Chipping/Pitching to tight greens

[trickyputt]

I am a redneck so I use yard targets. I put one at 15yds, 25, 40. Then I hit to the target high and soft. Its the hardes shot for me, being that not a lot of force is used to spin the ball or get it up. I find pitches and chips more straight forward. But at the end of practice, I have hit 50 or more of the same exact shot with the same exact club to the exact same distance, and my wife has a bare spot on which to plant something.

[FireDragon76]

I would use a chipping wedge.  Especially if you are new to golf, they are easy to use.  An iron, pitching wedge or sand wedge with a short putting stroke would also work, but I think the chipper works better because it's actually designed for this type of stroke, and typically they are weighted and oversized to be more forgiving than a sand wedge (which is designed to blast balls up out of bunkers).  From deeper rough, I would go with the sand wedge and try to bump it over the rough (you don't really consciously do this, it will just do it on its own, you don't want to be trying to scoop up the ball or anything like that, just hit it normally with a short stroke).   Go to a chipping green and just get a feel for it, experimenting with having the ball in different places in your stance- your brain will subconsciously figure a lot of it out with practice.

Its just my guess but flop shots probably require the more expensive balls that can backspin a lot.  From what I've read flop shots are so tricky they  are not worth learning for most amateur golfers.  So, I'm just sticking with using distance and soft distance balls and learning to use all that roll.

[Patch]

It all depends on what kind of lie I might have. Some types of ball lies eliminate types of shots one can use. Personally I like to chip more than I like to pitch when the shot allows for a chip.

I also think about how my short game is going for that round. Maybe I am hitting pitches closer to the pin  than my chips for some reason. In that case I will pitch more than chip. Other days chip shots are my bread and butter.

I remember one round where I was hitting flop shots so close the pin it was uncanny.  That 's all I hit when needing a good recovery shot to the pin. A couple even went in.  I think I only had 21-22 putts that day. I don't think flop shots require more spin on the ball since all they do is go up, and pretty much straight down. A flop just drops, and stops.

Just going with what you are hitting good that day is one of my firm beliefs when playing golf.