Inconsistency in chipping is one of the game’s great bugaboos, leading to all sorts of issues around the green — skulls, tops, chunks — that ultimately do serious damage to your scorecard. The secret to striking the ball the way you want to, again and again? Let’s just say this: Maintaining your “lean” is the true key to clean chipping contact. And all you need to groove this move is a simple folding chair.
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The high pitch shot, especially a mid-distance one, can be one of the toughest for amateurs to master. You need enough speed to send the ball far enough, but enough trajectory to stop the ball on the green quickly and softly. But it doesn’t have to be a tough shot. Follow my prescription for mastering this type of pitch and you’ll have shorter putts, and save those precious strokes, in no time.
Set-up (Cool To Be Square)Throw away the old-school open stance and square things up. Getting your feet parallel to the target line helps your shoulders remain fairly level (only a slight amount of right side tilt). This helps your sternum get slightly ahead of the ball at impact, a key to bottoming out in the right place.
Many golfers will have an easy time playing greenside bunker shots, particularly intermediate and pro golfers who practice a lot. But, when the distance increases to between 40 and 60 yards or slightly more, the long bunker shot becomes harder to execute even for highly experienced pro golfers.
For most golfers, the only reason they are unable to execute this shot or get the most from the long bunker shots is that their club does not generate the necessary clubhead speed. It is a fact that you need more speed to get the best results, and while a lot of practice is crucial, you also need to do the following things.
Learning all the golf shots can be confusing even for the most analytical individual, especially when it comes to the nuances of the all-important inside-50-yards game. This Short Game Cheat Sheet deals with simple ways to understand the very complex parts of the game and even gives you a reason to bookmark it on your smart phone or tablet and refer to it when you lose your way. And remember, don’t cheat for real!
CHIPPINGSo many amateurs come to me completely spooked by the Darth Vader of golf, how to play out of bunkers without fear. It’s funny: from day one I embraced bunker play; perhaps it was the creative aspect the shot required. There are several ways to skin this cat. Allow me to simply share a few thoughts that have help me tremendously.
The first bit of information I received that helped me build my bunker play from average to outstanding was provided by my old friend and former swing coach during my playing days, John Elliott — a fine teacher from Ocala, Florida.
John calls the leading edge of the club the “digger” and the bounce of the club the “skidder.” He explained that if you could learn to use the bounce/skidder against the surface of the bunker and keep the club from digging, you could learn to hit those beautiful bunker contacts that sound like a thump and come out with beautiful spin and consistent trajectory. John also explained that the only situation that demanded a squared-up face and used the leading edge was if he had a fried egg/plugged lie in the bunker.
Next I was influenced by my dear friend and part-time student (he taught me more then I taught him), Seve Ballesteros.
Being ultra-creative, The Master did a number of special little things that made his bunker play magical. The one that helped me the most was the fact that he weakened both his left- and right-hand grip positions. To be clear, Seve dialed each hand to the left on the grip (for a right-handed player). This prevented the face from releasing at all, allowing the club to glide through the sand with the face staying wide open. It also allowed him to be highly offensive in swinging the club with a bit of speed. Seve said he set up with the face open and a weak grip so he could play his bunker shots offensively. He added that if you are in the bunker in a defensive mind set, it would be best to simply head for the clubhouse. With a weak grip, an open face and a bit of speed, the ball did two wonderful things: it came out higher and had more spin — pretty good combination in any successful bunker shot.
Now that you have been exposed to a few of golf’s wonderful bunker play secrets let’s circle back to a few things that might be important thoughts to start with.
Several things will influence how far the ball travels out of a bunker:
Even armed with all this information, it’s still necessary to visit with golf’s most heralded teacher, Dr. Trial and Error! Great info and plenty of practice allowed me to become the bunker player I am today. I got in a practice bunker with all the above information and, playing with different combinations, I found my own bunker style. Part Patri, part Elliott, part Seve, part damn hard work and repetitions!
Embrace bunker play. Enjoy exploring the creative aspect of this unique shot like no other in golf. A good bunker game will give you a huge advantage over the majority of players you tee it up with at your local club.
Wow, Darth Vader no more!
Tom Patri is president/founder of TP Golf in Naples, Florida, GolfTips Magazine Top 30 Instructor and PGA Quarter Century Member. Reach him at tpatri@mindspring.com or visit him at www.tompatri.com
Some well-practiced short game techniques and drills are indispensable year to year and round to round. Here are three tried-and-true ways to keep your game around the green razor sharp.
This type of shot is great for around the green when you are unsure if you should putt or chip, and there’s no obstacle — a bunker, pond or whatever — between you and the target to force a more lofted shot. Take out an 8 iron and hit this shot just like a putt. Keeping the weight on your left side will help get the club just enough under the ball to bump it onto the green and let it roll to the pin.
Photo 1: Weight forward when setting up — This will help lead the ball towards your target and for you to hit down on the ball and not fall behind during impact.
Photo 2: Take the club back a short distance and keep the clubhead close to the ground by removing any wrist break.
Photo 3: Follow through with club facing towards target while keeping the back of your left hand (or right hand for lefties) toward the target as well.
The best putting advice I’d like to offer involves keeping your putter lower longer. As you maintain a “grandfather clock”-like motion with your putter, you want to make sure you are keeping the head low throughout your entire stroke so you do not lift away from the ball.
Lower and longer is key.
Photo 1 shows the lower take-back I’m talking about. Then, on the way back, concentrate on keeping that head low through impact with this quick “push” drill. You must maintain the lower motion through-out the entire stroke.
Photo 2: Square contact is the reason for keeping the putting lower longer.
Photo 3 shows me pushing that ball toward the target with a square finish.
In Photo 4 I maintain a low follow through until the very end while keeping the same pace throughout the entire stroke.
Photos 5-7 show too high of a take-back and too high of a follow-though, which cause the ball to decelerate — and put an incorrect spin and speed on the ball.
In Photo 8, impact is too high on the ball; again, loss of distance and speed will not give the perfect simple stroke.
Photo 9 shows good impact — low, square and aggressive at the ball.
Photo 10 shows bad impact — too high on the ball, not enough push and lack of speed. Pulling up on the ball won’t get you to the hole.
Of all the putting drills out there, this well-known, simple one always works.
Set out 5-10 golf balls within a three-foot circle, as in Photo 1.
Set up with the golf balls and tees, keeping yourself on the inside of the tee and moving clockwise when practicing (Photo 2).
Make one and advance on (Photo 3). Miss one and you have to start all over. This is not only great practice for that “heart thumping, I have to make this!” putt, but also shows you that no putt is ever the same. You are building confidence, which is a huge key factor in golf and especially in putting.
Remember, when doing this drill, remember to follow through towards target, as I’m doing in Photos 4 and 5. You need to show/direct the ball where to go.
Finally, practice, practice, practice!
Autumn Thomas is Clubhouse Golf Manager and a teaching professional at Omni Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa in Palm Desert, California
There are certainly different ways to hit a chip shot. Do you set up square or open? Do you play the ball back in the stance? Middle? Forward? Do you pivot? If you are having trouble with consistency around the greens, here’s something you can try: Become a golf chipping machine.
At right is a classic diagram from The Golfing Machine by Homer Kelley. Imagine your lead arm and the club shaft are one long “lever.” As the lever moves away from the target (your back swing) and towards the target (your forward swing) the lever should never break down. I don’t like to see the golf shaft trailing the arm through impact (i.e. the handle leading the club head). If you are doing this, then you aren’t using the bounce of your wedge properly and the club has a tendency to dig into the ground. Additionally, I don’t like to see the golf shaft “passing” the lead arm through impact. If this happens you may hit the shot thin. Your lead arm and the golf shaft form one line from a face-on view. See the photo of lefty PGA Tour pro Greg Chalmers’ chip shot. You can take this concept and put it into motion to become a more effective chipper around the greens. Here’s how:
To help my students understand the concept of the club shaft and the left arm forming one long lever, I built a mechanical chipping device (see photo above). The top joint of the device is the fulcrum upon which the lever swings and represents the lead shoulder. The white bar represents the lead arm.
If the fulcrum remains steady and the long lever doesn’t break down, then the low point of the swing (i.e. where the club head brushes the ground) always occurs in the same place and the strike of the ball will be consistent time after time.
The question then becomes how do we move the lever back and forth? In other words, what are the proper swing mechanics for chipping?
FEELING THE MOTION
THE SWING
It’s no secret that the short game should occupy most of a golfer’s practice time. After all, most strokes are racked up from 100 yards and in, especially on and around the green. If you truly want to put a dent in that handicap and perhaps put your personal best-ever score in your sights this golf season, here are three short game drills I use with my students a Troon North all the time. Work them into your regular practice routine (you do have one of those, don’t you?), and you’ll be set for a successful spring and summer campaign.
Just as with the full swing, what’s important with the short strokes is the putter face. It’s 80 percent of what determines the direction of the golf ball at and after impact. I like to make sure you get the putter square at address, so I break out my trust yardstick and get to work (Photo 1).
For this drill we want to find the straight uphill side of a hole on the practice green, we place the stick at the right edge, and I make sure the face is perpendicular to the stick (Photos 2-3). That way you know you’re aimed correctly. If you make a stroke and the ball doesn’t go in the hole, you know you’ve manipulated the face at some point.
I make sure you hold your finish until the ball stops rolling, so you can check for clubface squareness at the end, too (Photo 4).
With better players, I’ll do a ladder drill where I put a tee at two, four, six and eight feet from the hole. We hold players accountable for performance, so they need to make two putts up and down the line — four eight-footers total to complete the drill — and if they miss one they start over. It’s a drill I use all the time to create pressure on the putting green.
Better players avoid the “flip,” as in flipped hands at impact, like the plague (the “NO” photo says it all).
The trick is to make sure the hands don’t stop through the stroke but keep going even as the clubhead slightly passes them beyond impact. This popular drill does just that — keeps the handle of the wedge moving through impact on pitches and chips.
To get the feel of those solid and forward-moving hands, I use an alignment stick, holding it in my left hand alongside the gripped club. When I make my swing, that stick needs to stay outside and pretty much parallel to my arm, which means my hands haven’t broken down, causing a chunk or a top.
The first set of photos (above) shows how the drill works; the second set (below) shows how to make the same stroke without the training aid.
The main points to remember and work on for this drill and shot: The set-up is a little bit open, the hips are open, the hips clear coming through, and the loft of the club is maintained. Put it all together and you’ll get your share of tap-in saves.
Short game has been my passion since I realized that it is the biggest equalizer in golf. Not everyone is able to hit the ball solidly nor should we fool our students into believing they can, but everyone can learn to be a good short game artist. We all know the importance of putting and distance control, but it’s time to discuss chipping instruction, especially to juniors, though there’s plenty here for adults, too.
I teach students at the Lion Golf Academy two options to chip. Option one is higher in the air, option two is lower in the air. Obviously, it really all depends on the lie, position, and situation you are in, but I can tell you that most people, adults and juniors alike, hit too many high shots.
Why? Maybe because we think it is better. Maybe because we see flop shots on TV by the best golfers in the world who spend hours a day practicing those shots and admire the talent it takes. I agree there is satisfaction in accomplishing them but is it worth the gamble? If you want that rare shot that may give you the joys of tour players with a very low success and a high risk rate, then go ahead. But don’t expect your scores to improve, or to gain the ability to learn the art form of scoring.
Paul Runyan, better known as “Little Poison,” was one of the best short game artists of all time. Standing 5 feet-7 inches tall and weighing 125 pounds, he won nine PGA Tournaments in a single season in 1933 and won 29 total PGA tournaments including two PGA Championships. This man earned that nickname and he owed it entirely to his short game. He didn’t hit it long enough to reach many holes in regulation but found a way to still score by relying on the greatest equalizer in golf, his short game.
There was a story of him beating Ben Hogan in a round of match play, and the reporters asked Hogan how he enjoyed Paul Runyan’s game and company. Mr. Hogan replied only as he could: “I never saw the man other than the tee box and the green, and I liked him better on the tee box.”
My students are aware of the “little poison” only because I teach them his style of chipping. Hands high, weigh left, swing left, stay left, and usually with a 6 or 7 iron, as I’m demonstrating in Photo 1. It is a very basic motion with very little to no wrist movement and resembles that of a putting motion. The ideology is to keep the same motion and swing arc, but just change out the clubs. It deals with math, and ratios.
The 9 iron will probably carry 50 percent and roll 50 percent, while the 5 iron will carry 15 percent and roll 85 percent. It all depends on the slope of the green, angle, lie, position of shot, etc. It requires the player to walk the shot beforehand and think about where they wish to land the ball, and how much break and run they wish to use (like a putt) then choose the club that allows that ratio.
You would have to have the student practice an awful lot with each club to get the ratios, but make sure the swing doesn’t get further or change. That is the beauty of it. When it comes to the high/low option choice, I al-ways teach my students to look low first, and as a last resort to look high if you “have” to flop it.
In the high option you have very little control with a longer swing, usually hitting it a short distance. On the low shot, you have more control and learn to read the chip like a putt, and it is a shorter motion that is easy to duplicate and goes further. Less is more!
To help the students discover and test this theory, I usually use bright red chairs so it’s easy for them to see the goals (Photo 2). I ask the first set of students to hit a high flop shot that has to go over the chairs (Photo 3); they get three shots each. If they are lucky enough to clear the chairs, then those shots qualify for our closest to the pin contest.
I then ask them on their second shot to try and go under the chairs, using the “little poison” technique. Most of the time all three balls qualify go under the chairs, and it results in more selection of shots to qualify for the closest to the pin contests.
This is a great drill to help the student learn through experience which shots are a higher percentage than others without forcing that decision on them. When you involve the student to make those decisions through experience, you will be amazed with the increase of growth on both decision making and planning and executing.
Utilizing what we know about putting through distance control only gets amplified through chipping. The idea is to teach the student that everyone can plan and execute the short game. It only takes time, and a little patience with each student starting with fundamentals like grip and stance (Photo 4).
I am a huge believer that the full swing is mostly talent driven, but the short game from 30 yards and in is mostly correct practice and time investment. It’s something we can all agree on that most people still fail to do. Most people would rather spend hours on the range learning how to hit shots that equals 40 to 50 percent of your game on the course.
If most people switched that ratio to putting and chipping, the national handicap would go down rather quickly. We have just been trained to believe that distance off the tee and spending thousands of dollars a year on new equipment is the secret. If I added up all the 10 yards every manufacturer has promised me over my life of golf, I would be able to hit the ball over 3,000 yards. Don’t drink the Kool Aid, folks; correct practice, and time on the green and surrounds will make you a better player.
I challenge everyone as a family to get out on the chipping green, putting green, and practice bunkers and spend some good quality family time and do these drills, and come up with your own game to help you learn and practice — and most importantly, to stay on that practice green.
Next time: Full swing mechanics and drills; how to have fun with your child on the range and learn at the same time.
I have been blessed throughout my journey to pick the brains of so many great teachers as well as many great players of both my generation and the present one. While not always agreeing upon “how to skin the cat,” each lent a wealth of knowledge. At the end of the day, what I most learned was there are in fact many ways to get “it” done. Take golf wedge play, for instance: I believe I’ve earned a high degree in that part of the game.
One of my favorite shots to hit is, in fact, far-reaching in the ways you can pull it off. I love wedge play. I guess it’s the way I have been led in my development, both as a teacher of this creative aspect of golf as well as a player of shots that are so much fun to hit. I have had several expert influences in this area and I must recognize them strictly because nothing in this article is my original thought but a shared influence of several great short game minds. Thank you Bob Vokey, John Elliott, Tom Kite, Craig Shankland and, of course, my dear friend whom I miss very much, Seve Ballesteros.
Seve had a magical way of hitting so many miraculous shots around the putting surface, from what seemed like absolute jail to kick-in range. John Elliott, the great and highly underrated instructor from Ocala, Florida, first explained to me that the leading edge (he called it the “digger,” Photo 1) and the commonly referred to “bounce “or “sole” (he called it the “skidder,” Photo 2) must be under-stood before you can become a great wedge player. Craig Shankland, the ultra-talented coach now located in Daytona Beach, echoed many similar points.
We have all experienced the dreaded chunk. We play it back in our stance, hands forward and club face squared up. Well, of course, then the digger will dig. Conversely, using the bounce/skidder properly, along with several other more neutral set-up conditions around the putting surface, will allow you to execute dreamlike results.
John and the others mentioned above explain that two aspirin are not the whole bottle in reference to things like ball position, weight forward and hands forward. In fact, because of Elliott, Seve, and Vokey I’m much more neutral with my ball position and weight distribution. Along with these set-up conditions, and with the exception of a ball in deep greenside rough (Photo 3) or a ball in a buried lie in a bunker, I ALWAYS lay the club open (Photo 4), allowing the skidder to rest against the turf and keeping other aspects of my set-up very neutral. I’m now in a classic anti-DIG position.
If I want to hit the highest softest shot possible to a tight pin — perhaps behind a bunker — in addition to a neutral set-up and the employment of the skidder I might also weaken the grip, or dial both hands more left on the shaft if you’re a right-handed player, as I’m doing in Photo 5 (Photo 6 shows a “normal” grip position employed for most other shots). Seve was the master of the face/skidder and weak grip combination to hit the softest, most beautiful pitch shots that landed like a butterfly with sore feet.
You’ll rarely see square or hooded club faces with highly skilled players, again unless their ball is buried in deep greenside rough or in a bunker “fried egg.” They understand that the bounce (skidder) of the club is there as a friend. I remember telling Bob Vokey that I have always wished they (whoever “they” is) had never called the sole of the club the bounce, adding that had it been called the skidder from the beginning (thank you, Gene Sarazen) the average player today would be five shots to the good. Bob smiled and agreed. The recreational player who doesn’t understand or has never been coached correctly hasn’t a clue nor the confidence to lay a wedge open and properly apply pressure against the turf with the skidder without any hint of a dig.
Use the images in this article, along with the messages from my mentors, to go out to your local short game area and EXPERIMENT. Be creative. Play with combinations of weight distribution, ball position, face/skidder conditions at address, and your grip placement. You’ll have a blast. Enjoy.
If I can be any further help or answer any questions please feel free to email me at tpatri@mindspring.com or visit me at www.tompatri.com.
