You’ll never guess who has the best short game on the PGA Tour – and what you can copy from him

Think you know who the best wedge player in the world is? Think again. One golfer is having a short-game season for the ages, leaving the likes of Spieth, Scheffler, and Lowry in the dust – and he’s revealed exactly how he does it.

When you think of the best short game players in golf right now, you probably picture the silky touch of Jordan Spieth, the flop-shot magic of Shane Lowry, the flawless technique of Jason Day, or the robotic consistency of Scottie Scheffler.

But what if I told you there’s a guy miles ahead of all of them?

And he’s not just ahead of everyone this season. He’s ahead of everyone from every season.

He’s leading the PGA Tour in ‘Strokes Gained: Around the Green’ by a staggering margin. And his current season stats are the best we’ve ever seen since the stat was introduced 22 years ago.

I reckon you could have 20 guesses and still not get it.

That’s the funny thing about golf. Stories and opinions are one thing, but the stats don’t lie.

Done guessing?

It’s Matt Wallace.

Yep, the 35-year-old Englishman has quietly become the short-game king. He’s gaining 0.771 shots per round around the green this season. That’s not just good – it’s record-breaking.

For context, Matteo Manassero is second with 0.608 strokes gained. Sungjae Im sits third at 0.557. Aaron Baddeley and Hideki Matsuyama round out the group of just five players gaining more than half a shot per round in this department.

And the names you might have guessed?

• Lowry | 24th | +0.271
• Spieth | 30th | +0.246
• Scheffler | 37th | 0.210
• Day | 41st | +0.195

Wallace isn’t just on a short-term heater. He’s been quietly brilliant for years. He’s ranked inside the top 50 for SG: Around the Green in five of his six PGA Tour seasons.

What is ‘Strokes Gained: Around the Green’?

‘Strokes Gained: Around the Green’ is a stat that measures a player’s performance on shots taken within 30 yards of the green – excluding putting. It captures everything from flop shots and bump-and-runs to chips from gnarly lies and delicate pitches off tight turf.

Instead of just tracking up-and-down percentage (which doesn’t account for difficulty), SG: Around the Green compares a player’s short game shots to the rest of the field. So if a player consistently saves par from tough spots better than the average Tour pro, their SG: Around the Green number climbs accordingly.

Wallace’s current average of +0.771 strokes gained per round means he’s picking up nearly a full shot per day on the field just with his short game. Over a 72-hole tournament, that’s more than three strokes. In elite competition, that’s a massive edge.

Learn from the best

The game’s best wedge wizard shares his short game secrets.

“I’d say that 99 percent of golfers are guilty of making the game too difficult. I used to be one of them. I would try to change this or that because that’s what Tiger does or this coach recommends. I was always tinkering with something, looking for that extra one percent.

To some extent, that remains the case even now, but the difference is, I go about it in a completely different way. The best thing I ever did was stripping everything back and focusing on a few key fundamentals.

It wasn’t easy, but all the work I’ve done with Matt Belsham on my short game has been key to improving my ball striking and consistency.

Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned, as well as my favorite drills and routines.

Not only are they easy to repeat and execute, they’ll also help you to get up and down more often.

Pitch perfect

The 60-yard pitch shot is probably the one shot I see people consistently mess up the most, even us pros. The natural reaction is to dial back the power or to hang back and ‘help’ the ball into the air. These two moves trigger the right side of the body to drop lower than the left, which then shifts the low point of the swing behind the ball and causes fats and thins.

To avoid a scooping action, you need to commit more and create clubhead speed. Focus on keeping the weight on your left side (70/30) so that the left shoulder stays over the left foot. This will automatically move the low point of the downswing slightly ahead of the ball so you get that ‘ball first, then turf’ contact which produces better strikes.

Matt Wallace’s top pitching tips

1. I practise hitting a lot of feel shots with my right heel up at address. It’s made a big difference to my strike because it forces me to stay on the left side and rotate around the body, releasing the hands towards the target.
   
2. Another good tip is to draw a line on the ground where the ball is and use it as a reference point to see where your divot is. If it’s behind the line, you’ll know your swing is bottoming out too early.

Swing from the sternum

For short finesse shots, you really need to limit the number of moving parts.

You need to think less wrists, more rotation – with your chest and core driving the action, not the arms and hands.

Again, it all comes back to consistency. It’s the reason I always keep my feet closer together, with the ball position in the center and my weight on my left side throughout the shot. Some people alternate and hit chips off their back foot, but if you keep it in the same place all the time, you will hit the same shot with the same flight over and over again. That is key to building consistency.

Matt Wallace’s top short game technique tip

A good tip is to hit shots with a towel tucked under your armpits. This will stop the arms from working independently and encourage the upper body to rotate and initiate the sequence.

The arms will naturally follow and come along for the ride.

How I play short shots from the rough

When chipping out of the rough, you need to allow for the ball coming out a lot higher.

Using a lower-lofted club, such as a 7-iron, might work from the fringe, but it has the potential to get snagged up in longer grass.

The smart play is to use a higher-lofted club, like a 54° wedge, so you can be a bit more aggressive and generate enough clubhead speed to cut through the grass.

The shot that saved my short game

One of the difficulties of playing golf abroad or on links courses especially is trying to hit a bump and run off a tight lie. I used to fat a lot of shots until I started standing a touch closer to the ball and practised chipping with the toe down and the heel off the ground.

What I quickly realised is that it’s almost impossible to fat a chip shot using this method because it basically eliminates the bounce altogether.

The set-up does feel a bit weird at first, but try to treat it like a putt, so the shaft sits more upright at address. This one move will bring less of the club into contact with the ground, which is key to clipping the ball off the turf cleanly.

My favorite short game test

When I’m playing a practice round, I might hit 10 shots around the green and add up the distance to the hole. The challenge is to keep it under 60ft, which means you’ve got a buffer of 6ft for every shot.

After a few goes, it will show you the benefit of reading chips like a putt.”

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