Master this 1 club to shoot lower scores, says Top 100 Teacher

Golf is a fickle, complicated game. There’s a tip for every swing ailment, and advice for everything from what to eat before a round to how to cool your body down afterward for optimal performance.

For a player looking to improve, it can be difficult to know where to start. But there’s one area that golfers at any level can work on to start shooting lower scores, says Top 100 Teacher Brian Manzella, and that’s mastering the wedge.

Just learn to hit a basic pitch shot, says Manzella, and you can play pretty much anywhere with anyone.

The problem with wedges, he says, is that people tend to try to hit high-level shots with them, opening the face, and attempting to channel Phil Mickelson around the greens.

“All you have to be able to do, even if you just hit an average tee shot, and an average second shot, and now you’re 30-40 yards from the green or even 30-40 feet from the green, is just take a pitching wedge or a gap wedge — stay away from the Tour wedges — and just take a normal wedge shot with a normal, square stance, a little bit choked up. Play the ball in the middle of your stance, and just make a back and forth motion sweeping the grass.

“That’s it. Just hit a normal pitch and get it in the air.”

Manzella says he sees a lot of players who hit reasonable shots off the tee and from the fairway only to collapse around the green because they lack basic wedge skills.

“It doesn’t have to be a sand wedge — a pitching wedge or gap wedge works fine,” Manzella says. “And if you get good with that 30-, 40-yard swing, everything that made that swing work — which you can teach a beginner today — that swing can be made longer on both sides, and you can stick another club in your hands.”

Manzella says it’s helpful to think of your regular swing as just an extension of that little pitch. And even if you don’t play much golf, it’s the most useful shot you can learn.

“If you can pitch the ball 30-40 yards, they’re going to use your shot in a scramble,” Manzella says.

For more tips from Brian Manzella, click here.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of female varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everyone on the masthead. She can out-hustle them in the office, too, where she’s primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview series, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in both in the magazine and in video form on GOLF.com.