What is a Crisp Chip shot golf drill 4 Lower is better experiment with scoop (Video) - by Pete Styles
What is a Crisp Chip shot golf drill 4 Lower is better experiment with scoop (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think we all appreciate when we’re chipping and pitching the golf ball, the ball should go up into the air. And often when you see the golf was on the TV, play the shot, it’s the really high shot that looks the nicest and looks the best. But by trying to recreate the high float of golf shot, a lot of golfers get themselves in trouble and therefore get the bad strike on the ball. So it’s a bad strike because you’re trying to hit the ball too high. And in reality, it should be the loft on the golf club that hits the ball high and your approach that would be to try and hit the ball lower. It doesn’t matter whether you got a 5-yard chip shot that runs upon the green or a 50-yard pit shot. Always think about trying to hit the ball down and not up. So whenever I’m setting up the golf with my pitching wedge, I know the ball will go high because I have a lofted club, but it’s never my intention to hit the ball high. My intention is always to try and keep the ball a little bit lower and down a little bit more. So I position myself and my body weight and my hand position, so I can strike down on the ball and keep it low rather than flip it up into the air. If I need to hit a higher shot, I simply take a more lofted golf club but I still have the approach of hitting down. So, what I’d like you to do is spend a bit of time on the practice ground with your pitching wedge and think about hitting maybe a 40 to 50-yard pit shot. Then imagine that you have a football goal and work out whether your ball would be going under the cross bar or over the cross bar. And if it’s going under the cross bar, I would suggest that’s nice feeling of getting your hands ahead and getting a good crisp strike. Then think about trying to hit the ball over the cross bar, but not just over it but right up, as high as you can into the goal. So you think about trying to scoop underneath and hit it right up into the air. And just the experiment with how that shot look, but also how does that shot feel and what’s the quality of the strike like? And for most people, they’re going to really struggle to get a good quality strike on that ball because it requires a lot of leaning back and flicking with the wrist which is exactly what we don’t want when we’re chipping.

So have a little goal, always experiment and find the fault. Find what it feels like to do it wrong and how that would affect you in your strike and in the resulting shot. And particularly, if you’re playing and the lie is not very good and the ball is sitting down in longer grass, so wet grass, any time you lean back and try and flick and scoop, you’re going to be in dead trouble. And you might find it really difficult to hit that high shot in practice. So therefore, don’t try and hit that high shot on the golf course. Focus on the concept of hitting down on the golf ball, playing a chip in your pit shots with the idea of hitting it lower and use the loft on the golf clubs to hit the ball in the air. So a little bit of experimentation with this drill, try the low ones, try the high ones, feel where the good quality strikes are, and then recreate those next time you go on play.

2012-11-30

I think we all appreciate when we’re chipping and pitching the golf ball, the ball should go up into the air. And often when you see the golf was on the TV, play the shot, it’s the really high shot that looks the nicest and looks the best. But by trying to recreate the high float of golf shot, a lot of golfers get themselves in trouble and therefore get the bad strike on the ball. So it’s a bad strike because you’re trying to hit the ball too high. And in reality, it should be the loft on the golf club that hits the ball high and your approach that would be to try and hit the ball lower. It doesn’t matter whether you got a 5-yard chip shot that runs upon the green or a 50-yard pit shot. Always think about trying to hit the ball down and not up. So whenever I’m setting up the golf with my pitching wedge, I know the ball will go high because I have a lofted club, but it’s never my intention to hit the ball high. My intention is always to try and keep the ball a little bit lower and down a little bit more. So I position myself and my body weight and my hand position, so I can strike down on the ball and keep it low rather than flip it up into the air. If I need to hit a higher shot, I simply take a more lofted golf club but I still have the approach of hitting down. So, what I’d like you to do is spend a bit of time on the practice ground with your pitching wedge and think about hitting maybe a 40 to 50-yard pit shot. Then imagine that you have a football goal and work out whether your ball would be going under the cross bar or over the cross bar. And if it’s going under the cross bar, I would suggest that’s nice feeling of getting your hands ahead and getting a good crisp strike. Then think about trying to hit the ball over the cross bar, but not just over it but right up, as high as you can into the goal. So you think about trying to scoop underneath and hit it right up into the air. And just the experiment with how that shot look, but also how does that shot feel and what’s the quality of the strike like? And for most people, they’re going to really struggle to get a good quality strike on that ball because it requires a lot of leaning back and flicking with the wrist which is exactly what we don’t want when we’re chipping.

So have a little goal, always experiment and find the fault. Find what it feels like to do it wrong and how that would affect you in your strike and in the resulting shot. And particularly, if you’re playing and the lie is not very good and the ball is sitting down in longer grass, so wet grass, any time you lean back and try and flick and scoop, you’re going to be in dead trouble. And you might find it really difficult to hit that high shot in practice. So therefore, don’t try and hit that high shot on the golf course. Focus on the concept of hitting down on the golf ball, playing a chip in your pit shots with the idea of hitting it lower and use the loft on the golf clubs to hit the ball in the air. So a little bit of experimentation with this drill, try the low ones, try the high ones, feel where the good quality strikes are, and then recreate those next time you go on play.