There are two important aspects to every golf shot: direction and distance. Which one is most important? Both. Both if score is important. The golfer who lines up the putt correctly but hits the ball 30 feet past the hole is not going to score low. The same truth applies to the wedge shots. If you hit the ball on the perfect line but it goes over the green or ends up short in the sand or water, your score will reflect that fault.

How do you get the ball to go the right distance? It's really quite simple (fancy that word) as you will find out by reading the paragraphs below.

Now that you understand the idea of the less-than-full swing, the next challenge is having the ball go the right distance. The distance of these shots is limited and specific. If the flag is 22½ yards away, how do you hit a shot 17 yards that will roll up next to the hole? This is the question you face.

What must you do to hit the ball the distance you want it to go? Is it reasonable to consciously restrict the size of the back swing or make some other mechanical alteration? Do you take the club back to 10 o'clock if you want the ball to go 40 yards? This way of judging distance has been given lots of ink - but it certainly is not a fool-proof method and it requires more of that micro-management -- thinking of the body when you must be thinking about the shot and the target.

In order to help you understand how you can get the ball to go the correct distance, we will talk about throwing a horseshoe. If you've ever thrown horseshoes, the light goes on almost immediately. For those who have not thrown a horseshoe, I will give you three balls and ask you to throw them to me as I start walking away. I stay close for the first throw, farther away for the next, and somewhat farther for the last. Then I would ask, "With all distances being different, how did you know how far back to make your arm go to get the ball to me each time?" The reactive answer is that you just saw where I was and threw the ball to me, without knowing anything about what the arm was doing.

It's exactly the same with horseshoes. You make no conscious decision about the arm when making a throw for specific distance. The same ideas apply to the short wedge shot.

So, just how do you hit the ball the exact distance you want? We have a very sophisticated "system" and if we will allow it to work, it will work just like it does for us all day, every day. It's only when we try to "make" it work with the forebrain that we cause problems. It's the same "system" that gets you across the busy street. As you look down the road and see a car coming, your sy

stem subconsciously calculates the speed of the car, the distance it will travel and the distance you can cover in the time remaining. That's very sophisticated stuff and you have done it successfully every time. I can tell because you are reading this book and you are not under some car's tires.

To have the ball go a specific distance with a less-than-full-swing you simply need to feed the information into the system and let it work. That means you must spend a lot of time looking at the target, determining exactly where you want the ball to land, until the system figures out how much swing you need to make the ball go that distance.

It's reasonable to practice this shot from different distances and under different conditions to help the system learn. However, we must be careful to let the system work. We must never try to micro-manage the system or motion. Instead, keep your thoughts focused on the target while you are swinging. This is true with all shots in golf. Spend 20 seconds looking at the target and one second looking at the ball. Don't pick out a huge place for the ball to land, instead pick out a spot the size of a large cooking pot. The more specific you get, the better your opportunity to hit the target. We'll talk more about the target concept later, but suffice it to say that, if you want to hit a house, pick out a single windowpane.

If you know exactly where the target is while you are swinging and exactly the kind of shot you want to hit, your system will manage your body and create the needed swing to deliver the ball the right distance. This is true for all shots in golf but its more fun with the less-than-full swings around the green and the putter.

That's how you do it. Know exactly where your target is, keep it focused in your mind's eye as you swing and let your "system” produce the distance shot you need. Play well.

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