I see it all the time with players who come to me for golf lessons. Players don’t progress fast enough and they get discourage. They stop golf lessons and play only sporadically, which doesn’t help their game. If you really want to improve and you want to do it quickly, perfecting your chip shot is among the easiest and fastest way to do it. It’s also a great way to lower your golf handicap. But it takes work.

The goal of a chip shot is to loft the ball over uneven ground and onto the green, where it can roll smoothly to the hole. Executed correctly, a good chip shot saves one to two strokes per hole. Executed incorrectly, however, it spells disaster. And while a chip shot isn’t hard to execute, some players still have problems hitting it correctly. Most of the times, it’s just a matter of applying the right technique and practicing the shot until you’ve mastered it.

The Basic Technique
The basic chip shot is just that-basic. To fine-tune your chipping with less fuss and more accuracy, do the following:

* Set the right address
* Grip down on the club
* Hinge the right wrist
* Let the hands lead
* Keep wrists firm through impact

You can chip with an 8-iron, a 9-iron, or a pitching wedge. Take a slightly open address position, with your weight forward. Position the ball closer to your back foot, hands in front of the ball, which “hoods” the clubface and gives you the loft of a 7 iron. And grip down on the club 4 or 5 inches for more control.

Now, hinge your wrists slightly during the takeaway and strike down on the ball crisply. Your hands should lead through the hitting zone. For solid contact, return the hands and arms to where they were at address, which helps produce good ball-then-turf contact. Keep the wrists firm through impact, and don’t turn the wrists over during follow-through. Stay relaxed and loose throughout the shot.

Chipping from the Rough
That’s the basic shot. But what about chipping from the rough, you ask? The problem with chipping from the rough is the high grass. The longer the grass, the more it wraps itself around the club’s hosel, delofting the club on impact. What’s more, the grass trapped between the clubface and the ball reduces spin, causing the ball to roll more upon landing.

To chip from the rough:

1. Set up as you normally would for a chip shot.
2. Move your hands down the club.
3. Grip the club firmer than usual.
4. Play the ball forward in your stance.
5. Hinge your wrists to steepen the angle of approach
6. Shift the hands and the body slightly left
7. Allow the clubhead to come through the ball

If it’s a long chip from the rough, remember to factor in more roll when it lands on the green. If the grass is really thick, you can play the shot like a greenside bunker shot. Open your stance and your clubface, creating loft. Then hit the ball. You’ll come out soft and stop quicker than usual.

Chipping From Off the Green
Chipping from just off the green is also tricky. Here, you can chip as you putt. The 8-iron is ideal for this shot. Address the ball as if you were going to make a long putt, instead of a chip. Use a putting grip but play the ball just off the inside of your back heel. Keep your hands and weight forward, favoring your front side, but hold the club vertically, so that the club’s heel is raised off the ground. Spread your elbows

Instead of hitting down on the ball, hit it with a gentle rocking of the shoulders, like you were putting. This technique raises the club several inches off the ground in the backswing, and forces you to hit down on the ball slightly, chipping it into the air. Concentrate on maintaining the width of the gap between your elbows as you swing through, ensuring a pure arms-and-shoulders motion. Remember to take into consideration the slope of the green, just as you would if you were putting.

Chipping Drills
The random ball drill is the simplest of all chipping drills. It’s also probably the best. Take several balls with you and your chipping club(s). Spread the balls around the green. Pick out as many different lies as you can. Create scenarios as much like actual play as possible. Practice chipping with the iron of choice, then move on to another club. Master chipping with one club before moving on to other clubs.

To practice this chip from the rough shot, place a ball just outside the first cut of rough on the fringe of the green. The grass should be about one to one and one-half inches in length. Instead of hitting the ball, practice just sweeping the tips of the grass. Use a low sweeping motion employing just your arms and shoulders. After ten sweeps, move immediately to the ball and chip it using the same motion. Then move the ball back to higher grass and repeat the sequence.

The key to accurate chipping is keeping the ball low so it runs like a putt when it hits the ground. Here’s a drill I use in my golf lessons designed to teach players to keep the ball low.

Lay a club or bag horizontally across two baskets placed about three feet apart. Then, step back a few feet and try chipping under the obstacle toward the hole, using either a wedge, an 8-iron, or a 9-iron.

To chip under the obstacle, you must deloft the club, which you can do by keeping your hands ahead of the clubhead when you swing. Having a visual obstacle to hit the ball under forces you to develop your ability to keep the ball low. Keep practicing this shot until it becomes second nature

Mastering the chip shot-outside of putting- improves your game faster than anything else. It chops unnecessary strokes of your golf handicap as well. But you must work at it. Set up a practice routine and follow it faithfully. Work on the drills discussed above and add some others for variety. Play games with your friends. Do everything you can to keep it interesting. You’ll quickly see improvement in your scores and your game.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros.” He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.

Putting represents nearly half of all the strokes you take during a round of golf. So it’s not surprising to find players looking to sharpen their putting skills whenever they can or trying tips things to be successful. The better putter you are, the lower your golf handicap, as I tell golfers who take my golf lesions.

Because of its bearing on your golf handicap, putting has caused more inventiveness in search of perfection than anything in the game. Players have all sorts of styles and movements, all unique to the individual. Despite these innovative efforts, one thing remains true: there’s no substitute for a sound putting stroke.

Below we describe the putting technique of two professional golfers-Isao Aoki and Nick Price. They’ve adopted different putting styles, yet both are considered excellent putters.

The Setup
Japan’s Isao Aoki posses a superb putting stroke locked into a strange and individual style. Nevertheless, he is renowned putter. In fact, putting is probably the best part of his game. Aoki addresses the ball with the top of his putter high in the air. His hands are low and he crouches over significantly.

Nick Price’ style, on the other hand, is more classic. His technique is based on a locked left wrist and a shoulder-dominated stroke. At address, he keeps his shoulders square to the intended line, and his hands over or just ahead of the ball. He crouches slightly over the ball, but not nearly as much as Aoki.

Despite the differences in style, both players do one thing all great putters do at address-they keep their eyes directly over the ball. It’s the most important ingredient in the setup, irrespective of a person’s height, build, or style. Keeping you?re eyes directly over the ball and turning your head allows a direct view down the line to the hole, without any need to move the shoulders out of alignment.

The Stroke
Aoki is a touch putter, so he uses his hands more than his shoulders, and takes the club back steeply, with the right hand controlling the takeaway. At the top of the backswing, his putter is high off the ground-an unusual position for a good putter. Nevertheless, it works well for Aoki. His stroke is smooth and rhythmical.

Price’s technique is based on a shoulder-dominated stroke. His arms, shoulders, and putter move away from the ball as a single unit, with the hands remaining passive. He keeps his wrist firm during the stroke. And he strikes on the upstroke. Price uses more of a pendulum motion than Aoki, swinging the putter smoothly and rhythmically back and forth.

Making a smooth, flowing stroke is not a problem for most players, witness the golfers who take golf lessons from me. Many have nice fluid strokes. The problem arises when a ball is introduced. The ball for whatever reason hampers the putt. A good drill to help eliminate this problem is to start by taking a normal practice stroke. Then address the ball, close your eyes, and repeat the stroke-letting the ball get in the way. The drill makes the real stroke more like the practice one.

The Follow-Through
During the follow-through, Aoki brings the head of the putter back into a square position at impact. His head remains perfectly still throughout the stroke. Aoki remains virtually motionless afterwards, careful that the slightest movement doesn’t affect his putt. His head stays still except to follow the ball well after the stroke.

Price keeps his left wrist locked in position through the hitting zone and into the follow- through. He accelerates the putter-head through impact and makes sure his follow- through is as long as his backswing. He, too, keeps his head as steady as possible through the stroke. And he keeps his eyes fixed on the spot where the ball was well after the stroke.

Despite their different styles, both players remain practically motionless after the putt is made. It is imperative to making a good putt. Lifting your head too soon when putting can throw off your putt. The Show Me The Money Drill we covered in last week’s golf tips is great for this flaw.

The Show Me the Money drill works for three reasons. It forces you to keep your eyes steady, helping to stabilize your whole body. It prevents you from lifting out of your stance prematurely. And because you’re focused on the coin and not the ball, it inclines you to make a nice clean stroke through the ball.

Conclusion
If you want to lower your golf handicap, you need to improve your putting. Nearly half of the strokes made during a full round of golf are putts. Cutting down on your putts will lower your scores and golf handicap. Of course, not everyone will have the same putting style. But one thing remains true: there’s no substitute for a sound putting stroke-irrespective of how it looks.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros.” He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.

This is the second in a series of articles on the Natural Swing. The first article provided golf tips on the fundamental principles of the swing. In this article we look at the starting form for the swing, providing a brief golf lesson on the set up.

Golf instruction sessions say that a flawless starting form offers the best opportunity of swinging properly. It sets the swing’s tone, promotes feelings of simplicity, freedom, and balance, and ensures a positive result—if we get it right. If we don’t get it right, we’ll feel cramped and inhibited, and we’ll probably hit a less than perfect shot, like a slice, a pull hook, or something worse. The set up in any golf swing is totally under our control—one of the few things in the game that is.

The goal of the starting form of the natural swing is the same as any other golf swing. The starting form should set you up to make an aggressive move while remaining in balance. Ideally, it should be an athletic, graceful move, with purpose and direction. In the natural swing, the starting form focuses on things like target awareness, grip, stance, alignment, and ball location relative to the body.

Target Awareness
Target awareness is critical to the natural swing. Golf with the natural swing is not a reaction game, in which we respond to a thrown ball. It’s a location game, in which we react to a target. The idea is to plant the image of that target firmly in mind. Having a clear image of the target, spurs you on. It gives you purpose, direction, and intent. In addition, it takes your mind off the ball and puts it where it should be—on the target. Target awareness fixes in your mind key factors like distance, trajectory, curvature, and direction. The more vividly we see the target, the more intensely we’ll react to it. And the more successful we’ll be at hitting it.

Grip
The natural grip is no different than we’d use to do many tasks, one that sets us up correctly toward our target, if we’ve kept our focus on the target. We form the natural grip so that the palms are opposed, as in prayer, palm to palm. This grip allows us to make a simple, natural motion, without compensatory moves or extra gestures, and without contorting our hands.

The natural grip is not much different from your normal grip, except for the left hand. In the natural grip the club runs diagonally across the palms of your left hand (right-hand for left-handers). Position the last three fingers of the left hand around the club’s butt end with your forefinger pushing against the thumb. This position generates a sensation of control and power in the left hand. The right hand fits over the left. The little finger fits in and over the index and forefinger of the left hand. The right-hand grip is mostly in the fingers. The correct grip pressure happens naturally when you assume the correct form. The relationship between the hands should not change during the swing.

The Stance
The key to the natural stance is aligning ourselves as if we were making a straight shot. Since we’re planning on hitting the ball straight, there’s no reason to align ourselves other than left (right for left-handers) to the line of flight. The left foot is in a slightly different position to the target, however. It is set at least 25 degrees open to the target, if not more. The degree of openness varies depending on the golfer’s flexibility. The key here is balance.

In addition, you place the left foot slightly outside the left shoulder, so that you will be able to finish with your weight on your left foot. Balance is again the key. Most golfers roll toward the outside of the left foot when finishing the swing, which fosters a slight imbalance in the finish. But with the natural swing you move forward, so you want to finish flat on the left foot, with your weight evenly distributed across the whole foot.

Alignment
Ideally, we want to square up to the target. But everybody is different. And we’re not ideally built. So everyone’s perfect alignment for hitting the ball straight is slightly different— an important factor in the natural swing. Thus, we must find our own correct alignment position, one that needs to be square for the swing. For the most part, though, being square means being slightly left of the target. This is the only natural square position, even if it is not mathematically precise. Use the practice range to find your perfect square position and have a friend provide feedback in your efforts.

Ball position
Ball position in the natural swing flows logically from the way we set up in the starting position. We place the ball just ahead of the middle of stance for a standard five-iron shot. The ball should then be just back of the inside of the left heel. The width of the stance will vary depending on the length of the club. The longer the club, the wider the stance. Move the right foot only as we set up, closer or further away from the left foot depending on the club we have in our hands. Thus, the position of the left foot relative to the ball is always the same, ensuring a constant ball position.

The difference between the starting form of the normal swing and that of the natural swing are subtle, but significant. In essence there are three key adjustments: (1) the placement of the left foot open, for balance and direction; (2) alignment to the target, which will be slightly different for everyone while remaining square to the target; (3) the constant position of the ball relative to the left foot.

What’s more, you need to evaluate your starting form each time you step up to the ball. The key to setting up properly with any swing, as I advocate in my golf lessons and golf tips, is to do it using the same routine time and time again. Do that and you’ll be well on your way to lowering your golf handicap.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros.” He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.

The decision to play a hole or a round conservatively or aggressively plagues every golfer at one time or another. Which of us hasn’t been tempted to hit the “miracle” shot—the kind that players talk about in the clubhouse years later. But gambling too often in golf can be costly, especially if you’re a professional. Take Phil Mickelson. He’s been criticized for gambling during the final round of tournaments. His aggressiveness has cost him tournament victories—and million dollar purses—on some occasions.

If you’re not familiar with the 17th at Sawgrass, it’s one of the most pressure-packed holes in professional golf. It’s a par three, 137-yard hole, whose green sits in the middle of water. Miss the green, which probably seems as big as the head of a pin when hitting, and you’re in the drink. Hit it and you might still have a long putt for a birdie. In addition, as the next to the last hole on the course, the 17th sets up perfectly as dramatic finishing hole. Talk about ratcheting up interest to the finish a tournament.

Obviously, the island hole is a challenge for all golfers, whatever their golf handicap. For players with high golf handicaps, just hitting the green and not the water spells success. For tournament players, however, the challenge is more strategic than tactical. Do they play the hole conservatively or aggressively? Do they go for the pin and the birdie, or do they go for the fat part of the green and the par? Heading down the stretch, the wrong decision can be the difference between winning or losing the tournament.

Of course, there are times when you must go for it. But playing conservatively is often better than going for it, even if it costs you a stroke, as I tell players during golf instruction sessions. To paraphrase Jack Nicklaus, as a golfer you’ll face times when you need to gamble to have a chance at winning. But being conservative when boldness is not imperative is better in the long run. The trick is knowing when to be aggressive and when to be conservative.

If you have doubts as to whether you should go for it or play it safe when opportunity knocks, try splitting strategies during your next several rounds. In the first round play the front nine very conservatively. That means doing things like hitting the driver only if the hole is wide open, playing for the fat part of every green, and laying up on par fives unless you have a mid-iron shot or less to the green.

Then play an aggressive back nine. Hit your driver on every par four and par five. Shoot for the pin every time, regardless of the difficulty, and go for every par five on your second shot. In your next round do the opposite. Play a conservative front nine and an aggressive back nine. Compare the scores over the course of several rounds. See if being aggressive or conservative significantly improves them.

But don’t take the result to determine if you should always play either extremely conservatively or aggressively. Rather, let the result help you decide what your strategic tendencies should be when you’re not sure how to play a specific hole or course. If you are the type of player who gains nothing by being aggressive or it costs you strokes when you do, play conservatively instead. And keep that big number off your scorecard.

It can be difficult deciding when to gamble and when to be conservative. It’s something only you can decide at the time of play. However, if statistics tell you that you don’t play your best being aggressive, play conservatively. Doing so will help you cut down your golf handicap over the long haul.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros.” He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.