How To Rescue Your Chipping!!

We’ve all been there when for some reason our chipping has deserted us. The usual mis-hits come in the the way of ‘thin’ shots and ‘fat’ shots.  These shots are most commonly from not staying on the front foot and lack of turn. The reason why people fall into these habits is because they start treating this shot differently to a full swing. Instead of continuing to use their body, they often are too dominant with their hands which lead to inconsistencies of strike.

The best way to rescue your chipping is using the one arm drill with only your right hand. You want to place your left hand on your right bicep and practice turning your body back and through. You want to still apply all the basics with chipping such as placing the ball in the middle of the stance and having around 60 % of weight on your front foot. You want to also have a your club quite vertical as this will encourage you to use the bounce.

The reason why this works so well is that the body starts controlling the action instead of the hands. Also with the left hand controlling the right bicep, it forces the club to naturally release through the ball. Releasing simply means that just after impact, the handle starts to point at the left hip. One of the biggest reasons what makes people start to go downhill with chipping, is that the handle starts to get driven forward excessively through impact. This can cause ‘fat’ and ‘thin’ shots as when the handle is driven forward, the body reacts by staying back on the shot in fear of digging into the surface. Put simply the more the handle is driven forward, the less bounce is exposed through impact giving less marigin for error.

Now what you might experience when first doing this, is that you may start chipping better one handed versus two. When you’re out playing, just try and feel the right arm staying quite close to your side as you turn your body. Over the ball I like to say to myself a simple phrase, ‘turn your body back and turn your body through’. Lastly just try and ensure your swing path is quite neutral. This just means that as you take the club back, that the club head is staying in front of the hands.

If you have any further questions on how to chip successfully every time just contact myself at David Waters Golf.