Getting solid contact with your wedges is imperative if you want to get up and down more.
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Having a regular short game may not be the “sexiest” attribute a golfer can have, but it certainly comes in handy. When you can get up and down from anywhere, you’re never really out of a hole.
Pros are a great embodiment of this. Because they are good at it everything on the course, their short games can sometimes be overlooked. But their touch around the greens is a crucial ingredient to their success.
Take it Xander Schauffele, for example. During his breakout 2024 campaign, he led the PGA Tour in putts, saving more than 70 percent of the time. Do you think it’s a coincidence that he won two majors with that type of short game?
Average Joes can’t expect to get up and down at a clip like Schauffele did, but even maintaining the rate once or twice more per round would do wonders on the scoreboard. And the first step to getting up and down more is creating consistent contact with your wedges.
For more about this, we turn to Phil Mickelson.
Lefty’s secret to strong contact
There is no one in the modern era of golf who wields a wedge like Mickelson. But while Lefty has made plenty of valuable saves in his career, it’s the little things he does right that impress the most.
One of the most important “little things” when it comes to the short game is making solid contact. When you make consistent contact on a consistent basis, it helps you control your distance AND generates rotation. But in order to make that connection, you need to dispel a golf myth you may have heard spread before.
“I see so many instructors teach a method — kind of like a clock method — where you want to go back and the same distance,” Mickelson says in the video above. “That’s crazy.”
When you go back and the same distance, it can induce deceleration on landing. But if you want to make solid contact, you want to make an aggressive, accelerated motion through impact.
“We want to drop back less and accelerate to the end,” Mickelson says. “It gives me aggressive contact.”
This aggressive contact will help you generate more spin and make you a more consistent player. Give it a try and you’ll surely lift more.
