Thin Golf Shot Drill 2: Straight arm finish for chip shot fix, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Thin Golf Shot Drill 2: Straight arm finish for chip shot fix, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now one of the most common pieces of advice that I have, beginners being told on the golf course by their playing partners is that they are lifting their head. It’s always, ‘oh you've lifted your head and that’s why you have topped it.’ The top is a common shot and the common piece of advice is you've always lifted your head. Let me tell you, that’s never ever the reason for topping the golf ball. Lifting your head does not make you top the golf ball. One of the biggest reasons why you top the golf ball is you're bending your arms during the impact area.

So when I start off setting up to the golf ball here, if my set up is good, my arms will be straight. It stands the reason that if I come down through impact I’d like my arms to be straight again. Any time my arms are bending through the impact area, I'm topping the golf ball. And after all my years of teaching, that’s the biggest that I see causing problems, is bending the arms through the impact area topping the ball.

So here’s a really great exercise to eradicate that fault from your game. Start up by just taking a wedge, pitch and wedge gap with sand, with something of that nature and practice just chipping the ball but keep the swing below your hips so you're not lifting the golf club up particularly high. And really you knock into an area where your hands or arms should get bending at all. Anything, while you're swinging the club higher up, your right arm will bend on this state, this side and then you'll follow through. Your left arm will start to bend as well. But if you’re keeping the swing very low, we can actually keep the hands and arms completely straight throughout the swing.

So if I start off with my arms straight, little chip back, little chip through, my arms are still very straight and if I can practice that exercise and practice hitting that golf ball with that exercise and then build that to my longer fuller more extended swing, that’s going to be a great practice to take into my full swing. So I set up nicely, little back swing, little through swing. You can see I've got my left arm perfectly straight through impact. My right arm also. And they got a really nice contact on the golf ball. So I stayed down and got a good contact. If I'm making a mistake now, I'm making on a bad swing. So setting up the golf ball in the same fashion but now pulling the arms in, my arms had come towards my body. I've topped the golf ball. It made a distinctly different sound. The ball has rolled downwards and my arms had come into my body.

And the ironic thing is, a lot of people make that mistake by trying to hit the ball up but desperately trying not to top it. They are really trying to get down to the ball and help it up into the air. And it’s the helping up into the air that causes them the problem. It’s not your job to hit the ball in the air. Your job is to hit the club downwards unto the back of the ball and the ball will come upon its own accord because it fell off on the club face. So good set up, straight arms back, straight arms through. Get the quality of the sound and the strike resulted on a short on a short swing then you can start to build back up to a full swing. And your arms will come straight to here then they will bend to a finish. But it’s important they don't bend here, they bend later on during your swing. If you can sort out your straight arms for chipping, you have really improved the quality of your ball striking.

 2012-11-28

Now one of the most common pieces of advice that I have, beginners being told on the golf course by their playing partners is that they are lifting their head. It’s always, ‘oh you've lifted your head and that’s why you have topped it.’ The top is a common shot and the common piece of advice is you've always lifted your head. Let me tell you, that’s never ever the reason for topping the golf ball. Lifting your head does not make you top the golf ball. One of the biggest reasons why you top the golf ball is you're bending your arms during the impact area.

So when I start off setting up to the golf ball here, if my set up is good, my arms will be straight. It stands the reason that if I come down through impact I’d like my arms to be straight again. Any time my arms are bending through the impact area, I'm topping the golf ball. And after all my years of teaching, that’s the biggest that I see causing problems, is bending the arms through the impact area topping the ball.

So here’s a really great exercise to eradicate that fault from your game. Start up by just taking a wedge, pitch and wedge gap with sand, with something of that nature and practice just chipping the ball but keep the swing below your hips so you're not lifting the golf club up particularly high. And really you knock into an area where your hands or arms should get bending at all. Anything, while you're swinging the club higher up, your right arm will bend on this state, this side and then you'll follow through. Your left arm will start to bend as well. But if you’re keeping the swing very low, we can actually keep the hands and arms completely straight throughout the swing.

So if I start off with my arms straight, little chip back, little chip through, my arms are still very straight and if I can practice that exercise and practice hitting that golf ball with that exercise and then build that to my longer fuller more extended swing, that’s going to be a great practice to take into my full swing. So I set up nicely, little back swing, little through swing. You can see I've got my left arm perfectly straight through impact. My right arm also. And they got a really nice contact on the golf ball. So I stayed down and got a good contact. If I'm making a mistake now, I'm making on a bad swing. So setting up the golf ball in the same fashion but now pulling the arms in, my arms had come towards my body. I've topped the golf ball. It made a distinctly different sound. The ball has rolled downwards and my arms had come into my body.

And the ironic thing is, a lot of people make that mistake by trying to hit the ball up but desperately trying not to top it. They are really trying to get down to the ball and help it up into the air. And it’s the helping up into the air that causes them the problem. It’s not your job to hit the ball in the air. Your job is to hit the club downwards unto the back of the ball and the ball will come upon its own accord because it fell off on the club face. So good set up, straight arms back, straight arms through. Get the quality of the sound and the strike resulted on a short on a short swing then you can start to build back up to a full swing. And your arms will come straight to here then they will bend to a finish. But it’s important they don't bend here, they bend later on during your swing. If you can sort out your straight arms for chipping, you have really improved the quality of your ball striking.