Secret of Feedback; Rule # 5: Hold Your Finish While You Learn

If you want your short game to be the best it can be, you must be able to see and feel the swing you need, to produce the shot you want, before you need it. This mind's eye and visualization must happen before you swing so it can help you make the perfect motion. 
The only way to achieve this ability is with experience, seeing and feeling how different swings cause different golf ball behaviors. You can't learn this by watching someone else hit, from videotapes, or from books. Those can teach you why and what to do and how it is done. But you must make the swings yourself show so you can add feel to the swings you observed, giving your mind's eye the complete correlation between actions and results. Once the feelings in images are internalize and accurate in your mind's eye, make enough practice swings until you see and feel the one that will produce the results you want. 
What do I mean by "holding your finish"? Remain in the completed follow-through position of the swing, without moving, so you have the feel of that swing as the ball lands. This simultaneous experience of shot result and swing feel is what enables a golfer to learn and internalize the swing mechanics/ball flight correlations for future use in the short game. If you hold your finishes until your shots land, you learn these correlations. With continued practice you will develop great touch. If you don't hold your finish, as soon as you stand up, step back, look away, or turn your back, you lose the feel of the swing and with it the chance to learn another swing/result correlation. Unfortunately, this is exactly what most golfers do and why their practice doesn't help them when they get to the course. 

The secret of feedback can be summed up this way: if you are raking and beating balls; if you or not set up with good aim; if you're not getting good distance feedback from your shots; if you're not aware of the trajectories of your shots; and if you're not forming a habit of holding your finishes, then you would be better off lying on your back, looking at the sky, and dreaming about a good short game.