How to be Pitcher Perfect
by Anne Cain, Anne Cain Golf Academy
Turn your body to pull your hands for Tour-style wedge shots
Most poor pitch shots result from overactive hands and wrists, so keep them calm and instead pitch the ball with your body. Here's a drill that will teach you to rotate your upper and lower body completely through the shot and produce a more consistent launch angle and extra distance.
Place a dowel that's at least 24 inches or longer in the hole on top of your grip and lean the shaft forward at address so the dowel is left of your front hip. Then try to pitch the ball by pulling the club through impact with your body turn, not by flipping your wrists.
You're doing it wrong if...
The dowel smacks the left side of your torso in your forward swing.
You're doing it right if...
You pitch the ball cleanly and the dowel stays left of your body throughout your motion.
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LPGA instructor Anne Cain is one of Golf Magazine’s Top 100 Teachers in America. She was a finalist for LPGA Teacher of the Year in 2002 and 2005 and was named a “Favorite Instructor” in Golf for Women magazine (readers’ survey). As a player, Cain won two professional titles and was an All-American selection at the University of Georgia .
Located at the serene Golf Club of Amelia Island within walking distance of Summer Beach Resort and The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island , the Anne Cain Golf Academy provides students with a variety of golf lessons. Private, individual training is offered as well as luxurious vacation packages that include accommodations and rounds of golf. The academy's ability to customize a program for an individual golfer or small groups up to 4 people makes the academy unique in the industry.
The Anne Cain Golf Academy is conveniently located less than thirty minutes from the Jacksonville International Airport
Anne's Professional Accomplishments
- GOLF Magazine Top 100 Instructors in America Award winner
- Named by Golf Magazine as one of the Top Instructors by Region for the state of Florida
- Nominated by peers for LPGA Teacher of the Year Award (1999, 2002, 2005)
- Named as a "Favorite Instructor" in Golf for Women
- Contributes golf instruction articles to GOLF Magazine
- Became the first LPGA instructor to become an authorized instructor of Homer Kelley's The Golfing Machine. This book is the leading technical manual on the physics and geometry of golf. Fewer than 100 pros have been authorized worldwide.
- Cain's published article "Einstein's Golf Lesson" is used by Johnson and Johnson in training its pharmaceutical sales managers the importance of coaching and building skills "one at a time".
