Chipping

It seems like the more you work on your golf game, the more there is to work on. That's what makes the pros, well, pros. They seem to be able to hit the ball well from any lie and any location on the course and still be able to get a good shot out of crud that would just make us mere mortals look pretty pathetic. When it comes to chipping, there are a few tips you can work on that will drastically improve your ability to get the ball up near the pin with more consistency.

In the end, golf is all about getting the club head in contact with the ball in such a way that the ball ends up in contact with the ground at just the right time and rolls to a stop at the right spot - preferably in the hole. Easier said than done right? It's really not as difficult as you are probably making it. Chipping is really a lot like putting once you know what you should be doing.

Unlike a pitch, where you need to get the ball up and over something, chipping is the art of getting the ball just airborne enough to clear the fringe of the green and then roll it to the cup. As a result, you only want to get the ball up enough to clear the rough and let it drop and roll on the green instead of trying to pitch it up and land it near the pin.

You'll see a lot of pros using a seven or eight iron to chip for this very reason. All you do is use something much more like your putting stroke (fewer variables to mess up) and kick the ball out of the deep grass up onto the green. What you're shooting for is to chip the ball in the air the first 25% to 30% of the way and then let it roll the rest of the 70% of the distance.

By eliminating your wrists and hands and keeping them "quiet" you eliminate an awful lot of chili-dipping and other things that may haunt you at this point. Just move the club face through the ball just like you do when you putt and let the club do the work of getting the ball up just a little bit and then gravity and momentum (physics) does the rest.

Chipping is not about getting the ball on the pin, it is about putting the ball on a line toward the pin and letting it roll there all by itself. By chipping to roll the ball to the hole, you will eliminate a great number of bad chips where you overshoot the hole and leave yourself a 50 foot comeback putt on the other side.