Stan Utley's Art of the Short Game

[gmbtempe]

I buy a lot of books and read just about everything as it relates to my current subject of interest, and right now that is golf and the golfing mechanics.

I have read several, or watched many dvd's about the short game before Utley's book so its familiar territory to me, but this book is groundbreaking...........in a bad way.

I disagree with just about everything I read.

Stan in his chipping wants you to have a square stance and arms and handsy backswing than a pivot motion to hit the ball, which I have no problems with. This is very similar to Mickelson's hinge and hold method. He advocates a square stance and forward ball position, while I agree people play the ball to far back I don't like the idea of forward ball position and square. I think the normal golfer is going to only highlight the flipping condition with this setup, I know for me it happened several times and I never really blade chips.

The real controversy I see in his methods comes from what he considers pitching. Stan says that anytime you are using the bounce of the club to hit the ball it would be a pitch, all other times where you hit the ball first with no bounce it would be a chip.

Stan says on pitches that you should use the bounce of the club to hit the ground first and then it deflects into the ball so you get the real loft of the club, so in efect you are not hitting the ball first.

I have used this method before, in fact with I want to hit a super flopper I do this, but I just cant imagine consistent play for the amateur coming from trying to hit the ground first and then the ball. Why cant you just hit the ball first and using a vertical hinge (club layback) and achieve more consistent contact. Utley says that in fact the clubhead with out race the hands and then the arms will quickly rehinge, I think this is death for most players, blade or chili dip city.

On bunker play its even more dramatic, ball in the middle of the stance, supper wide stance, spine leaning left, very quick hinge and accelerate. Body and club face is square to target but club is manipulated to be super open at the top with the arms. I know of very few amateur players who could accomplish this type of motion without a lot of practice.

I have read good things about Utley and his students but for me I am not going to attempt to use this method. I plan on buy Phil's book to go along with the DVD I bought which I thought was very well done and explained and made much more sense to me.

[Richie3Jack]

I'm personally not a fan of Utley's teachings. It's not that it can't work, but a lot of the information is erroneous or not right all of the time and I think it leads to many golfers getting confused.

Geoff Mangum is very detailed and complex in his teaching and writing as well as David Orr. But they both go over all of the factors in putting and can apply their teaching to any style and any type of player.

One of the things I never liked about Utley's putting philosophy is he wants putters with a lot of loft. David Orr's studies showed that golfers tend to have putters with TOO MUCH loft on them because when they are put on a SAM Puttlab, most golfers were adding loft to their putter in their putting stroke. But the reason why Utley wants the more lofted putter is because his stroke on the SAM Puttlab shows him de-lofting the putter at impact.

It's stuff like that is why I prefer guys like Mangum and Orr over Utley.





3JACK

[jonnygrouville]

They are methods that, with practice, would work. To me, it seemed that you need a lot of hand-eye co-ordination to use his techniques. Clearly nothing is fool-proof, but there are probably easier methods out there for amateurs to follow.

[golfbaka]

I find the real problem with that book is its really poorly written and laid out. Furthermore it essentially only contains three shots - an idiosyncratic way to hit a chip, a pitch and a bunker shot! All of which you could have got from the Golf Digest website.

I enjoyed Geoff Mangum's review of Utley's putting book...

[gmbtempe]

Yea, I did not mention that there are very few pictures, and most of them are in black and white.

[secondary]

Man this hits home, I have started to write 3 times and erased it. I will say it REALLY helped me at first. Then I started reading waaaay to much about golf in general. Finally after watching Phil's dvd I am really messed up. Utley really got me to stop using a bunch of different clubs just practice with the 58. I think I am real lazy and for some reason that made me want to practice my short game a lot more? I think any technique would been fine, the point was I was practicing more. The chipping is much better. Pitching has sort of fallen away after I started messing with my full swing. I just don't really "release" that right hand for any other shots I hit, so now that just feels weird. The big problem is the bunker play. When I play a nice course with real sand, his technique works good. When I play the home dump, over half the bunkers are hardpan dirt. The other half has hard sand mixed with large chunks of gravel. After spending a lifetime learning to hit a thumper using the bounce, i have to sort of pick it or use "hinge and hold" just to get out of the dirt traps most of the times. Short story long, it helped me out a lot, but now I am mixing different ideas and it is sort of a nightmare. Still searching...

[Richie3Jack]

I'll say this about the chipping aspect of things...The Rule of 12, rules.




3JACK

[jerryg]

My short game was a mess. A friend referred me to the first two Utley books. I found them very helpful and continue to do so.

[gmbtempe]

I am re reading this book, I can say some of the information seems to make more sense now that I understand the swing better after another year of learning.

That being said he descriptions are woefully short on information. There needs to be more clarity on a lot of the impact alignments he is looking for, setup, etc.

[carland]

Utley's book on putting made me worse, not better. His recommended grip never felt right with grip in the life lines of the palms and thumbs going directly down the front of the shaft. I kept at it for one season and but abandoned ship after a summer of 3-putts.

Utley's method seems based more on his personal experience/success than on science or experience with an average Joe like me.

[gmbtempe]

I think this video should be inserted into Utleys book

[golfdad]

re: crane's video. I find his presentation a bit confusing because from where his ball was at, and the distance he was trying to carry, I don't understand why he chose that club with that much loft and bounce. I don't see much rough, I don't see, say, a down hill run with a tight pin, etc,,,

if one chooses a club, say, 5-7 irons, it is simply a "bump". In that case, holding/leading the left wrist without any flip works pretty well, with a little air time and lots of run.

if that crowd goes home and adapts this shot, golf becomes more challenging:)

[gmbtempe]

I think he was just demonstrating bounce verse the leading edge when you have a lot of shaft lean. In a real round he putts or chips that.

Was complete demonstration IMO, like where he hit 2 inches behind it just to show the ball still will pop up into the air due to the bounce.

[Richie3Jack]

Yes, it was a demonstration. If you hit behind the ball with a lot of shaft lean on a chip, the club sticks into the ground. Cloran was having an issue with that a few months ago. And he's showing that if you mess up on a chip and hit behind, but with no shaft lean...the bounce of the club will still allow you to hit a decent shot.

I know the TGM Summits have discussed this a bit (well, the AI's attending the Summit). For me, I find that a lot of shaft lean causes a problem with the ball either rocketing off the face or going too low. Great for a 170 yard iron shot, but not a 17 yard chip.





3JACK

[gmbtempe]

Jun 13, 2011 15:11:22 GMT -5 Richie3Jack said:

Yes, it was a demonstration. If you hit behind the ball with a lot of shaft lean on a chip, the club sticks into the ground. Cloran was having an issue with that a few months ago. And he's showing that if you mess up on a chip and hit behind, but with no shaft lean...the bounce of the club will still allow you to hit a decent shot.

I know the TGM Summits have discussed this a bit (well, the AI's attending the Summit). For me, I find that a lot of shaft lean causes a problem with the ball either rocketing off the face or going too low. Great for a 170 yard iron shot, but not a 17 yard chip.





3JACK

My buddy Joel uses the bounce really well, he is very good from those tight 20-30 yard pitches off a tight lie, while I try to get lots of shaft lean and never seem to pull it off.

I think I always used the bounce like Utley talks about and was pretty good around that distance but the last year I as I added shaft lean I don't think its worked well, thats why I am re-reading the book to see maybe if I should go back to something that always worked pretty well, even if I dont have that "TGM" look in my short game.