Seasoned players spend a lot of time looking for one wedge motion they can trust.
I understand why.
You find the backswing length, match it with the right speed, and get the carry number. Then repeat it enough times that it starts to feel familiar. That is useful work. You need stock shots and something you can stand on when the number fits.
Where I used to get myself in trouble was expecting that one answer to handle too many different questions. A 70-yard shot looks simple on the card. But you and I both know the number does not tell the whole story.
The pin might be tucked behind a bunker. The green might be firm. The wind might be hurting. You may have a clean fairway lie one time and a slightly heavy lie the next. Maybe the safest play is a higher shot that lands soft. Maybe you want to flight it down and let it release. Maybe the club you normally use does not give you the landing spot you want.
Same number, different shot.
That is why I would rather have a small library of trusted answers than one perfect wedge motion I have to stretch, shorten and manipulate every time the course changes the question.
Your Stock Shot Is a Starting Point
I am not telling you to abandon stock distances.
Quite the opposite.
A stock shot gives your wedge game some order. You know the club, the general flight, and what a normal swing with that club tends to produce.
That matters.
But a stock shot is a home base. It does not have to become a prison. Suppose your comfortable 70-yard shot is a certain wedge with a familiar feel.
Good. Keep it.
Now suppose the wind comes up and you want the ball flying lower. Or the hole is cut over something, and you want more height and less release. Or the lie makes your normal choice feel awkward. If your only trusted answer is that one stock swing, you are left trying to force it into a situation it may not fit.
That is usually when the mechanical bargaining starts.
Now you are standing over a scoring shot trying to invent a version of the swing while you are playing.
I have done that plenty of times and it rarely feels like trust.
The Number Is Only Part of the Job
One thing I have learned about distance control is that we can get a little too attached to the yardage itself.
We want a clean answer:
Sixty yards equals this swing.
Seventy equals that swing.
Eighty equals something else.
Nice and tidy but the course is not tidy.
What matters is not whether you reproduced the exact same motion you used on the range last Tuesday. What matters is whether you chose a shot that fit the situation and produced the carry, flight and finish you needed.
That may come from a different club, from a different speed, a different trajectory, or from changing the landing spot and letting the green do more of the work.
There can be several good answers that is worth getting comfortable with.
Seasoned players sometimes resist this because we have spent so much time chasing repeatability. We have been told for years to make the swing more consistent, make the setup more consistent, and make the motion more consistent.
There is nothing wrong with consistency.
But distance control also asks you to adjust. You need enough stability in the motion to trust it, and enough flexibility in the game to solve a different shot when one shows up.
Both matter.
You Do Not Need Twenty Different Wedge Swings
This is where I want to keep the lesson small. I am not suggesting you build a circus act inside 120 yards. You do not need a different motion for every yardage, lie, wind direction and pin position. That would create exactly the kind of clutter Blackout training is trying to get away from.
I want a few answers you actually know.
That is different.
Maybe you have a normal 70-yard shot. Then you learn another way to cover roughly the same distance with a lower flight. Maybe you find that one more club with a little less speed gives you a shot you can picture clearly.
Now you have options.
Not because options are automatically better, but because the course is going to give you situations where one answer fits better than another.
The key word is trusted.
An option is not useful just because you managed to pull it off once. If you have to stand over the ball and consciously manufacture the motion from scratch, I would not call that a trained option yet.
It is an experiment.
Nothing wrong with experimenting. Just know the difference.
The Shot Should Feel Familiar Even When the Answer Changes
This is where practicing different shots can help. Not random shots just for the sake of making practice harder. Useful variation like changing the target and make yourself find the shot again.
Then change the club, the flight, the amount of speed, then pay attention to what stays clear. If you practice only the same 70-yard shot twenty times in a row, you can get very good at repeating the 70-yard shot you just hit.
That has value.
But it does not ask you to choose very much. You are feeding off the help of the previous ball. You already know whether the last one was short or long. You have the feel fresh in your hands. The next ball becomes an adjustment to the one before it.
On the course, you often do not get that help.
You may have hit driver, then a long iron, then chipped, then putted twice, waited on the next tee, and twenty minutes later you finally see another wedge.
Now you have 72 yards and one ball.
Finding the shot is the skill I care about. Not whether you can repeat one motion forever, but whether you can call up an appropriate answer when the situation asks for it.
I Would Rather See Three Clear Answers Than One Perfect One
If I were standing beside you at the back of the range, I would not start by changing your technique.
I would like to ask you a simpler question.
“How many ways do you trust to cover this distance?”
Not how many ways could you theoretically hit it.
How many do you trust?
That answer tells us something. If you have one, fine. We have somewhere to start with. If you have three but two of them require you to think about five different body parts, then maybe you really have one.
That is useful to know too.
I am looking for shots you can picture. Shots where you see the carry, landing spot and finish. Shots where the club choice makes sense to you. Shots where the motion feels like something you have trained rather than something you are inventing because the flag is tucked behind a bunker.
There is a lot of freedom in that.
You stop feeling as though every awkward wedge number has to be solved by adjusting the same motion until it somehow fits. Sometimes a different club is the cleaner answer. Sometimes changing the trajectory makes the shot easier to see. Sometimes the stock shot is still the best answer.
Pick the one that fits.
Then mean it.
This Is Not About Making the Swing More Complicated
Seasoned players can take a good idea and turn it into homework pretty quickly. So let me be careful here. Building a distance library does not mean cataloging forty-seven different wedge swings.
The purpose is to reduce the need to invent.
You train a few useful answers beforehand so that when the situation appears, the shot already feels familiar. So, there is less to solve over the ball.
That is the Blackout idea.
Do more of the figuring out in training. Then let the golf course become a place where you choose. You already know how dangerous it gets when the opposite happens. You stand over a shot unsure what you are going to do, and now the mind starts digging through the filing cabinet.
Step away.
Make the decision first.
Then hit the shot.
Give Me Six Honest Balls
Here is something you can try without turning it into a full practice program.
Pick one finish target, not three targets, just one.
Then choose three reasonable ways to get the ball there. Maybe that means three clubs. Maybe you use the same club with three different trajectories. Maybe you already have three familiar speed options.
Use solutions that make sense for your game. You are building your wedge game, not mine.
Now hit one ball with each answer. Three balls.
Before every shot, make the decision completely:
What club?
What flight?
Where does it land?
Then use your normal routine and pull the trigger.
Do not fix anything yet. What I want you to notice is not just which ball finishes closest. Notice which shot is easiest to picture before you swing. Notice which one feels familiar. And notice whether one option requires a pile of conscious manipulation just to make it happen.
That matters.
Now repeat the three shots once more, but change the order. Do not hit them one-two-three again, mix them up, and make yourself find the shot.
Six balls total.
That is enough.
Keep the Score Simple
You can score the experiment without turning it into a statistics project:
Give yourself two points if the ball finishes in your primary target zone.
Give yourself one point if it finishes in a larger safe zone.
Zero if it misses both.
The score matters, but it is not the only thing I would write down.
I would also ask:
Which answer could I see most clearly?
Which one felt like something I already owned?
Which one made me start manipulating the motion?
That last question can save you a lot of grief.
A shot may look good once and still not be ready for the golf course. You will know the feeling. You made it work, but it felt like work.
Keep training it if the shot is useful.
Just do not pretend it is trusted yet.
There Is Nothing Wrong With Having a Favorite
You do not need equal confidence in every option.
Most seasoned players are going to have a favorite answer.
I know I do.
There will be a club and flight you prefer when the situation allows it. That is not a weakness. If you have a shot you trust, use it.
The purpose of building more than one answer is not to make the decision harder. It is to keep you from being stranded when your favorite answer does not fit.
That is a big difference.
Think of it this way. Your first option is the shot you would like to hit. Your other options are shots you have already spent enough time with so that they do not feel foreign when you need them.
That is plenty.
The Course Will Tell You Which Answers Matter
You can build every imaginable option on the range and still miss the point.
Eventually the course has to get a vote. Maybe you discover you almost never need the high soft version you spent two weeks practicing.
Fine.
Maybe the low flight becomes your favorite whenever the wind comes up.
Good.
Maybe a different club gives you a much bigger margin for error from a certain lie.
Keep that one.
This is not about collecting shots so you can say you have them. It is about building answers for problems you actually face. That is why I like the word library.
You do not read every book every day.
You just want the right one there when you need it.
Do Not Search for the Perfect Motion Over the Ball
That is the part I want to bring back to the seasoned player standing beside me. You already know plenty about your swing. Probably too much on some days. The answer to a different wedge shot is not always another mechanical correction. Sometimes the real problem is that you only trained one solution and now you are asking that solution to do a job it was not built for.
So, change the practice.
Give yourself a number and a finish target. Then find two or three reasonable answers and hit them. Change up the order and see which ones stay clear when you have to find them again.
You may discover that one of your “options” is not really an option yet.
Good.
Now you know.
You may also find a shot that feels surprisingly natural.
Better.
Write it down and train it again later. Come back another day and see whether it is still there. Over time, those answers start becoming yours. Not because somebody told you the right backswing length or the correct percentage swing. Because you have seen the shot, you know the carry, and you know what it feels like.
And you can call it up when the situation fits.
That is what I want inside 120 yards. Not necessarily one perfect answer. Enough trusted answers that the course does not have to ask the exact same question every time.
Journal Prompt
Which answer felt like a trained option rather than an invented save?
Write down the distance, the club or trajectory you used, and what made the shot feel clear.
Then ask yourself one more question:
How many trusted ways do I actually have to cover the same scoring distance?
Do not exaggerate the number.
One good answer is better than four imaginary ones.
Start there. Build the next one.
Train trust, not swing thoughts.
Scott | Distance Control Coach
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