Without question, this is one of the books that changed my golfing life. Dave Pelz’s Short Game Bible brings science to the game of golf in a way that is easy to understand and practice. It helps take guesswork out of the short game by providing an understanding of the finesse swing and the statistical realities of the game of golf from 100 yards and in.

Pelz left a career in NASA to pursue his love of golf. His scientific background and love for the game come together perfectly to bring order to the short game, where before there was chaos.

Chapter Listing

1. Score Counts in Golf
2. Understanding the Game and Its Realities
3. The Five Games of Golf
4. Mechanics of the Short Game
5. How to Score
6. Distance Wedges
7. The Pitch Shot
8. Chipping and the Bump-and-Run
9. The Sand Shot
10. Short-Game Equipment
11. Everyone Has a Short-Game Handicap
12. Secrets of the Short Game
13. The Future

Highlights

As would any book that covers the short game, this book covers the swing technique for every shot you’re going to face within 100 yards of the pin. He gives extensive coverage to the finesse swing, pitching, chipping, sand play, and several other short game shots. Techniques are clearly defined and described in a way that’s easy to understand. But to me, the scientific and statistical concepts are what makes this book worth it’s weight in gold.

Percent Error Index

Pelz introduces us to the PEI as a way to statistically measure the performance of a golf shot. For instance, if a player has 100 yards to the pin, and hits a pitching wedge to 7 yards, it can be said that the PEI for that shot is 7% or 7 yds. / 100 yds. Using this, it’s easy to evaluate any shot, since a PEI of 0% means the ball went in the hole. Any other result is a miss and the PEI is used to judge how bad the error was.

The Golden Eight Feet

Through many, many hours of research and observation, Pelz discovered that regardless of skill level, the chances of making a putt rises drastically when the distance of that putt is within eight feet. As the distance becomes shorter, the chance of sinking the putt nears 100%. This led him to the conclusion that putting technique is less important than where you putt from to begin with. This is why the PEI and short game precision are so important for shooting better scores. All the techniques introduced in the book are geared toward reducing PEI for all short game situations. If you’re taking fewer putts, you’re obviously shooting lower scores.

The 3×4 System

While I consider all the information contained in the book to be fascinating, I find the 3×4 system to be most important. The idea is that you imagine your left arm (for a right hander) to be a hand on a clock with the left shoulder being the center of the dial. The back swing length can then be measured as a time on the imaginary dial. A short swing might register as 7:30, a half swing would be 9:00 (with the left arm parallel to the ground) and the longest back swing would be 10:30. This gives three back swing lengths that are easily repeatable. He then recommends carrying 4 different wedges: a pitching wedge, sand wedge, lob wedge, and an extra lofted wedge. Combined together, you get three repeatable back swing lengths times four different lofted wedges for a total of 12 repeatable short game distances. Practicing each of these wedge/swing length combinations until it is easily repeatable removes a lot of short game guess work and gives the best chance to get into the Golden Eight Feet.

Conclusions

If you’ve read this far, then you already know that this book gets two thumbs up. It’s very easy to follow with plenty of photos and diagrams. While it does take a mathematical and scientific view of the short game, by no means is it dry or boring. Pelz has a knack for turning a technical analysis into an interesting read. This book changed the way I play the short game. When I first started practicing the techniques outlined in the book, it didn’t take long before I began to see my PEI drop drastically.

The Good

• Easy to follow
• Lots of technical information
• Gives comprehensive techniques for every shot you’ll encounter within 100 yards
• His techniques are proven on many tour players

The Bad

• The only downside to this book that I can think of is that some people might find all the technical analysis to be a turn-off. If you prefer to cut to the chase and just learn the techniques, you might get bored with all the explanations. To me, this is a plus because I want to know why AND how. I recognize, however, that some people won’t like that.

Did you like this post? Get free RSS updates!

Leave a comment | Comment Policy | Trackback URL