Stop making this takeaway mistake to improve your short game

It’d be great of we could hit every green in regulation, but unfortunately that’s simply not possible. Heck, even the best players in the world don’t hit every green. In 2025, the average GIR percentage on the PGA Tour was just under 66 percent, meaning even the best of the best found themselves scrambling about a third of the time.

When you think about it like that, it’s obvious why short game is so important. Golf is not a game of perfect, so learning how to recover from your mistakes is crucial.

Missing a green in regulation is one of the most common mistakes a golfer can make, but it can easily be rectified if you’ve got a solid short game. If you can get up-and-down at a decent clip, missing greens won’t hurt your scorecard quite so much.

In the video below, GOLF Teacher to Watch Parker McLachlin, aka the Short Game Chef, explains an easy way to improve your short game by fixing mistakes in your takeaway.

Fix this takeaway mistake

When I had a quick lesson with McLachlin at last winter’s GOLF Top 100 Teacher Summit, one concept he explained continues to stick with me. With short-game shots, there are two distinct families of techniques. One is the pitching and chipping motion, which is similar to a putting stroke, and the other is the flop and bunker motion, which involves more wrist action.

For many shots we face around the greens, the pitching and chipping motion is all you need to get the ball close. And to properly execute the shots, all you need to do is focus on rocking your shoulder back and forth, much like a putting stroke.

This can be difficult for many recreational players to get the hang of. Having quiet wrists is not something they are used to when hitting shots around the greens.

That’s why the video above from McLachlin can be so helpful. In order to achieve those “quiet wrists,” all you need to do is focus on your takeaway.

“I want to feel low on this takeaway and wide,” he says. “I don’t want to feel vertical and narrow.”

By taking the club back low and wide, you’re forcing yourself to keep your wrists quiet and shallowing your angle of attack. And in doing so, you are guarding against digging the leading edge into the ground and chunking the shot.

“However I take this thing away, that’s pretty much how I’m going to deliver it into the ball,” McLachlin says.

By mastering this low and wide takeaway, you’ll quickly improve your short game, get up-and-down more and shoot lower scores.

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