with touch from the rest of golfers is the fact that they always have two or three options. Players with only one or two greenside shots become victims of the golf course and have to stretch and force those shots to fit each challenge.

But players with several options can take charge. Since they know how to play different shots and they know exactly how those shots will behave when struck from various types of lies to various landing areas, they can look at a situation, evaluate the options and come up with the shotmaking choice that offers the best chance of success.

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