Chipping

Now the big part of the short game improvement program is to learn to land the ball in the place you want the ball to land. And for chipping I want you to find one area to chip from and then with one club practice chipping until you can consistently land the ball where you want. Once you can do that then change clubs every shot and try to land the ball on the same spot. Use clubs between your 5-iron and lob wedge when doing this.

This is a great exercise to do because it will teach you quickly how far each club will roll the ball. Once you’ve done this then experiment with different chip shots and try different clubs until you find the best clubs for you generally to use on chip shots. For some people that will be high lofted clubs, for others they’ll prefer lower lofted clubs. You’ve got to find what works best for you.

Another great drill you can use to practice your chipping is to make a circle about 3 feet in diameter with golf tees around a hole. Then practice chipping from different spots trying to get each ball to stop within 3 feet of the hole.

Finally, if you’re lucky enough to have a practice chipping green with multiple holes then you should pick one spot to chip from. Then for each shot, chip to a different target. Naturally when you do this you will probably have to change clubs. For example, if you’ve got a 50 foot chip and a lot of green between you and the pin then you’ll do a lot better to choose a lower lofted club like a 5 or 6 iron. Then if you’ve got a pin that is very close to you and not much green then you’ll have to choose a more lofted club. Remember, the goal is to land the ball about 3 feet on the green for each chip shot.

This is a great drill to practice before you play a game as it will quickly give you a feel for the greens that you’ll be faced with out on the golf course (as long as they’re similar to the practice green).

OK, let’s look at some practice drills for…

Pitching

Often when you’re faced with a pitch shot your ball will not be sitting perfectly. So to become a great short game player you have to practice shots from poor lies. So do this, but when you do don’t just give yourself a bad lie for one shot and then go back to giving yourself good lies. Hit at least 10 shots from a particular bad lie so you can learn how best to get the ball out of that spot and close to the hole.

Now with pitching you have to employ a lot of imagination and be able to visualize what’s going to happen with the golf ball very clearly. And a great way of improving this skill is to get one club, e.g. a 7-iron, and place balls around a golf green and hit shots with your 7-iron trying to get each ball as close as possible to the hole. Naturally when you do this you’ll have to make adjustments from your normal setup. For example, if you’re behind a bunker and you’re using a 7-iron you’ll have to open the club up very wide, have a very wide stance and make a long, big swing.

But that’s OK. Doing things like this will help you to have some fun and learn what you can do with a golf club, and improve your visualization and imagination skills. That can only improve your short game.

All right, let’s now turn our attention to…

Distance Wedge Swings

This distance wedge drill involves a fellow golfer. To do this drill simply find an area where you can practice the distance wedge shots and practice hitting shots back and forth to each other. So start at say 50 yards away from each other and with one ball try and hit the ball to your partner so it bounces once in front of them and then they can catch it.

Then they hit the ball back to you trying to get it to bounce once in front of you.

This game is great as it puts a bit of pressure on, which can only help on the golf course. Also, it makes you focus a lot on where you want your ball to fly. And if you don’t fly it were you want then you might get a bit of flak from the person having to chase after the ball all the time.

If you don’t have a person to do that drill you can simply put targets out at different distances and then hit distance wedge shots to each target. Start with your shortest target and then move up to the furthest target. Once you’ve done that then hit each shot to a random target. By doing this it will get you more into a course mentality where each golf shot is different.

OK, now let’s finally look at…

Bunker Shots

To do this first bunker drill you simply have to place the ball on a tee and push the tee down into the sand. Once this is in place then you simply have to swing and try to cut the tee in half with the leading edge of your golf club. If you have trouble getting your club through the sand then you should definitely try this drill, as it helps greatly to accelerate through the sand.

Another great drill to improve your bunker shot technique is to place a ball in the middle of your foot print. Then when you swing simply focus on removing the imprint completely from the sand. This is a great drill if you’re afraid of hitting the sand. Finally, when you’re practicing bunker shots make sure you don’t just practice perfect lies. Give yourself bad lies and learn to get the ball close to the pin from anywhere.

So that’s some ways you can practice the short game. But finally, probably the best way to improve your short game is to practice with someone that is better than you. If you can find someone like that then play games with them trying to beat them in getting the ball closest to the hole.

And I teach something called chip-putting but before I explain that I need to give you the definition of a chip shot. Because you’ve probably heard a variety of definitions on what constitutes a chip shot….but most of them are wrong. So here is the best definition of what a chip shot is…

Chip Shot Definition…a chip shot is a motion that is very close to the pendulum putting motion as it requires no independent wrist movement.

So a chip shot is not defined by how far the ball flies or rolls, but rather a chip shot is defined by the motion being very close to a pendulum putting action and it requiring no independent wrist movement. So if you are chipping the ball and you break your wrists then you have just hit a pitch…not a chip.

Now for chip and pitch shots I highly recommend you grip the club down the bottom of the grip.

Why?

It’s simple.  Just look at the way you hold a pen.  You don’t hold it at the top because by doing that you’d have very little control.  Instead you hold it down the bottom of the pen so you have more control.

And with short shots like a chip or a pitch you want full control of the clubhead.  You don’t need a lot of power, but more control.

So remember, for chip and pitch shots you should hold the club down the bottom of the grip.

Now the first shot I think you should learn is called a chip-putt.  And what this involves is setting up to a chip shot as though you are going to putt.  So you should use the same grip as you do when you’re putting. Here is a close-up of the putting grip I use to chip-putt with.

Now it’s important when you setup to chip-putt that you…

• align the club directly at where you want your ball to start
• have some flex in your knees
• position your hands so they are in front of the ball
• position your eyes directly over the ball
• have your arms relatively straight
• align your feet, knees, hips, shoulders all parallel to the starting line of your shot
• 55 – 60% of your weight is on your left foot

Once you are in a similar position to what I’ve explained above then you are ready to swing. Now to swing you need to understand that very little should be moving. And I want to go through the parts that should NOT be doing anything as you swing. So here are all the parts that should NOT be doing anything as you’re chip-putting…

• Feet – Nothing
• Ankles – Nothing
• Knees – Nothing
• Legs – Nothing
• Hips – Nothing
• Head – Nothing

All that should be moving to make the golf club move should be your shoulders, arms and wrists.

So to swing you simply have to concentrate on moving your shoulders, arms and wrists and keeping this triangle intact as you’re swinging. So there should NOT be any independent action from your hands. They should be dead.

Here is a picture sequence of swinging the club when chip-putting:

OK, here are a couple of other things that are VERY important.

1. Your follow-through should always be longer than your backswing.

Why?

Because this helps you to naturally accelerate through the ball. You don’t have to try and do it. If you swing through longer than you take the club back you’ll naturally accelerate through the ball.

2. At the end of every shot you should hold your finish until the ball has stopped moving. And while you’re holding your finish position you need to watch the ball and see the trajectory of the shot, distance traveled etc.

OK, so that’s all there is to chip-putting. Just swing your shoulders and arms keeping everything else still, and swing through longer than you did going back and hold your finish.

Now when you setup for a normal chip shot you should position the ball in the middle of your stance.  And your feet should be closer together than for chip-putting.  Also, your feet should be turned towards the target by about 25-30 degrees.  Here is a picture of the chipping setup needed:

Now at address you should still have some knee flex just like you did when chip-putting but you should stand taller than you did when chip-putting. But you don’t need to have your eyes directly over the ball when chipping.

You want the club face to be pointing straight at your target and you also want your wrists to be slightly bowed. To do this you may need to raise the club up so the heel of the club is off the ground. If so, do it. And don’t worry about it because you’ll be striking the ball first instead of the ground so it won’t make any difference as far as the contact is concerned. Also, you should grip the club with your putting grip. Finally, you should have about 60-65% of your weight on your front foot.

So it’s important when you setup to chip that you…

• grip the club with your putting grip
• align the club directly at where you want your ball to start
• have some flex in your knees
• position your hands so they are in front of the ball and bowed.
• have your arms relatively straight
• align your shoulders parallel to the starting line of your shot
• 60 – 65% of your weight is on your left foot

Like with the chip-putting action I explained, at setup you’ll notice there is a triangle relationship formed by your arms and shoulders.  So when chipping this relationship should stay intact as you’re swinging.  Also, your swing must be longer on the follow-through than it was on the backswing and you must hold the finish of your swing when you watch the ball flying and finishing.

OK, so that’s what you need to work on when chipping.  In the next part of this short game consistency and success series we’re going to look at pitching.  Make sure you come back to read that.

One Club Chipping

Well, if you use just one golf club for chipping I personally believe it makes more sense to use different golf clubs for each situation, and here’s why.

When you change golf clubs to suit the shot you’re playing you can pick clubs that will just land the ball on the green and then let the ball roll to the hole.  The quicker you can get the ball rolling on the green the more predictable the result.  I think you should aim every chip shot to land just on the green and then let it roll from there, and obviously to do this you will have to change golf clubs to suit the shot you face.

The other theory is to just use one golf club for every chip shot, but the major problem with this theory comes when the golfer has to manipulate the swing in order to fit the golf club to the shot.  I believe it creates much more consistency to have one way of chipping a ball and then changing the loft of the golf club for the shot.

Give both approaches a try and see what works for you.  But I recommend changing the golf club to suit the shot, and not changing the swing.

A lot of top golfers chip with their putting grip, but I want to quantify this.  Top golfers only use their putting grip when they are basically just off the green and can therefore use their putting action while using an iron to get the ball up and over the fringe and then rolling on the green as soon as possible, just like a putt. Doing this definitely cuts down on the risk of chipping.

You’ve no doubt heard the rule that your worst putt will always beat your worst chip, and that’s true but I want to add another rule here for you.  Your worst chip with a putting grip and putting action will always beat your worst chip with your normal chipping action.

Why?

Because your putting action should have many times less moving parts than your chipping action.  When using your putting action I suggest you have your normal chipping stance, but simply grip the iron with your putting grip and then try to create the same pendulum action that you should have for your putting stroke.  And unlike putting, use your legs to get some feel and rhythm into this shot.

Also when playing this shot, simply let the club do the work of getting the ball airborne and landing just on the green and rolling the rest of the way to the hole.  Practice this shot to get the feel of it, but it’s a great shot to have in your bag because…

“Your worst chip with a putting grip and putting action
will always beat your worst chip with your normal chipping action.”

Hit Down On The Ball When Pitching

Most golfers fat and thin pitch and chip shots because they overuse the arms and hands in an attempt to lift these shots up in the air.  Although this is a natural tendency from the time you first picked up a golf club, you now know that you must hit down on a golf ball to make it go up.  Although most golfers know this fact, for some this is still a hard concept to grasp (at least subconsciously and for others, consciously) and many times a golfer knows what they should do, but they still don’t do it!

Now pitching and chipping techniques vary greatly from the Long Game in the fact that the club should be taken on a more up and down arc rather than the sweeping motion used for longer shots.  Everywhere you see people advising golfers to take the club back with a “one piece take away,” and although this is great advice for the long game it does little good for shorter shots, i.e. chips and pitches.

If you think your long game swing is creeping into your short game, or even if you don’t, I urge you to try this drill, you may be surprised at the result.

Place a golf ball about 8-10 inches behind the ball you are about to chip or pitch.  Now make your normal swing and if you hit the ball behind on your backswing then that immediately signals that you’re taking the club back too low for pitching and chipping (and bunker shots for that matter).   If you missed the second ball on your backswing but hit it on your downswing then that signals that you are coming into the ball on a too shallow arc.

Chip and pitch shots are all about making crisp contact with the ball first and you do this by hitting positively down into the back of the ball.  If your backswing is not upright enough then you will have to make compensations in your downswing in an attempt to make contact with the ball.

It makes sense that if you take the club back more upright then it will naturally come down on a more upright plane, and this is the goal here.  If your backswing is too shallow or your downswing is too shallow the solution is simple…

All you have to do is keep hitting chip and pitch shots with a second ball about 8-10 inches behind the first and keep practicing grooving your new backswing and downswing until you make consistent clean contact with the first ball.

After you’ve grooved this new upright backswing and downswing you simply have to monitor these shots by putting a ball behind the first like you’ve done, every month or so and if you find you’ve slipped back into your old habits you know what you need to do.

Now here is a word of caution.

If your long game swing was the same for the short game it makes sense that if you practice the short game a lot then some of these elements, i.e. the upright backswing, may become part of your long game, and you don’t want that to happen.

To ensure this doesn’t happen you must split your practice time between working on the drill I’ve just given you and hitting some long shots concentrating on taking the club back with a “one piece take away.” You must learn to switch between the two different games (i.e. long game & short game) as quickly and as easily as you go from changing techniques from driving and putting.

Any time you have a shot that is less than your full swing, it’s time to change techniques. And here is some more advice that will improve the consistency when pitching and chipping.

• When pitching you should position the ball in the middle of your stance as well as having your weight positioned about 60/40 on your left side at address.
• When chipping, your weight should be mostly on your left side and it should stay there throughout the swing.  The ball should be positioned off your back foot, and this is very important.  If you position the ball too far forward when chipping or pitching you’ll have to get the arms and hands involved more than is needed and this is a major cause of golfers inconsistencies in this area.

So in conclusion please try this drill I’ve given you, even if you are an ‘OK’ pitcher or chipper and follow the suggestions above about setting up for these shots.  One final thing, it is a lot better to have the ball positioned further back when pitching and chipping than the reverse.  So if in doubt, move it back when chipping and pitching.  Good luck.