Opinion & Analysis
The Wedge Guy: Ball striking vs. Shot making
We often hear these two terms used to describe a given golfer’s particular skills, and sometimes they are used interchangeably. Today, I would like to discuss the difference and then pose a question to all of you to weigh in on, if you would please.
To get this conversation started, here’s how I would define each and explain the difference:
“Ball striking” refers to a golfer’s ability to make extremely solid contact with the ball shot after shot, club to club, with remarkable consistency. It is the core essence of the game, actually, because until you get reasonably consistent in making solid contact in the center of the face of the club, you really don’t know
what the ball is going to do.
“Shot making” on the other hand, is the golfer’s ability to make the ball do what he or she wants. Shaping shots to move the ball around – fades and draws, high and low, take a little off of it, amp it up a bit, etc. – these are the skills that define the highly accomplished player.
In discussions of “ball striking”, the same names come up time and again for the “legend” tour professionals–Hogan, Nelson, Tommy Bolt, Lee Trevino are maybe the most noted. One of the more common is also the legendary Moe Norman. It was said by those who had the opportunity to see him that he almost never mishit a shot, and every one took off on the same trajectory and flight. It was said that Mr. Norman never achieved financial fame on the golf course, and I have read it was because of his nerves and quirky nature. Nevertheless, he is the subject of countless legends.
In the modern game, I think nearly all the top professionals are great ball strikers, and maybe the LPGA Tour even takes that consistently solid contact to the next level. They simply have to, as they don’t have the physical strength to play their courses with too many unsolid hits.
Moving on to “shot making”, again we see many of the same names from the history books, but I would put Tiger Woods on a completely different level from most of his peers. For over two decades, he has shown us some remarkable imagination and execution of shots most wouldn’t even have the ability to see.
It was said about Ben Hogan that he was one of the very few that combined both skills. Ben Hogan was noted for this insightful piece of advice about how to approach a pin location:
”You work the ball toward the flag. If it is on the right side of the green, you hit a fade, and hit a draw to any left flag location. Pins in the front require a high shot with spin, and those toward the back of the green require a lower shot with less spin. You always work the ball flight from the center of the green toward the edges.”
Now that’s serious insight into how the game can be played…at least if you have complete control over the ball flight. Or at least want to. And that brings me to my question today; I would like for as many of you as possible to chime with your answer to this:
Do you ever try to hit various shots–draws, fades, high, low, “carve it”, etc.– and how often? Only when necessary, frequently, often. Please also indicate your handicap with your answer, OK?
Let’s have some fun with this.
As the editor-in-chief of this website and an observer of the GolfWRX forums and other online golf equipment discourse for over a decade, I’m pretty well attuned to the grunts and grumbles of a significant portion of the golf equipment purchasing spectrum. And before you accuse me of lording above all in some digital ivory tower, I’d like to offer that I worked at golf courses (public and private) for years prior to picking up my pen, so I’m well-versed in the non-degenerate golf equipment consumers out there. I touched (green)grass (retail)!
Complaints about the ills of and related to the OEMs usually follow some version of: Product cycles are too short for real innovation, tour equipment isn’t the same as retail (which is largely not true, by the way), too much is invested in marketing and not enough in R&D, top staffer X hasn’t even put the new driver in play, so it’s obviously not superior to the previous generation, prices are too high, and on and on.
Without digging into the merits of any of these claims, which I believe are mostly red herrings, I’d like to bring into view of our rangefinder what I believe to be the two primary difficulties golf equipment companies face.
One: As Terry Koehler, back when he was the CEO of Ben Hogan, told me at the time of the Ft Worth irons launch, if you can’t regularly hit the golf ball in a coin-sized area in the middle of the face, there’s not a ton that iron technology can do for you. Now, this is less true now with respect to irons than when he said it, and is less and less true by degrees as the clubs get larger (utilities, fairways, hybrids, drivers), but there remains a great deal of golf equipment truth in that statement. Think about it — which is to say, in TL;DR fashion, get lessons from a qualified instructor who will teach you about the fundamentals of repeatable impact and how the golf swing works, not just offer band-aid fixes. If you can’t repeatably deliver the golf club to the golf ball in something resembling the manner it was designed for, how can you expect to be getting the most out of the club — put another way, the maximum value from your investment?
Similarly, game improvement equipment can only improve your game if you game it. In other words, get fit for the clubs you ought to be playing rather than filling the bag with the ones you wish you could hit or used to be able to hit. Of course, don’t do this if you don’t care about performance and just want to hit a forged blade while playing off an 18 handicap. That’s absolutely fine. There were plenty of members in clubs back in the day playing Hogan Apex or Mizuno MP-32 irons who had no business doing so from a ballstriking standpoint, but they enjoyed their look, feel, and complementary qualities to their Gatsby hats and cashmere sweaters. Do what brings you a measure of joy in this maddening game.
Now, the second issue. This is not a plea for non-conforming equipment; rather, it is a statement of fact. USGA/R&A limits on every facet of golf equipment are detrimental to golf equipment manufacturers. Sure, you know this, but do you think about it as it applies to almost every element of equipment? A 500cc driver would be inherently more forgiving than a 460cc, as one with a COR measurement in excess of 0.83. 50-inch shafts. Box grooves. And on and on.
Would fewer regulations be objectively bad for the game? Would this erode its soul? Fortunately, that’s beside the point of this exercise, which is merely to point out the facts. The fact, in this case, is that equipment restrictions and regulations are the slaughterbench of an abundance of innovation in the golf equipment space. Is this for the best? Well, now I’ve asked the question twice and might as well give a partial response, I guess my answer to that would be, “It depends on what type of golf you’re playing and who you’re playing it with.”
For my part, I don’t mind embarrassing myself with vintage blades and persimmons chasing after the quasi-spiritual elevation of a well-struck shot, but that’s just me. Plenty of folks don’t give a damn if their grooves are conforming. Plenty of folks think the folks in Liberty Corner ought to add a prison to the museum for such offences. And those are just a few of the considerations for the amateur game — which doesn’t get inside the gallery ropes of the pro game…
Different strokes in the game of golf, in my humble opinion.
Anyway, I believe equipment company engineers are genuinely trying to build better equipment year over year. The marketing departments are trying to find ways to make this equipment appeal to the broadest segment of the golf market possible. All of this against (1) the backdrop of — at least for now — firm product cycles. And golfers who, with their ~15 average handicap (men), for the most part, are not striping the golf ball like Tiger in his prime and seem to have less and less time year over year to practice and improve. (2) Regulations that massively restrict what they’re able to do…
That’s the landscape as I see it and the real headwinds for golf equipment companies. No doubt, there’s more I haven’t considered, but I think the previous is a better — and better faith — point of departure when formulating any serious commentary on the golf equipment world than some of the more cynical and conspiratorial takes I hear.
Agree? Disagree? Think I’m worthy of an Adam Hadwin-esque security guard tackle? Let me know in the comments.
@golfoncbs The infamous Adam Hadwin tackle ? #golf #fyp #canada #pgatour #adamhadwin ? Ghibli-style nostalgic waltz – MaSssuguMusic
Episode #16 brings us Cliff McKinney. Cliff is the founder of Old Charlie Golf Club, a new club, and concept, to be built in the Florida panhandle. The model is quite interesting and aims to make great, private golf more affordable. We hope you enjoy the show!
Last week, I came across a reel from BBC Sport on Instagram featuring Scottie Scheffler speaking to the media ahead of The Open at Royal Portrush. In it, he shared that he often wonders what the point is of wanting to win tournaments so badly — especially when he knows, deep down, that it doesn’t lead to a truly fulfilling life.
View this post on Instagram
“Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it because I’ve literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport,” Scheffler said. “To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point?”
Ironically — or perhaps perfectly — he went on to win the claret jug.
That question — what’s the point of winning? — cuts straight to the heart of the human journey.
As someone who’s spent over two decades in the trenches of professional golf, and in deep study of the mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the game, I see Scottie’s inner conflict as a sign of soul evolution in motion.
I came to golf late. I wasn’t a junior standout or college All-American. At 27, I left a steady corporate job to see if I could be on the PGA Tour starting as a 14-handicap, average-length hitter. Over the years, my journey has been defined less by trophies and more by the relentless effort to navigate the deeply inequitable and gated system of professional golf — an effort that ultimately turned inward and helped me evolve as both a golfer and a person.
One perspective that helped me make sense of this inner dissonance around competition and our culture’s tendency to overvalue winning is the idea of soul evolution.
The University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies has done extensive research on reincarnation, and Netflix’s Surviving Death (Episode 6) explores the topic, too. Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, the idea that we’re on a long arc of growth — from beginner to sage elder — offers a profound perspective.
If you accept the premise literally, then terms like “young soul” and “old soul” start to hold meaning. However, even if we set the word “soul” aside, it’s easy to see that different levels of life experience produce different worldviews.
Newer souls — or people in earlier stages of their development — may be curious and kind but still lack discernment or depth. There is a naivety, and they don’t yet question as deeply, tending to see things in black and white, partly because certainty feels safer than confronting the unknown.
As we gain more experience, we begin to experiment. We test limits. We chase extreme external goals — sometimes at the expense of health, relationships, or inner peace — still operating from hunger, ambition, and the fragility of the ego.
It’s a necessary stage, but often a turbulent and unfulfilling one.
David Duval fell off the map after reaching World No. 1. Bubba Watson had his own “Is this it?” moment with his caddie, Ted Scott, after winning the Masters.
In Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, reflecting on his 2011 Super Bowl win, Rodgers said:
“Now I’ve accomplished the only thing that I really, really wanted to do in my life. Now what? I was like, ‘Did I aim at the wrong thing? Did I spend too much time thinking about stuff that ultimately doesn’t give you true happiness?’”
Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
Eventually, though, something shifts.
We begin to see in shades of gray. Winning, dominating, accumulating—these pursuits lose their shine. The rewards feel more fleeting. Living in a constant state of fight-or-flight makes us feel alive, yes, but not happy and joyful.
Compassion begins to replace ambition. Love, presence, and gratitude become more fulfilling than status, profits, or trophies. We crave balance over burnout. Collaboration over competition. Meaning over metrics.
Interestingly, if we zoom out, we can apply this same model to nations and cultures. Countries, like people, have a collective “soul stage” made up of the individuals within them.
Take the United States, for example. I’d place it as a mid-level soul: highly competitive and deeply driven, but still learning emotional maturity. Still uncomfortable with nuance. Still believing that more is always better. Despite its global wins, the U.S. currently ranks just 23rd in happiness (as of 2025). You might liken it to a gifted teenager—bold, eager, and ambitious, but angsty and still figuring out how to live well and in balance. As much as a parent wants to protect their child, sometimes the child has to make their own mistakes to truly grow.
So when Scottie Scheffler wonders what the point of winning is, I don’t see someone losing strength.
I see someone evolving.
He’s beginning to look beyond the leaderboard. Beyond metrics of success that carry a lower vibration. And yet, in a poetic twist, Scheffler did go on to win The Open. But that only reinforces the point: even at the pinnacle, the question remains. And if more of us in the golf and sports world — and in U.S. culture at large — started asking similar questions, we might discover that the more meaningful trophy isn’t about accumulating or beating others at all costs.
It’s about awakening and evolving to something more than winning could ever promise.
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ChipNRun
Apr 7, 2020 at 8:48 am
I’m now about 20 HDCP (as per initial report under new system).
For a long time I tried to hit “whatever shot shape was needed,” but a few years back I settled into the draw as my stock shot. I had problems with a recurring overswing + Over The Top move, and the in-to-out of the draw helped prevent this.
For tee shots, I vary tee height (for the day) based upon turf conditions. It it’s drier, I’ll tee it down so I have a flatter descent angle and can pick up more rollout. If it’s wet, I tee it higher to maximize carry.
That said, on tee shots I can produce a decent fade when needed. I mean, the tee surface is flat and the ball is on a wooden peg which you can adjust the height of. Anyone who understands the basics of ball flight should be able to hit a basic fade or draw under these conditions.
And, if I’m in the right first cut (typical miss for draw), I can hit a low slap slice to get the ball up toward the green. (A skill I picked up playing blades in the previous century…)
For partial wedges, I use a square or ever-so-slightly open set up. With a midspin ball (i.e. Callaway Superhot, TopFlite Gamer Tour), I can generally drop a partial wedge on the green with maybe three yards of rollout.
For really shaggy shots around the green, I get better control with SW than with a LW.
Roejye
Mar 27, 2020 at 12:27 am
I don’t have an official handicap as I didn’t really keep score, and when I did there were quite a few mulligans thrown in. Going by the calculation of score over par, I was about a 13 with my scoring so I’ll say minimum 18. I play a course where there isn’t much reason to shape my shots, and my ability level isn’t there yet, so I focus on ball striking. Closest thing to shot shaping is using a more lofted club to get over a bunker or mound to a tight pin.
Jim
Mar 25, 2020 at 11:36 am
Current index 8.8. I consider myself a pretty good ballstriker but not much of a shot maker. My natural ball flight is a draw and I can hook and slice it at will but I find a fade very difficult to hit. High and low shots are a bit easier to hit. Lucky for me, I’m a lefty and most of the courses I play (local green fee courses) have far more dogleg rights than dogleg lefts to accommodate slicing right handlers. When I do have to make a “shot” and pull it off, it’s very satisfying—and surprising!
Tim M.
Mar 24, 2020 at 2:06 pm
My index is 3.3. As I’ve gotten older, and the balls spin less than the old balata balls I grew up with, I’ve been more confident in hitting draws/fades. My stock shot is a very slight fade…and I agree with the idea that many times, it’s better to hit the stock shot to middle of green rather than trying hit something I’m not as comfortable with. I pay a lot of attention to my warmup, and how the ball is moving. Some days, I can see that my short irons are being drawn a bit…so I work with that. I think it’s fun to hit shots with various curves, and I always think about on the course. I just try to make good decisions about when to try a shot, and when to “settle” for safe, middle of green shot.
Mark M
Mar 24, 2020 at 1:20 pm
One of the main reasons I love golf is exactly what you’re talking about Terry … SHOTMAKING!
I’m definitely in your OFTEN + category – what’s more than often? When I’m on the course, I look at all the available ways to get the ball to go where I want. Sometimes it’s a stock shot but most of the time I’m trying to create a shot that fits the situation as I see it. Sometimes that can be up to 4 or 5 different shot options. Friends have told me that I might lower my scores more if I limited my options to one or two main shots, but what’s the fun in that?!
2waymiss
Mar 24, 2020 at 12:14 pm
Handicap- Hacker! If the toe was the center of the face then I’d be the best ball striker on the planet. I’d love to be able to execute 1 of each shape in the 9 ball flights w/ predictable control. Heck, I’d settle just for a draw (no gear effect) w/ my driver! Lol
Dill Pickelson
Mar 27, 2020 at 11:59 pm
I tweeted Adam Young and asked him how to not toe it and he had me put the ball inside of the rubber tee and hit both. The body adjusted and I could sense the difference. I immediately went from a 6 to a 2 and have been there for about 3 years now. Crazy simple solution for a life long problem.
Brian Terry
Mar 24, 2020 at 12:05 pm
I play to an 8 and only work the ball when I need to. However, I PRACTICE those shots regularly so that I have the confidence to pull them off when needed. I use trajectory manipulation far more than curvature. I like to work the trajectory and spin to control the rollout for front and back pins depending on the firmness of the greens. I usually only use draws and fades if a pin is tucked and I can depend on the release of the shot to get it back to the pin after landing. I plan the ball to land 10-15′ from the pin and roll to it as opposed to landing right on the pin. Nothing is worse than hitting a shot to curve the ball perfectly to the pin, only to have it hop off the edge of the green leaving me short-sided.
BT
William Terry
Mar 24, 2020 at 10:25 am
I’ve gone multiple routes over this in 20 years of playing golf fairly seriously… I’ve ranged from a 12-4 over that time, and currently sit at a 5.5. I’m now 38 and have less time to play and practice… I’ve also decided this season to spend more time on chipping and putting and less time on the range hitting full shots.
Tiger talks about 9 “windows” High, Low, Middle, Straight, Fade, Draw… and can hit all 9 of them. I can hit about 5 different shots with varying degrees of success… High, Low, Draw, Fade, “straight”. I default to a fade and have tried to eliminate a left miss from my game… This allows me to aim left and worry less about hazards.
I can hit a draw, but it lacks control… I’ve stopped “going for it” and forcing a draw and it has helped eliminate mistakes from my game… I will rarely flight the ball on a regular shot into a green. I will use trajectory to get around obstacles, including a higher shot to get over a bunker into a tight pin. That’s about as close to shot making as I get right now.
If I ever succeed in getting my short game to “good”, I will probably spend more time working on a dependable draw, just to add a shot to my bag. It would be nice to have confidence in different shots, but right now I play what I know… Honestly, I don’t think this will shave a significant amount of strokes off my game (other than working on shot making will improve my ball striking). I can’t see how mastering a “second” type of shot would shave more than a half stroke off my cap.
Brian
Mar 24, 2020 at 10:23 am
I play to a 6 and my stock shot – and really only shot – is a draw; I can’t hit a [decent] fade to save my life. Trust me, I’ve tried, but it ends poorly. Luckily, I can repeat a pretty similar [draw] ball flight shot after shot, so what I’ll change up is the height based on the conditions: windy – keep it low, wet – keep it high, etc.
Bart
Mar 24, 2020 at 9:48 am
I try to put a bit of “english” on every single shot outside of 100 yards. It makes the game more interesting to me and also makes the winds influence more predictable. Also if you know the slope of the green it gives you a better chance of getting it closer since you have an idea of the roll after it lands. 9.9 out of 10 shots will have some sort of bend so might as well have control over it.
Wasnt it Hogan that said “straight hitters NEVER hit it straight”?