Improvement in chipping practice

[B-Con]

I've never been good a chipping. In fact, my full first name is often used amongst my best golf friends as term for blading the ball over the green, as in "Holy ****, I had a 15ft chip on a good lie and I Bradley'd it!"

Anyway, I've been practicing my short "form a Y with the arms and rock the shoulders" chipping indoors this past month and I recently had one drill and two revelations that have made a huge difference in my short chipping quality (at least, as practiced indoors).

My new drill is to chip on my putting strip such that the ball lands about 2 - 3.5 ft down the strip and rolls into the hole. This forces me to really focus on chipping straight, rather than just having a "good enough" spot I'm aiming for. I set up balls at the 3ft, 5ft, and 7ft markers and make a simple chip at it that sends the ball 2 - 3.5ft before landing and rolling the rest of the way into the hole. With the goal of forcing myself to put the ball in the hole I make myself a lot more precise.

One revelation was relatively minor, but useful for getting some key accuracy in the above drill. I borrowed a bit from my putting technique: When I putt I squeeze a bit stronger with my right hand and try to use the right hand to guide the putter through impact as if I were rolling the ball with an extension of my right palm. I forget where I heard this combination of a mental and physical approach suggested, but it's my favorite putting tip I've come across. Anyway, I found that my accuracy went up noticeably in the short chip just by applying the principle of guiding the precise alignment with the right hand. I still lead/control the swing with my left arm and hand, but on impact I try to ensure that the feedback in my right palm feels as if it's pushing the ball straight towards the hole.

The second revelation was in hitting down on the ball. I've heard that in this short ship the club should hit the ball first just before hitting the ground. I'd tried it, but I almost always completely messed up the shot when I tried. Then I had an epiphany: Rather than focus on aiming at the ball, I would simply swing with the goal of having the club head make impact with the ground just 1/8th of an inch beyond where the ball made contact with the ground rather than right at that point, thus ensuring that on a proper, or even a slightly off, swing the club would hit the ball just barely first on its decent toward the ground. Again fairly simply, but now I hit the ball first on the decent consistently and my accuracy is much better.

With those two new principles, I went from making maybe 30% of my 3ft chips (in the above drill) to making up to 40% of my 7ft chips. Huge difference in both results and mental confidence.

I've yet to do more than a bit of chipping around a real green, but I think this is going to really help me once I get out there again. It feels like one less type of swing to fear. I have precise goals that can accomplish the swing, which gives me way more confidence than I had before.

[Dad-2-3]

  B-Con said:

This forces me to really focus on chipping straight, rather than just having a "good enough" spot I'm aiming for. I set up balls at the 3ft, 5ft, and 7ft markers and make a simple chip at it that sends the ball 2 - 3.5ft before landing and rolling the rest of the way into the hole. With the goal of forcing myself to put the ball in the hole I make myself a lot more precise.

We use a saying in archery/bowhunting that applies to golf as well, and it has helped me in my short game. "Aim small, miss small"

[B-Con]

  Dad-2-3 said:

We use a saying in archery/bowhunting that applies to golf as well, and it has helped me in my short game. "Aim small, miss small"

Indeed.

The instructor for my old golf class used to tell us to never hit without a specific target. It was good advice that I didn't follow until recently.