1. Play the ball in the center of your stance (being sure to use your body as your reference point and not your feet) or maybe even slightly to the right of center.
2. And the most important part – when you address the ball it’s no problem to have the butt of the club pointing at the center of your body, but as you turn your shoulders and, indeed, your entire upper body, this can be a little tricky if you think of this relationship solely in terms of pointing the butt of the club at the center of your body.

The basic swing path for a three-quarter wedge is the 11-to-1 swing. What we mean by that is that you should picture yourself as a giant clock.

Your head is at 12 o’clock and your feet at 6 o’clock. So the ball and the club are at 6 o’clock as you prepare to play the shot.

What you are aiming for with this shot is to swing the clubhead back to 11 o’clock and through to 1 o’clock.

It’s important to make the distinction between swinging the clubhead that distance and swinging your hands that distance.

If you swing your hands up to 11 o’clock you would be making a bigger swing than you normally would playing a full wedge.

Nevertheless, just to get the clubhead to 11 o’clock you’ll have to turn your hips and shoulders.

This is the point at which you want to maintain the butt of the club/body-center relationship. If it helps, you can think about your hands instead of the butt of the club.

All we are really talking about here is keeping your hands in time with your body turn. The best way to monitor this is to keep your hands in the same position relative to the center of your body from address and throughout the swing as you turn away from and through the ball.

When you follow-through, turn your body through and swing the clubhead to the 1 o’clock. This will produce a shot that flies shorter than a full wedge, but it will still have spin on it if played from the fairway.

Use This Method In Practice

Using this 11-to-1 method, you can practice creating shots that carry different distances by making small adjustments in how far you swing the club in relation to 11 o’clock and 1 o’clock. The key is to always swing the club back and through the same distance.

There is good reason for this: The natural inclination when hitting a partial shot is to attempt to add a little extra “hit” through impact, especially if you’re not used to playing this shot. The fear is that the ball won’t travel far enough, so you try to give it a little added thrust at impact.

The first thing you need to know about playing a three-quarter wedge is that there is nothing abbreviated about it. It has a clear beginning and end, and if you cut either part short, you’re not going to like the result.

In essence what we’re doing here is pointing out the downside before we tell you how to play the shot. That’s because the greatest number of mis-hits in attempting this shot occur because the player cuts the swing off before it’s finished.

Do Not Confuse This Shot With The Punch

There are an awful lot of players out there who confuse partial wedge shots with “punch” shots. There is a good reason for this: Punch shots involve a short backswing and crisp feel at impact, and it has no follow-through.

So, the punch shot is easy to execute and it feels good. It’s also a basically useless shot unless you are playing out from the trees to get your ball back in play. It’s difficult to judge the distance a punch shot will carry, and it won’t have any backspin on it.

The reason for the confusion is that players hear or read the words “partial swing” and their brain says “punch shot” because of the lack of follow-through on a punch shot and because it’s one shot almost every golfer knows how to play.

Well, if you are 80 yards from the green and you take your wedge and slam it down on the back of the ball with no follow-through, one of two things will happen: You’ll either hit way behind the ball and take a divot the size of New York, or you might catch the ball clean.

And, if by some miracle, you catch the ball clean and have guessed correctly about how hard to hit it , you’re still out of luck, because when the ball hits the green it’s going to bounce over the back of the green.

All that, by way of saying, is to simply learn the difference and do not confuse these partial shots with punch shots.

New players may not have the same connection, but in time you will notice that even the smallest new challenges need to be addressed. Here are a few good tips to keep in mind:

Match Putter Loft To The Speed Of Greens

In general, many professional golfers say that a putter with less loft is more effective on dry, fast greens, while a more lofted putter works best on slow greens.

Of course this may not be your experience if you have not been playing golf for a while, but most of you can relate, and you should heed the advice and work it into your next few putting sessions.

When It Rains, First Line Up Your Putts Without The Ball

The first rule of thumb when playing golf in the rain is to keep your ball as dry as possible. So in order to keep it dry before you putt, line up your putt with a ball marker in place instead of the ball.

Wait until the very last moment before placing your ball on the green and taking your stroke.

Keep Your Shafts Dry

During the rain also be sure to wipe down the shaft of the club with a dry towel after hitting each shot. Otherwise, excess water will run down the length of the club and onto the grip when it is replaced in the bag.

Dress In Layers During The Cold

Although it can be very tempting to slip on a couple of heavy duty sweaters plus a waterproof jacket to play in the bitter cold, heavy or thick items of clothing can restrict your swing.

Many top golfers prefer to play in several thin layers of clothing – a vest, a couple of light T-shirts, and a sweater – rather than one thick jumper or overcoat.

This allows them to keep their mobility and freedom of movement while staying warm.

Know Your Grains When Reading The Green

The grain affects the break as well as the speed of a putt. Always remember:

- Down grain putts move faster.
- Putting into the grain is slower.
- Cross grains will break more or less than usual.

Check out the following tips that just may come in handy whenever your game gets confronted with unplanned events:

Think Of Shots As Breaking Putts In The Wind

During windy conditions, on every shot you just try to let the wind help your ball toward the hole rather than blowing your shots off line.

To that end, think of your shots as breaking putts. The old theory on the greens is that every putt is straight as far as you are concerned. You simply aim for a point and let the slope and/or grain take the ball to the hole.

Keep Your Head, Hands, And Feet Warm

The extremities of your body – head, fingers, and feet – are susceptible to the cold. Playing golf with cold hands and/or feet is a miserable experience.

Invest in some golf mittens that you can slip on in between shots and use to remove the clubs from the bag so that you can avoid touching the clubhead or shaft.

Thermal socks will make a huge difference to the warmth of your feet. And finally, most of your body heat is lost through your head, so a woolly hat or a cap will improve your body’s insulation.

Strong Winds Can Blow A Putt Off Line

Be conscience of the wind and alter your stroke accordingly. A mild breeze is unlikely to knock a well-struck putt too far off line, but a howling wind can move the ball several inches.

For example, Tony Johnstone, when playing at the Open Championship at St. Andrews in 1995, had a dead-straight 3-foot putt that missed the hole by some six inches, and finished a further 4 feet to the right.

Use Your Wedge From Against The Collar

Whenever the ball is located right against the collar of the fringe, do not get worried as most new golfers do.

And do not grab the putter either, which is another common mistake made by new players. Instead, make the shot with a wedge and use this technique:

Line up the leading edge of the clubhead with the ball’s equator. Now using a firm wrist, make the putting stroke, hitting the ball right where it rises over the long grass.

You will make impact smooth and solid due to the heavy flange of the wedge, making the ball roll ever so smoothly just like a regular putt.

Even playing the same golf course throughout the year can still present a variety of changing conditions where even the smallest tip can help keep your score on track and your game in check.

From changing weather conditions to unique styles of course, learning how to be versatile is important to enjoying your game.

Match The Putter Weight To The Speed Of The Greens

Here is an outstanding tip given by Jack Nicklaus in his book “The Best Way To Better Golf”.

In it Jack states: “If your course has fast greens, a light putter would be best. A heavier putter, on the other hand, is usually the most appropriate on slow greens.”

Keep The Ball Dry For As Long As Possible

For those rainy seasons on the golf course, it is paramount to keep your ball as dry for as long as you can.

Otherwise, the dimples fill up with water and the ball then has the tendency to slide off the clubface at impact with very little control.

Stretch Those Cold Muscles By Swinging Your Clubs

Playing golf in the winter season means having to warm-up a little extra than when playing during the warmer months.

However, most amateur golfers just jump right into a stretching routine in the dead of winter which can actually be dangerous. Stretching cold muscles hard and fast can cause injury.

The best way to warm up when the temperature is cold is to swing your clubs gently. This will help warm up the muscles you use for your strokes in a slow, yet effective manner, thus diminishing the chance of injury.

Also add to this practice jogging in place to get more blood flowing into the legs and upper body.

Allow Extra Time To Warm Up In The Winter

In addition to learning how to properly warm up those cold muscles by swinging your clubs, it is also smart to give yourself more time to do so, long before your first tee-off.

This is one of the top reasons why amateur players score significantly worse during the winter months – they do not warm up before they play, and if the do – it is rushed too fast.

They stand on the first tee freezing cold and then take more holes than normal to get warm, by which time the damage to the score is already done.

Take the time to get in plenty of practice swings before you head to the first tee so that your muscles are loose and warm before you hit the opening shot.

But when you dig your feet it shouldn’t be an absent-minded process that you do simply because it’s fun to wiggle your feet around in the sand.

What you are actually doing when you dig your feet into the sand is lowering yourself in relation to the ball.

How far down you dig with your feet and how close you stand to the ball are inextricably linked. When you want to play a high shot, you want to stand farther away from the ball and also have feet dug farther down into the sand.

The further you stand from the ball and the more you dig in, the steeper the resultant angle of your swing will be. When you want to hit a high soft shot, you want the club to approach the ball from a steep angle.

The higher the shot you wish to produce, the steeper the angle of approach should be.

Hence, the steeper you want the angle of the approach to be, the farther you should stand from the ball and the more you should dig in.

And the further you stand from the ball and the more you dig in, the wider apart you should set your feet.

How far you dig into the sand with your feet and how far you stand from the ball should be proportionate to each other.

If you dig down into the sand an inch with your feet, you should stand an inch farther away from the ball than you would for a normal wedge shot.

Also proportionate to these things is how far down on the shaft you grip the club. The farther back you stand from the ball and the farther down you dig your feet, the more you want to choke down on the club, thereby shortening the length of the club as you move the ground “closer” to your hands.

The opposite of this is also true in that if you wish to play a lower, longer shot, you should stand closer to the ball than normal and not dig your feet in quite so much.

The Pace Of Your Swing From The Sand

The pace at which you swing the club on a greenside bunker shot determines the amount of velocity a shot has on it, and also the amount of backspin.

So when the ball is close to the hole, you want to open your body in relation to the clubface and target, and choke down a few inches on the shaft.

You also want to move back from the ball, dig in more with your feet, and swing at a fairly slow pace. When the hole is what you might call medium distance from the ball, you want to stand pretty much square to the clubface, stand the normal distance from the ball that you would for any wedge shot, and swing at a medium pace.

When you want to produce a lower, longer shot - stand closer to the ball, don’t dig in at all with your feet, and swing the club at a slightly quicker pace back and through.

Of course this is not always the case, which will be covered later, but for the time being, you have a clean lie.

The first thing you do before entering the bunker is determine how far you want the ball to carry when executing the bunker shot. In general, the closer the ball is to the hole, the higher and shorter you want the ball to fly.

As the hole moves farther away from the ball, you want to start thinking about a shot that flies lower and carries farther.

The higher the shot you wish to produce, the more open you want the clubface to be in relation to your body. The lower you want the ball to fly, the more square you want the clubface.

It is important here not to confuse “opening” the clubface with aiming it to the right of the target. The thing you actually “open” is your body. You should always leave the lead edge of the club aimed at your target.

Note: You should know this by now, but as a reminder please remember that the “target” is not the hole, but the spot where you want the ball to land.

As you do with every other shot in golf, you should choose your target before addressing the ball. In this case, you’ll want to case the green before entering the bunker.

This is because most bunkers have some sort of fencing on them that will prevent you from having full view of the putting surface.

Since you might not be able to see your target as you make your swing, you want to establish a target before entering the bunker.

Specifically, you want to determine how far you want the ball to fly and what kind of trajectory you want on it.

What you should do is pick a spot on the lip of the bunker over which you would like your ball to fly. Pick out some sort of distinguishing mark on that spot and then proceed into the bunker.

That spot is the point at which you should aim the lead edge of your clubface. If you want to open your body in relation to your target and the clubface, make certain you open your shoulders, hips and feet – not just any single component on its own.

Once you have decided to hit a fairway metal off the tee, the key is making sure you don’t try to make up the distance that, in the back of your mind, you know you’re losing through not hitting a driver.

That’s an easy mistake to make, but not one made by Jim Furyk.

Furyk’s swing may not be picture perfect, but there is no one better at maintaining good rhythm and playing for position rather than for power.

He believes in his swing, he knows exactly how far he hits the ball with that club, and he never pushes for more distance. That’s why he hits more fairways than probably any other top player in the game.

So, when you’re hitting a fairway metal off the tee, think position, not power. That’s the whole point of the club!

Some of the solutions you may find here are quite simple, and may seem too lame for seasoned golfers, but the issue of losing ground that you normally shoot at does not have to be complicated to fix.

Control Your Feet

Check the position of your feet. The issue of lack of distance that you would normally get on your tee-off shots may have to do with limited hip turn, which is the result of the tips of your feet being perpendicular to your target line (a big mistake).

Make changes by flaring both of your feet out just a bit. Make sure that the left foot is facing the target line and the right foot is facing away from the target line.

What this does is induce a bigger turn with your body away from and through the ball.

You also want to check your footwork as the swing is in progress. You’ll notice the majority of players will pick their heels up far off the ground – with the left heel up on the backswing and the right heel up on the downswing.

The left heel movement isn’t all that bad so long as you kick the left knee in towards the right knee, thus shifting weight onto the right leg.

This will help you keep balance and prevent losing distance on your drives from now on.

Stop Trying To Kill The Ball

Sometimes finding the issue to a problem with your golf game does not have to be as complicated as the magazines and golf books make it out to be.

A prime example of this - in terms of finding a solution to losing distance on your tee off – is that you may just be trying too hard to kill the ball.

Many decent, veteran golfers have fallen into this trap. It may sound too simple or too insignificant of a problem to fix but I assure you – no matter how good you are this could be the key issue with your lack of distance lately.

If you purposefully try to hit the ball as hard as possible then the mind tends to lose focus on execution and instead just worries about results.

So anytime you are in a slump where you find your tee shots consistently falling short by ten or more yards than you normally get to, here are a couple of checkpoints to go over:

Remove The Death Grip

Probably the number one enemy of distance in golf is too much tension on the club. The reason is because everything about a good golf swing that you learn – the springing, winding up and down, the coil action, etc. is all meant to work in harmony to create the perfect swing, but only as long as your body is tension free.

For example, it is impossible to get the perfect wind-up turn if your arms and body are resisting. The only form of resistance should remain in the legs.

This is a classic problem of most new golfers – severe tension in the upper body, but can also creep its way into seasoned players like yourself.

The hands are the first place this tension starts to develop in - the “death grip” so to speak. To put it into more simple terms: you are basically just squeezing the club too tight.

So when your tee-off drives start to lose distance the first thing to do is check the pressure of your grip.

If you feel any tension at all in the hands or forearms, I guarantee you will get back those 10 to 15 yards in just a few swings by not using so much pressure.

The Reverse Pivot

This is another problem that warps the distance of even the best players’ drive shots. It’s known as the reverse pivot and it is a simple misunderstanding of body language and weight shifting.

Let me explain:

In the average correct swing, your bodyweight starts out being evenly distributed throughout both legs. When the backswing starts, most of the weight shifts towards the inside of the right leg. The downswing then has the weight shifting onto the left leg.

When a golfer does the reverse pivot, the weight shift of the player becomes the total opposite. The weight is actually shifted onto the front leg, which is happening at the same time during the club being swing back, resulting in the golfer forming this distorted stance with most of his weight leaning in toward the target.

The end result of this reverse pivot is absolutely no coiling action, no spring, lack of power – absolutely nothing.

So if you are a decent player whose tee-offs are losing the distance you would normally get, check your weight shift and get back on track.