Ok everyone. What is your best chipping and pitching tips? It is the one part of my game that can be streaky and I can definitely improve on. I'm curious to hear what are some things you use, techniques, thoughts when trying to get up and down around the green.
I watched a Phil video on YouTube where he talks about keeping his hands in front of the club that helped me. Best thing though was just really focusing on keeping my head down through contact. Don't even start to look up for a few seconds. Has been a game changer for me. Also, I still suck at golf.
I feel like getting overly technical is bad for golf swings, but really bad for finesse shots like chips and pitches. Keep it simple and spend a decent amount of practice time around practice greens from different lies and hole locations and just get a feel for your strengths. Personally I like building confidence with one club because I don’t have enough time to practice different shots all the time, so I can confidently grab my 60 degree from anywhere inside 70 yards and make it work. Not for everyone obviously. It’s not a difficult shot as long as you don’t make it difficult by thinking of a million different swing ideas. Also don’t take swing advice from a random guy on the Internet.
Seconded. And when you have a shot around the green, your pre-swing reps should have intention. Use them to determine how much to choke up or down (depending on the lie) in order to brush the grass. The ball will just get in the way on the actual shot.
I think an underestimated move, especially for mid-high handicappers, is the bump and run. Too often, I try to get cute near the green, take too much loft, and thin it, duff it, chunk it, and so on. By taking an 8 iron (depending on the amount of green to work with) I minimize my chances of failure and get the ball rolling.
You want about 70% of your weight on the front foot and focus on a spot a 1/4 inch in front of the ball. Once you get the basics down where you are making contact like you want to the real key is practicing to get a feel and see how the ball and club react out of different lies.
All this. Another big tip is making sure your shoulders are turning back and through with the club head. Kisner talks about chipping in the first part of this video and makes it really simple. Edited: had wrong video linked.
I get that this is conventional wisdom around the green, but it just doesn’t work for me. Chipping with longer clubs is just death for me.
I'll assume you don't have many years of experience. If you stick with the game and work to improve, you will eventually recognize that you have many arrows in your quiver and the choice depends on the variables of the shot at hand.
Been playing for almost 30 years. I know it’s not “correct” but it’s how I get the ball closer to the hole.
I was always taught to let the lie dictate my set up greenside. I usually try to match my spine angle and weight distribution closely to it. Hand placement is also based on bottom of the arc. I focus a lot on where I want the shot to land and practice that, like jump shots really. Just reacting and repetition. Everything outside of about 40 is a variation of the Pelz / clock system
I grew up using the “texas wedge” instead of bump and runs. Still more comfortable for me, but I’m trying to work on chipping with lower lofts
Some of this is course dependent, but I would challenge you if you had time to practice find and average relatively flat 15 yard chip. Practice for a couple minutes using an 8-9 iron to get a feel for it then hit 10-15 with the 9 iron and 10-15 with the 58. I'd be stunned if the 9 iron wasn't significantly better.
One of the best things I have done is learn the bump and run with my 9 iron around the green. I am still terrible, but helped me shoot in the 80s several times this Summer.
Buddy of mine was a JUCO AA and played on tours in South America and Asia before becoming a college coach. His advice to me was to throw my 60 degree away and chip with the lowest lofted club possible. I've been chipping almost exclusively with my pitching wedge ever since
I missed 7 greens yesterday and think only one of those could have arguably been played as a bump and run. Rest required either too much carry over rough, soft landings, or hitting up to an elevated surface. Still think it's a valuable shot with a higher % for success in the right spots. Really not sure how I could ditch the pitch though as these shots seem typical, at least where I play Hole 2 -- 15 yard pitch to extremely elevated green Hole 7 - around 10 yards but straight downhill just off the green in the rough... could only carry it a few feet Hole 8 - 20 yards but required 15 yards of carry to an elevated surface Hole 12 - terrible chunked approach due to a funky lie -- had 40 yards in Hole 13 - approach spun off front of green... fairway lie straight uphill 25 ft. could have bumped this one Hole 16 - pitch over bunker Holy 17 - carry over rough and shortsided
Every Ryder Cup, SuperStroke makes a very limited amount of Team USA putter grips that you can only buy on their site. I still have mine on my putter from Hazeltine's version although it's so worn now that it's hardly recognizable. Thankfully they just released this year's. They're only making 50 of each model so get yours while you can! I just ordered mine. https://superstrokeusa.com/shop/team-usa-limited-edition-grip/
I've played some courses with really elevated greens and rough were you can't bump and run much, but it also sounds like you short sided yourself a ton.
In fairness, nearly every miss out there feels short sided due to how small, fast, and tricky the greens are. Plus the entire course runs hard down a hill towards the ocean, so sometimes there isn’t a good miss. Example: Hole 10 par 3. Goes straight at the bay. Anything short you’ve got a lightning fast chip, severe breaks if youre right or left out of heavy rough, and jail long. You can kind of get the sense of it from this photo Not to say that I can’t do better with course management, because I certainly could. Anyway, probably not the best example of shots you’d routinely encounter in other parts of the country.
I have a friend I play with who tries to fly every shot to the hole like he's short sided himself and has to go high and land it in a hula hoop. It's drives me absolutely crazy when he's 20 yards in front of the green and won't deloft a wedge and skip one to the back. Everything is a full swing.
Have a buddies golf trip coming up next weekend...anyone know of a free or cheap app that does live scoring? I've done it on golf genius for club tournaments before, but looks like you need a premium subscription for that. Any ideas?
Spieth with an interesting nugget in his press conference. He and JT have known/met every player on this year's team since grade school except DJ and Finau.
They keep saying this will be an almost exclusively American supporter crowd because of the pandemic but will that be true? I mean I know there's plenty of people who are hesitant about traveling nowadays but there's no travel restriction from Europe right now, is there? They're confusing me by assumptively saying that there won't be Euro fans there.
Really? There were definitely reporters from across the pond at the press conferences I watched today