Pitching Distance Control Drill

What it fixes

Pitch shots that fly the right general direction but the wrong distance — too long, too short, rarely close enough to give yourself a makeable putt. Most golfers try to control pitching distance by swinging harder or softer with the same length swing, which is genuinely hard to repeat under pressure. This drill uses backswing length instead of effort to control distance, which is a far more repeatable way to dial in three different yardages with one club.

Setup

Place three targets at increasing distances — for example 20, 40, and 60 yards, adjusted to whatever range you have access to. Use the same wedge for all three distances throughout the drill.

Steps

1. Short target: hit 3 balls using a short backswing — roughly hip-high, sometimes described as the "7 o'clock" position — swung at a normal, unrushed tempo. Don't decelerate to control distance; let the shorter backswing do that job.
2. Middle target: hit 3 balls using a fuller backswing — roughly shoulder-high, or "9 o'clock" — same tempo as the short target.
3. Long target: hit 3 balls using a close-to-full backswing — roughly "11 o'clock" — again, same tempo throughout, not a harder swing.
4. That's one full rep — 9 balls total. Note how many finished within a few paces of their target.

Common mistakes

Changing swing speed instead of swing length to control distance — this is the single most common habit this drill is built to break. If you catch yourself swinging noticeably harder for the long target and noticeably softer for the short one, that's the pattern to interrupt; the backswing length should be doing that work, with your tempo staying consistent across all three.

Progression

Once you're consistently landing shots near all three targets, add a fourth distance between two of the existing ones, forcing a backswing length you haven't specifically drilled yet — this tests whether you've built real feel for the relationship between backswing length and distance, not just memorized three fixed positions. Once that's solid, have someone call out a target distance in random order instead of working through them in sequence, which is much closer to how distance control actually gets tested on the course.