I'm going to have to disagree with Phil Mickelson....

[MS256]

Jameson is 3 months old now! Yup he's my first and he's a little clown. Constantly smiling and getting into trouble. He laughs when he watches me swing a golf club.....

Heck, everybody "laughs" when they see me swing a golf club.

[Crim]

I tend to agree with Mickelson.  Of course there might be a person here or there with some kind of knack for one of these clubs, but for the masses at the course every weekend, this club will cause more harm than good.  These lob wedges and super lob wedges have 2 problems in my opinion:

1 - they are harder to hit cleanly for the average guy - more chunks and more thins

2 - since they require a bigger swing to make it go anywhere, the consequences of a mishit are magnified

A buddy of mine liked to employ a 60* for almost all chip shots.  Didn't even carry a sand wedge or a gap wedge.  Once in a while he hit a fantastic flop that left us all in awe.  But mostly - he was a terrible chipper.  Lots of strokes lost skulling across the green or landing short of it.  I begged him to try a 54* (he wouldn't go all the way to 50*) and hit a very average looking chip shot.  Overnight he became a much better chipper.  He still isn't great at it - just doesn't have the knack.  But the damage is greatly minimized as compared to before.

True, it is harder to hit a lob than a sand or gap, but I personally find it much harder to hit a slightly opened sand or gap than to just hit a neutral faced (golf term?) lob.

I find that the back swing doesn't have to be all that big, just have to apply a nice acceleration and keep the body weight forward.

Would you say that your buddy practices very often? Like I said earlier, it took me a LONNNG time to start hitting the shots that I'm hitting now. Hours and hours of borderline laughable practice on different lies and yardage. But skulls and chunks are a thing of the past it seems...and it's very rare now if I land short of the green.

Also this is nothing against your friend, but from the fact that he doesn't use a sand or gap wedge makes me think he doesn't practice very often...

I still use my SW to 7 iron all over especially when I have a lot of green to work with. The main thing is to know when and where to use each club. Once my approach shots get better I'll hopefully only have to pull out the 64 on rare occasion :) But as it stands now, my GIR is all over the place, and my short game has to pick up the slack until this spring when I can get back on the course and see if my iron work has paid off.

[Meltdwhiskey]

Originally Posted by Crim

True, it is harder to hit a lob than a sand or gap, but I personally find it much harder to hit a slightly opened sand or gap than to just hit a neutral faced (golf term?) lob.

I find that the back swing doesn't have to be all that big, just have to apply a nice acceleration and keep the body weight forward.

Would you say that your buddy practices very often? Like I said earlier, it took me a LONNNG time to start hitting the shots that I'm hitting now. Hours and hours of borderline laughable practice on different lies and yardage. But skulls and chunks are a thing of the past it seems...and it's very rare now if I land short of the green.

Also this is nothing against your friend, but from the fact that he doesn't use a sand or gap wedge makes me think he doesn't practice very often...

I still use my SW to 7 iron all over especially when I have a lot of green to work with. The main thing is to know when and where to use each club. Once my approach shots get better I'll hopefully only have to pull out the 64 on rare occasion :) But as it stands now, my GIR is all over the place, and my short game has to pick up the slack until this spring when I can get back on the course and see if my iron work has paid off.

You are correct that he is not much of a practice guy.  But he is just one story.  In my observation, weekend warriors seem to mess up on their chips a few time per round regardless of the club.

I also have more trouble hitting anything above a 54 - and I consider myself a pretty good chipper for a 16 cap.  And I agree with you about the difficulty of the open face shots with the other clubs. I don't advocate that either.

IMO, until someone is pretty good at chipping or is willing to spend a bunch of time practicing chipping it would benefit them to restrict their chipping to:

1. just a couple different clubs for different situations - maybe P and Gap or Gap and S

2. no fancy open face shots - just try to make good contact and hit your landing spot

3. no fancy alternate ball position shots - same spot every time and just try to make good contact

4. feeling they'd be OK to chip it to two-putt range - the "necessity" to get up and down kills strokes

I've often felt that for someone who is a bogey golfer or worse, trying several different clubs with several different ball positions with different degrees of openness and different feel of strokes for different situations produces hundreds (if not thousands) of potential outcomes.  This is too much for the golfer to ever learn what to expect from the different shots.  Too many variables.  If he gets consistent with one shot and a couple of clubs - then maybe add something.

[turtleback]

Jameson is 3 months old now! Yup he's my first and he's a little clown. Constantly smiling and getting into trouble. He laughs when he watches me swing a golf club.....

Hey, that's great.  He takes after Mickelson.

[Crim]

Hey, that's great.  He takes after Mickelson.

ha!

[Crim]

So I was looking around at some videos to try to show exactly what type of shot I'm doing with my 64. Found it, this guy is using a 60, but it's the exact same shot that I utilize with my 64. So not really a flop...it's a pitch I guess (told you I was bad with golf terms). Right around 4 minutes and 5 seconds into the video.

[Golfingdad]

So I was looking around at some videos to try to show exactly what type of shot I'm doing with my 64. Found it, this guy is using a 60, but it's the exact same shot that I utilize with my 64. So not really a flop...it's a pitch I guess (told you I was bad with golf terms). Right around 4 minutes and 5 seconds into the video.

What he describes isn't too different from how I pitch , but there is one difference.  He says (at 3:49) that the wrist angle should be maintained throughout impact.  As I understand it, the key to pitching is engaging the bounce on the club, but if you keep that wrist angle, it seems your hands will be too far forward and you'll risk digging that club into the ground and chunking it.  I think you need to release that angle, and basically, flip the hands at the bottom of the swing.  If you keep the leading edge off the turf, then the club has a much harder time digging in, and should slide under the ball nicely.