The Steve Stricker Pitch Shot

Steve Stricker only tied for fourth in today's finish to the BMW Championship and he still has a chance at the FedEx Cup since he is currently ranked 6th in the points total (Zach Johnson won the BMW and moved from 27th to 4th place in the standings, Tiger Woods goes into the tournament as the first seed).

In prior posts (here) I described a variation on Stricker's chipping style. At iLoveScottsdaleGolf.com, Brandel Chamblee reports (here) watching Stricker practicing his short game before the BMW and was fascinated by what he saw. Here is how he described Stricker's approach to pitching (video example above):

Stand up tall, but not rigid, grip the club with a slight arch in your wrists at address and make no effort to set the club in the take-away, just turn the club back with your upper body and let the weight of the club tell you when to cock your wrists. That takes care of the back swing and now the moment of truth, when so much can go wrong. As you begin the downswing, make no effort to turn your lower body on these shots, as that will cause an increase in the angle of your wrists and on pitch shots that’s the last thing you want. Think instead of your left upper arm(assuming your right handed) and your chest initiating the forward move, keeping your lower body quiet, and turn your left shoulder behind you while your forearms rotate counter clock wise. This will put the bottom of your swing more forward, or right at the ball and you will be able to use the bounce of your pitching wedge and in todays, closely mown world of pitch shots, using the bounce is more important than ever.

Whether we could do this or not, Stricker's short game is pretty impressive and worth a close look.