Master Your Golf Driver Swing

Seven Golf Tips On Highly Effective Chipping

Want to lower your golf handicap quickly? Improve your chipping. Many of the best golfers in the world—Mickelson, Watson, Woods—are great chippers. Most great chippers, however, are self- taught. There are so many lies, types of grass, and course conditions that it’s hard to cover every chip in a handful of golf instruction sessions.  Sure, someone can teach you the basics. But after that, you’re on your own.

Take Ray Floyd—a great chipper in his own right. His dad owned a golf course in Fayetteville, N.C. He spent his days as a kid playing or practicing golf. He practiced or played all day, every day. When it came to chipping, he’d hit the same chip with every club just to see the possibilities. After heavy rains, he’d go to the course and practice chipping from the mud. He’d go home filthy but he learned to chip from mud. You don’t have to go this far, but practice helps.

Below are seven golf tips that many great chippers adhere. Master these simple golf tips to improve you chipping and cut strokes from your golf handicap.

  1. Get serious about chipping: Many weekend golfers take chipping for granted. They shouldn’t. If you’re looking for a fast way to lower your golf handicap, focus on your chipping and putting. Once you get hip to how critical good chipping is to scoring, you’ll get serious about mastering it.
  2.  Let hands lead: Your hands must lead the clubhead through impact.  If you flip the club, you’ll never be good. One way to check this is to watch the butt end of the club out of the corner of your eye. The butt is the part of the grip closest to the pin. That should never change.
  3. Pick a good landing spot: Red the green closely. If the green has undulations, aim for a valley rather than a hill. If you hit the wrong side of a hill, it could shoot the ball past the hole.
  4. Get the ball rolling quickly:  All the great chippers share one thing: They get the ball rolling ASAP—a fundamental we emphasize in our golf lessons. The higher you hit the ball, the harder it comes down. The harder it comes down, the more unpredictable the shot.
  5. Take the flagstick out when appropriate: We teach students at our golf lessons to take the flag out when appropriate.  On any straightforward chip where your lies are good enough that you feel you can control your speed, taking the flagstick out makes sense. It can save a stroke.
  6.  Learn to use the club’s toe: It’s not easy to chip from “cuppy” lies or tall grass. Use your sand wedge to chip from these lies, stand closer to the ball so that the clubhead is standing on its toe, and employ a slightly descending stroke. Open the clubface a bit as well. You’ll be surprised how cleanly you’ll hit the ball from these types of lies.
  7.  Practice makes perfect: It takes about 30 minutes of chipping to get to the point where you really start learning something. But don’t hit more than five or six balls in a row. That’ll kill you’re back. After five or six shots, walk to a new spot and chip from there. This will loosen your back and present new challenges to overcome.

If your serious about cutting strokes from your golf handicap, focus on your short game. Improving your putting and chipping will boost your game significantly.

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