This week I thought you would enjoy 4 top tips to improve your chipping. Try these beauts out and let me know what you think
Tip No.1 - how to improve your ball strike To improve your strike pattern take a drill stick and place a wedge face away behind the ball as shown in the photo below. You are aiming to hit the ball without touching the stick, when you you take your shot. If you hit the stick, as you come down on your downswing your are hitting into the shot too steep. You'll be amazed how this drill improves your ball strike
Tip No. 2 - how to work out which club to take This is a great tip to improve your chipping distance. Imagine taking your club on its backswing and and your hands reaching your pocket line (i.e. below your waist) - this is know as position P1. Moving your backswing higher to waist level is known as P2. A litter higher, half way between your waist and shoulder is P3 and finally at shoulder hight is P4. Taking a wedge play a shot from the same point at each "P" position and watch the ball flight distance and run out to the flag. With some practice you will learn the different distances and can record with a flight scope or bushnell type device. Create a grid (as shown below) and put your distance for each club and each "P" position. Use this to refer to when playing out on the course to remove any doubt on club selection for the chip shot you want to make.
Tip No.3 - Controlling distance To be a great chipper you need to be able to control your ball distance . The previous tip will help you select the right the club but to maximise your chances of getting the ball close to the flag you need to know where to land the ball on the green. Tiger Woods was always brilliant at this part of the game and would focus on a small target area the size of a small coin. to improve your chances try this next tip out. Place a small towel on the green where you think you should land you ball and hit a chip shot to it and see where the ball finishes up. Having a towel on the green will help you focus and you will get instant feedback if its not in the correct position, so that you can move it to where you think it should be. This drill will help you, so that when your out playing the course you will automatically pick a point on the green to focus where to land.
Tip No. 4 - Practice with pressure Place some tees around the cup of the hole about 3 feet away to create a circle. Start off by taking 10 balls and from the same spot you have to chip all balls within the circle. Once you've achieve this take 10 balls and chip from different locations, aiming to get all balls within the circle. To make it harder take 10 balls and from different locations chip using different wedges each time, again you have to get all 10 balls in the circle. If you miss one in any of the challenges you have to go back to the start. To put more pressure on compete against a friend or compete against the clock
If you would like to learn more about the mental side of the game please get in touch or check out our other blogs, there's something in here for everyone.