In this video, Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Ged Walters explains the 6 most common faults golfers suffer with when chipping around the green and suggests simple ways to overcome them! Whether you're setting up to the ball incorrectly or struggling to strike your chips cleanly, this video has all the pointers you need to become a confident chipper and turn a weakness into a strength.
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00:00Do you struggle with your chipping?
00:01Well, if you do, this could be the video for you.
00:04We're down here at Sandy Way Golf Club in Cheshire
00:06with Golf Monthly's top 50 golf coach, Jed Walters.
00:10And he's gonna be taking you through six common mistakes
00:13amateurs do around the green when it comes to chipping.
00:17Right, save me talking, let's get into it.
00:19Over to you, Jed.
00:20Thanks, Monty.
00:21So, there's no better place to start
00:23than with the biggest issue, the number one issue.
00:27Poor, poor setup leads to everything.
00:31What is the most common setup that I see?
00:33Well, I see people setting up
00:34as if they've got the seven iron in hand.
00:36So, they're doing this,
00:38and they are literally three feet away from the green.
00:41Now, if you're like this, and then all of a sudden,
00:44you're trying to hit a shot, which is going about 25, 30 feet,
00:48we see, and then it's a big slow down.
00:52So, we try and help the ball up into the air,
00:55not hit it too far.
00:56And that leads to hitting the ground too soon.
00:59It leads to hitting the middle of the golf ball
01:01and thinning it across the green.
01:02It leads to topping it and a lot of frustration
01:05more than anything else.
01:07So, how do we get the right setup?
01:09Well, you're set up for,
01:11let's start with this sort of basic shot.
01:15Just on a lovely lie here.
01:18The keys that we want to get is,
01:20we don't want to go too wide.
01:22So, we want to narrow the width of the stands down.
01:26So, if I was to put my club head in between my feet there,
01:29you can see it's only ever so slightly wider
01:33than the width of my golf club.
01:35Now, I don't want to be miles away
01:38from the golf ball as well.
01:41I want to be a little bit closer than normal.
01:44So, from here,
01:47there is very little space between me and the golf club.
01:53If I was to just change to here,
01:58that's about the distance you would want to be.
02:02So, we want our golf ball for this as a generalised shot,
02:06being generally more central in the stance,
02:10because that's just going to help you
02:13with your angle of attack then moving down.
02:16From this position here,
02:17you are in a much better place
02:19to be able to move the club nicely.
02:22More importantly, be able to move the torso
02:26and allow the body's rotation
02:28to support the release of the club.
02:30One which I see loads all the time
02:33is a loss of structure in the arms.
02:35So, you can see here,
02:36I have a little ball just dangling
02:38from my neck here on a little lanyard.
02:41You don't have to use one of these.
02:42You could use a deflated football.
02:44You could use a swimming armband.
02:47But what this is for is to maintain
02:49a little bit more of the structure of the arms.
02:52If we think about when we were taking our setup position,
02:57if I was just to pinch this between my forearms here,
03:00from here, you can see that the structure
03:03between my shoulders and my arms is more like a triangle.
03:09So, if we then take that down into the golf club itself,
03:11it's almost like creating the letter Y.
03:15Now, what I see loads of is a struggle from golfers
03:19who want to try and get the golf ball up in the air.
03:22They lose that letter Y and it comes from
03:26the separation of the elbows
03:28as they try and help the ball into the air.
03:30Now, the release of the club.
03:32So, this movement in the wrists
03:35is an essential movement to really control.
03:39We want to have that.
03:40We don't want to take that out of the way.
03:41But what we do want to stop is this shortening of the radius.
03:45So, if we think about the club being sat on the ground,
03:48as soon as I separate my elbows,
03:51the club comes away from the ground.
03:52So, that's shortening the radius.
03:54Well, if I now move on to the golf ball,
03:56well, I've got no chance of hitting the golf ball there.
03:59The club isn't going to collect the ball on its way through.
04:01So, I'm going to do one of three things I see.
04:06We stick the club into the ground too soon
04:08because we then start leaning back.
04:10We thin the ball across the other side of the green
04:12or we just catch it right on the top.
04:14So, controlling the structure is really, really important.
04:17So, if I keep the forearms pinched together
04:22so they're maintaining the ball in place,
04:25all I have to do then is just maintain
04:27the height of my posture and then keep the club moving
04:33and I can brush the ground.
04:35And as long as I keep doing that,
04:36I'm going to brush the ground all the time.
04:39So, then the club is going to collect the golf ball
04:42on its way through.
04:43So, if I was then to address the golf ball,
04:47all I'm thinking about is maintaining the Y,
04:50maintaining the structure of the arms and keeping my movement.
04:53and I'm going to make really nice contact all the time.
04:59So, the length and speed is going to then control the distance.
05:03Another common mistake is a lack of movement in the upper body.
05:08There's a lot of players who just try and use their hands and arms
05:12and forget that the real sort of engine of the motion
05:16is about turning the torso.
05:18So, what do I mean by that?
05:20Well, when you see a lot of chipping actions,
05:25we see a lot of this.
05:28So, when you look at it from face on,
05:31you see that my chest is still facing the golf ball.
05:35So, it's a lot of this kind of action.
05:38Now, what happens I see a lot from there
05:41is when we see that lack of motion,
05:44the club moves quite a bit and then it starts to slow down
05:47and the speed of the arms tries to control the shot
05:50and then lots of that happens.
05:52So, what we need to do is we need to make sure that this bit moves.
05:56The chest has got to start moving
05:59and it's got to have that motion where the arms then follow
06:04and it's the chest supporting the release of the club head as we go through.
06:08Now, as long as we get that happening,
06:12we'll be able to allow the golf club
06:15to almost land on the turf,
06:18glide along the turf and then take off.
06:22Almost, if you imagined an aeroplane landing on the runway,
06:26so it would come down, it would touch down wheels,
06:30it would then move along the runway
06:33and then imagine it wanted to sort of take off again.
06:37It would then move up.
06:39So, we're releasing the golf club,
06:42but we're supporting this release with the turn that we're going to make.
06:45So,
06:47now, when I make a backswing and I rotate the torso,
06:52I can allow the club to land on the ground.
06:56The sole is going to do most of the work,
06:58so it'll just bruise the turf as we go through.
07:02And then, even if I was to get the club to land,
07:06say, here, an inch, inch and a half behind the golf ball,
07:09because of the way I'm using the club and the body,
07:14the club is actually going to still move along the ground.
07:17It's going to be like the plane is still going along the runway.
07:20So, I'm not going to get that duffed shot.
07:22I'm actually still going to get a really good outcome.
07:25So, on this shot,
07:26I'm now going to support that release with the rotation
07:30and we're just going to allow the club then to bruise the ground.
07:38And then you can see it just pops up nicely off towards the target.
07:43Another one of the big mistakes that I see from lots of people
07:48when they're chipping is they move the club inside very, very early.
07:53So, plenty of golfers are moving the club in and around here very, very early.
08:00So, the only thing they can either do from there is try and come back this way
08:05and the body's then got to start working away to keep the club away from the ground
08:09because it would just stick into the floor back here too far away.
08:12So, this leads into a lot of pushed shots, a lot of shanks and stuff like that.
08:19Or, they then try and loop over the top.
08:23Now, sometimes you can get away with it, but there's a lot of timing involved.
08:27And when there's timing involved, sometimes it stays with you for a bit.
08:30But when it disappears, you just don't know when it's going to come back.
08:32So, if we think about what's going to happen if we move the club on a more natural plane,
08:42as the club moves away from the golf ball, if you thought about it moving in a straight line,
08:47it would be moving straight back.
08:49But the more it moves off the ground, it arcs.
08:52So, it's moving back, it's moving up, and it's moving in.
08:56But it's not moving too far in.
08:58So, you can see the club's relationship to the shaft, the stick that I've got there,
09:02just on the angle, just to match the shaft's plane.
09:06So, it's moving back, up, and in.
09:09Then, from here, you can rotate back through, and the club will come back down
09:15and through to execute your shot.
09:18So, having that picture in your mind of the club moving back and up and in,
09:23and even practicing with a shaft or an alignment stick in the ground, like we have here,
09:28a shaft or alignment stick on the ground.
09:30So, you've got a visual of the direction that you're moving the golf club in.
09:34That's the important thing.
09:37So, from that point of view there, you could be able to practice and hit shots like this,
09:41just taking your setup, just picturing that back, up, and in motion,
09:46and making a nice, smooth, controlled swing.
09:49Another of the big common mistakes that we see is when players try and steer the ball towards their target.
10:01So, what I mean by that is when they swing the club through the impact,
10:07what they're trying to do is move the club in the direction that they want the golf ball to go in.
10:14When we look at how we want to move, when we're moving around the arc,
10:18as you can see there, as I move the club around the arc,
10:22it's moving up that exit route stick there to the left.
10:26Now, if I try to move it in the direction that I would want the golf ball,
10:31what we would see then is I'm pushing my arms and the club away from the golf ball,
10:37which is where a lot of you guys will hit the shanks from.
10:41So, I'm just going to play a little shot here now,
10:45where you can see that as long as I make the right movement,
10:50we've got golf ball exiting up the stick towards the target,
10:55and I've kept moving around so the club has exited round to the left.
11:01Finally, one thing that I see way too much is people just picking up their most lofty club.
11:08So, I've got four clubs in my hands here, I've got my most lofty club, 58 degree.
11:14The amount of time I see people just going in for their 58, their 60, wanting to hit it up in the air,
11:19it's, get rid of that, 54, that's plenty of loft.
11:26Now, behind me where the bunker is, if I was in that situation,
11:31people would still want to go for their most lofted.
11:3454 degrees is a lot of loft, so the ball will get up in the air,
11:38you don't really need to go too severe, as I say,
11:42unless it's a real sort of challenging lie, downslope situation, something like that.
11:48So, again, 54 degree from this situation, that can go over there as well.
11:52There are two options, really, that I would want to see most golfers use that would lower their scores.
11:59It's all about lower scores, it's not about hitting a sexy shot, it's about the lower score.
12:03The putter and a seven iron, they're the keys.
12:08The reason is, we've got loads of green to work with.
12:11Now, the seven iron will help you get over this little bit of grass here,
12:16and get the ball running nicely.
12:18The putter will just run through, because this is cut really nice and short,
12:22so it's one of the two options, whichever you feel really more comfortable with.
12:27But I like to see the ball on the ground as quickly as possible,
12:31because it's one, more predictable, and two, it's telling you what the green's going to do.
12:36So, if you leave it short, you're getting a look of how the green,
12:40how the ball is going to move down towards the hole.
12:42If the ball goes beyond the hole, please pay attention to it,
12:47because it is reading the put that you're about to hit for you.
12:50If you watch how that ball moves, you are then going to see how the ball
12:54is going to be expected to come back towards you.
12:56So, from here, if I just put the putter down for a second,
13:00and in terms of playing this seven iron shot, I want you to play it just like you would play a putt,
13:08but with a narrower stance, nice and tall, and just moving back and through nice and smooth,
13:17keeping the triangle of the arms in place, keeping the shoulders rocking back and through.
13:25You just want to nudge the ball and let it run. That's all you want to do.
13:29If you want to use your normal grip, if you want to use your putter grip,
13:32that's entirely up to you. It's personal preference,
13:35but just making sure that your feet are nice and close together.
13:39So, it's only about the width of the club head there.
13:42A little bit of pressure, just leaning into the left side,
13:45so that you've got an ever so slight downward angle of attack,
13:48and we're just going to put a little bit of a putting stroke on it,
13:52and just roll it forward, and you can just see how that ball is reading the green for me.
13:58So, it's moved in from right to left, and now I've left myself,
14:03I don't know, what's that, three, half feet maybe, for my next shot,
14:08which is just all you want to do. You want to keep it as simple as possible,
14:12so the next shot is very, very easy.
14:15Thanks, Jed. Lots of great information there for you guys to take away and implement into your own game.
14:21I hope you found it useful. I definitely have.
14:24But that's it from us here at Sandy Way Golf Club in Cheshire. See you next time.