For today’s lesson we’re staying on our “old school” journey with another of those great lessons from Bobby Jones.
This is a detailed look at Bobby giving a complete lesson on chipping and pitching.
In order to understand it a bit more, here are the clubs Bobby was using and their modern equivalent:
Mashie iron: used like today’s four-iron.
Mashie: used like today’s five-iron.
Mashie-Niblick: Equivalent of a seven-iron.
Niblick: Equivalent of today’s nine-iron.
For a complete list of the old club names and their use, click here.
As usual, Bobby makes it look quite easy. For his chip shots, he plays the ball off his back foot and hoods the club a bit. Nick Price hit his chips and pitches that way, shutting the face a bit and basically playing a miniature hook shot.
Bobby move gradually back and demonstrates his technique for pitch shots. Modern clubs have more bounce than those old clubs but if you notice when Bobby moves 40 yards back, he’s using the bounce of the club for his longer pitch shots. That’s something you need to practice and we’ve run a modern pitching lesson from PGA Tour veteran member Larry Rinker on the proper use of the bounce in the short game.
Using the bounce requires some practice.
In fact, you should spend more time on ALL your short shots — fact is amateur golfers don’t hit all that many greens and the short game becomes even more important.
