LIV Lessons: Ian Poulter - Chapter 1 | The 30 Yard Pitch

Hi, I'm Ian Poulter, five-time Ryder Cup champion, captain of the Majestics GC. Welcome to my live lesson. Poulter is having a very good day as he leads the Majestics charge of the pylon. Ian Poulter and there we go. I'm going to be showing you guys techniques and strategies from around the green to hopefully improve all of your short game for every round of golf you play. And some of the key aspects when playing a 30-yard pitch shot from around the green is ball position, stance aiming slightly left of the target. Every pitch shot that I would play from 30 yards out, I would open the face just slightly. Adds a little bit of bounce to the club itself, which will actually help you come up the strike of the golf ball. The action itself, you're going to be hitting it slightly from across the line with the open face, which actually imparts a little bit of spin on the ball, gives you a little bit more control from around the green. We find ourselves in a position that many amateurs do. You're 30 yards from the pin, you're on a tight lie, the ground's pretty soft as you can see. You can't really putt this because of what's in front, it's too bumpy, but you're going to have to fly this on the greens. Playing many pro-ams through my time, I've seen a number of different shots. I've seen the guys and girls that literally hate this shot so much that they will default to the putter, and they don't care what's in front. They will just putt this all day long, because they've stood here in the past, they've stood over a chip shot. I've actually played that all right, even though I tried to fat it. They've gone in for the chip shot on a tight lie, and we've all done it. I've done it, amateurs have done it, it's really annoying, it's really frustrating. I feel for amateurs when they get in this position that they don't enjoy this type of shot, so I try in the most part, again even for myself, to be able to play this in a way where I'm not really going to make that mistake. I was getting for my son this weekend, his first 18 hole tournament. On the third hole, he pulled it into the bunker, he had a terrible lie on the downslope under the lip. Even I would have a real struggle to hit a decent shot from that position, and actually even hit it anything like what I would like to hit it. I knew I wouldn't be able to get it close, and I knew he wouldn't be able to get it close. So he played the shot out, he semi-bladed it a bit, he kind of went through the green and left him 25-ish yards to the pin. Big momentum swing for him at that point, because to get up and down from that position, from around the green, would really keep his head in the game. You know, I kind of said to him at that point, come on, hit me a really good confident 56 pitch shot, land it over the ridge, land it into the upslope and get it to check. You've got this shot, you practice it all the time. In that moment, I'm trying to give him some confidence I know he's capable of doing, and he did exactly that. He hit a lovely kind of 56 degree, he struck it nicely, it was all ball first, it landed over the ridge, it landed into the green, two bounces, checked and went to about four inches. So if I'm going to play the 60 degree shot where the ball's going to land, it's going to take two bounces and it's going to check. I kind of want to make sure that the ball position doesn't get too far forward. You'll see a similar theme to how I play bunker shots, but again, I want to feel that when my hands are hanging, they hang in a position where I feel that ball is centered to where the middle of my chest is. Not too far back, it's not too far forward, but it's in a position where then I'm going to choose my loft on my club. So I'm not going to play it straight faced, because by playing that straight faced, you can see the leading edge of the club is very tight to the ground. So I'm going to open the face just slightly, and by opening the face, I'm allowing that leading edge to come up slightly. So therefore, recreating some extra bounce, which is going to help me play the shot. In this position, you want a bit of bounce on the club to help not to hit it chunky. I grip down it just slightly because I don't want to hit it heavy. We're going to use a pretty short backswing to this position. The hands are only slightly hinged. I'm not overhinging it. I'm not underhinging it. They're just hinged just slightly. Again, I'm going to accelerate through the impact position. Comes out a little low because my angle of attack is quite steep, and I want ball first as opposed to hitting the ground first. And you can get that ball to land, bounce a few times, check up. With that, because I've used the bounce, you can see my divot being quite shallow. So it's not a big, deep, gougy kind of chunky divot. It's a very slim, thin divot. So therefore, you know the bounce on the club is working when you have a relatively shallow divot like that. I see a lot of amateurs just hit the same club all the time from around the green. And whether that be a pitching wedge, my dad's one of those guys, he loves chipping with a pitching wedge. You know, he's got every club in the bag that he can use. And I think people default to what they've had a little bit of success with. And again, that's something that I've had to try and Joshua in. Forever, he always used a 56. It's taken me a while to be able to train him to understand the other lofts in the bag to be able to use. And you know, when you're trying to explain that or teach that to somebody and they've hold a chip shot or they've hold several chip shots with that club, it's the go-to. So I would generally say it's really try and use more clubs within your bag to have a bigger understanding of what that's going to do and how that can improve your shot. And the most important thing, again, like a bunker shot is you're always accelerating through the impact area. You have to accelerate, never decelerate, never take a big long backswing and back out the shot because you're worried. Always use a little bit of energy, always accelerating through the impact area. Now that one was actually heavy. So you can tell that from the sound. But because my mechanics were decent from a perspective of my ball position, my clubface was slightly open and the actual mechanics were working through the ball, even though I hit it very fractionally heavy, I didn't take a bigger divot. The shot still very acceptable, even from a poorly executed strike. So I didn't get the big divot. That's when you know you're making the right type of swing and you're making the right type of entry exit through the strike position. So I let my hands hang. Ball position is fairly centered to the middle of my chest. And that is a chunk. So that is what's easy to do right there. That is bad entry exit. I've taken a divot that's a bit steeper. So therefore that's very easy to happen. So that's with a 60. I've changed to a 56, which has got a lot more bounce in this position. The landing area needs to be closer to the front of the green, but allowing the weight to go with you rather than away from the ball is one of the things that will stop you thinning it through the green. My dad is a super confident guy. So I think that I've taken from him that level of confidence. My dad always thinks he's going to chip him, even if I haven't seen him chip him for a little while. So like he's one of those guys, he's always staying on the positive thinking, anything's possible. And that's what I took a lot from him and pulled into my game. Always think something's possible and always think something's achievable. The biggest tip that I can give any amateur golfer, think about I'm going to hold him. I'm going to constantly play the shot with the outright belief that I can execute this properly and practice these techniques and embrace the challenge. And I promise you it's definitely going to help your short game. Make sure to root for your Majestics GC team. We are going to be strong this year. I promise.