The term ‘pitching’ is used to refer to a shot that lofts high and lands softly. But many golfers are not aware of using the sand wedge for these shots. I have often found that students are intimidated by the loft of the sand wedge — the face of the club is angled towards the sky a lot more than the pitching wedge. (The sand wedge generally has 56 degrees of loft, whereas a pitching has anywhere from 44 – 48 degrees of loft.) Many of them use their pitching wedge instead because of the comfort level – or they thought that ‘pitching’ meant just solely using the pitching wedge. I have demonstrated this shot to my students: using the proper pitching technique, the pitching will go up in the air, but lower than a sand wedge, and will land, but roll after it lands. A sand wedge will go higher in the air and will have very little roll when it lands, so you can be more accurate in getting closer to the flag. Some of you might even have a lob wedge — which is 60 degrees of loft — which even has a higher loft and lands with virtually no ball roll. Now, if you have used your sand wedge for pitching, try experimenting with the lob wedge. But for those of you who have NEVER tried a sand wedge to pitch — you are missing one great shot to have in your arsenal of shots — and you will lower your score. If you want to learn about pitching with a sand wedge or lob wedge, please contact me for a lesson, or you can take a SchiavettaGolf Academy short game school in which this topic will be covered.