The Towel Low-Point Drill
Fat and thin wedges — the duffed chip that throws away a whole stroke.
Set up
Lay a folded towel on the mat with its near edge about a hand-width behind the ball. Normal wedge setup, short swing.
The reps
20 swings. One question each time: did the club brush the towel before the ball? Score a point only for a ball struck first, towel untouched.
How you know it's working
16 of 20 clean. A mat hides fat contact that grass punishes, so passing here on a mat means the strike is genuinely repeatable.
Why it works
A duffed chip is the club bottoming out behind the ball. The towel turns that into a loud, binary result you cannot argue with — no video, no feel, just hit it or don't. Contact comes before technique: the ball has to get to the green before distance control matters.
The evidence
Shot Scope benchmarks put a 15-handicap's up-and-down rate near 25%, roughly half a single-digit player's. Attentional-focus research is consistent that an external cue (the towel) beats an internal one ('shift my weight') for both retention and performance under pressure — which is why the target here is an object, not a body part.
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