Requiring the utmost authority in golf is a shot that is also one of the shortest in golf. Golf instruction chipping without authority can be thin, fat or even shanked shots. Whatever can go wrong usually will. You’ll be tapping in your next, when you hit chip shots with authority, you will improve your chances.
A few things lead to poor or bad chipping and a lack of authority, they are fear, lack of strength, and indecision. Think of your club as a horse.(i know but stay with me here) confidence plays a big part, it has a knack of ‘knowing’ what’s going on and plays up. The results are way more satisfactory when you show it who is boss and your in charge.
The best way to ensure authority is repetition. Bring authority back to your short game, take on these two strength drills now.
First Drill- Hold your club horizontally out in front of your body, then cock the wrists. These simple exercises will gradually build strength and flexibility into those wrists, repeat each drill for 10 repetitions.
Drill 2; Hold your arms outstretched with a weight (a couple of golf clubs or 440gm cans are fine if you don’t have hand weights) and lift up and down with your wrists.
Your Wrist Power
If the golfclub feels heavy in your hands, it’s difficult to hit a shot with any authority. The pitch or chip is a firm wristed action and the wrist must secure the club to make sure you are in control of your swing. For many beginners, weak wrists can be a problem, however it won’t hurt all golfers to spend some effort on these drills.
Be Decisive
There are countless articles covering club selection and type of chip shot for a particular situation. Whatever your decision, convince yourself that it’s the correct shot – eliminate doubt.
Spend the time on the practice green repeating the same shots over and over again.
Placing a basket or bucket in your backyard at home and practice chipping into that, can really hone your skills. Regularly hitting the target could mean that your decisive, have strong wrists and on your way to getting a lot more of your chip shots closer.
Learn the proper chipping set-up; weight on lead side, ball slightly back of centre in your stance, eyes and hands closer to the target than the ball is at address.
Learn to hinge and hold; During the backswing use your dominant hand (right for right handed) and hinge the club slightly.
Hold this position post impact, in the follow through. That is, don’t let the clubhead pass under your lead hand before impact. At impact the back of that hand should be closer to the target than the ball is. After reaching impact, you may release the club a little.
Relax. Scooping a chip shot into the air, getting to wristy is an amateures number 1 difficulty.
Golf Instruction Chipping Tip- Bet on the percentages
It might look fancy in the air but there’s a higher risk of error when you increase your loft for a greenside chip. Extra loft decreases the margin for error at impact and decreases the size of the landing zone on the green.
A shot best used by the pros is the second bounce check-up, and it is one of the most difficult to play in golf.
For amateur golfers I suggest going for more roll and less air time, always remembering to land on the green.. When faced with a chip around the greens, relying on a simple formula means using less lofted golfclubs. Of course, primary to this for any golf shot is some on course management. As is a brush up on the finer points of golf instruction for a balanced posture
Golf Instruction Chipping, the method
When chipping, your target is not the flag, your focus is on your landing spot. This will vary depending on the condition of the green and the loft of the club you are using. Start with a five iron, and increase the loft depending on the amount of green available, using the following ratios.
- 5 IRON
20 percent flight, 80 percent bounce and roll. ?
- 8 IRON
33 percent flight, 67 percent bounce and roll
- WEDGE
50 percent bounce and 50 percent roll.
First practice chipping with an 8 iron then once you’ve mastered that learn to use your wedges.
Here is a great golf instruction chipping tip I learned a while ago, try this. In your normal stance for a chip shot, grab a ball and throw it underarm at your target to gain a feel for how hard you will need to swing the club.
Try this to get a feel of how much strength is required to fly the ball onto the green and up to the cup, throw the ball about 2/3 of the way to the hole and allow to roll out. To gain a feel for the shot this is a good technique.
I hope these few golf instruction tips will help you to improve your short game and reduce the number of shots in your round the next time you go out on the course.
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This post was written by admin on February 23, 2010
