How to Hit Chip Shots With Wedges?

[barnum1]

Hi!

I'm struggling with chip shots with my wedges. 
Let's say I have 25 yards to the pin and I have to fly the ball 15-20 yards to land it on the green. 
My typical miss is a duff (maybe feeling unsure, not moving the weight to the left), but recently I also started topping!
This happens both with my 52 and 58 degrees. PW works better but goes too low.

Any advice? Any swing thought? Any drill?

Thanks in advance!

[Bonvivant]

There are a couple of good instruction guides on here if you look up pitching/chipping. The two techniques are quite different, and which you use depends on lie/type of grass/carry required/club/etc. For the short ones like you described, I think a pitching method is the answer, which involves hitting behind the ball and using the bounce to slide on the ground, ensuring that the club is soled for a lot longer than normal (6-8"). A big thing with the pitching method is limiting forward shaft lean, which for me is the exact opposite of my chipping technique. If there isn't a hazard (bunker, rough, water), in between you and your target then I think that chipping/bump and run is the answer for anything inside of 30 yards, but it sounds like you only have issue when more carry/quicker stop is required on short shots. Hope this helps.

[Nail]

This style shot might work well for you from those distances

Also check out this thread, there is a chipping and pitching section.

 

[barnum1]

@Bonvivant
Thanks for you reply!

You're right that I'm not talking about bump and run, that's one part of golf where I feel pretty confident

About pitching, yes that's an alternative. But I do feel that it's harder to get length control with high pitches. And my thought is to try to keep it as low as possible. (Of course, sometimes you need to fly them high over a hazard.) 

[Bonvivant]

1 minute ago, barnum1 said:

@Bonvivant
Thanks for you reply!

You're right that I'm not talking about bump and run, that's one part of golf where I feel pretty confident

About pitching, yes that's an alternative. But I do feel that it's harder to get length control with high pitches. And my thought is to try to keep it as low as possible. (Of course, sometimes you need to fly them high over a hazard.) 

One thing to note on distance control, if you tell people to pull the club back to 9 oclock most of them will go farther back than that. So you may be having issues decelerating into the ball because you instinctively know that the club head is going to fast (because you pulled it farther back than you meant to) for the length required. If you have room to practice I would start with pulling the club back a minimal amount but focusing on acceleration through strike. If you have a mirror, bust that out and start pulling it back bit by bit until you get a feel for how far back you are actually going. Map carry yardages to your feel if possible and that should give you the best idea of how to get the club back to the right spot for a certain distance (you can repeat this process with all wedges and even short irons).

[barnum1]

18 minutes ago, Bonvivant said:

One thing to note on distance control, if you tell people to pull the club back to 9 oclock most of them will go farther back than that. So you may be having issues decelerating into the ball because you instinctively know that the club head is going to fast (because you pulled it farther back than you meant to) for the length required. If you have room to practice I would start with pulling the club back a minimal amount but focusing on acceleration through strike. If you have a mirror, bust that out and start pulling it back bit by bit until you get a feel for how far back you are actually going. Map carry yardages to your feel if possible and that should give you the best idea of how to get the club back to the right spot for a certain distance (you can repeat this process with all wedges and even short irons).

Yep, that's good advice for pitches (or any shot that is not a full swing)!

30 minutes ago, Nail said:

This style shot might work well for you from those distances

Also check out this thread, there is a chipping and pitching section.

 

Thanks, @iacas
I really liked the "dime drill" on Day 6 (second thread). I'll try that out. 
I also liked his definition of pitch vs. chip!

[barnum1]

And thanks @Nail!

I messed up the names there

[barnum1]

Thanks  @Bonvivant. You unknowingly helped me with your comment about the bump and run.
I'm pretty confident at that, so today I imagined I was holding an 8-iron when I tried the lob wedge chip.
And that thought made me confident at the lob wedge chip. No duffs or tops today

I still can't get the nice stop bounce that the pros can with the low wedge chip, but I could control the length pretty good.