Correct Mindset To Improve Your Golf Chipping (Video) - by Pete Styles
Correct Mindset To Improve Your Golf Chipping (Video) - by Pete Styles

Confidence is one of those really difficult things to sort of gain on the golf course, a really difficult thing to quantify on the golf course. And confidence particularly when it comes down to chipping can be difficult to attain, and then difficult to keep because you might hit a hundred really nice chip shots. Then you hit one bad one, one duff and the ball falls into the front bunker. You can guarantee the next time you set up to a chip shot you're not thinking about the hundred really good ones that you hit previously. You are certainly thinking about that duff that goes in the front bunker. And then having a lack of confidence when you're chipping can manifest itself in some pretty awkward ways within your technique.

The classic lacking confidence chip shot is quite detrimental because we end up with a golfer that's leaning back at the point of impact, scooping and slowing down. This is a golfer that looks like they don't have any confidence in lifting the ball up onto the green. So they're trying to help it, the leaning back, to try to help the ball go up on the green. Because they are scared of thinning the ball or fatting the ball that's slowing down at the same time, very difficult to have confidence in a technique like that. Then you might feel that you're lacking in confidence with a lot of [Indiscernible] shots. But actually when you've got something like a 7-iron or a driver you can line yourself up to a relatively big target. And just tell yourself to go after it. Going after it with a 7-iron or a driver just pretty much means pulling the trigger and you're not going to be slowing down. If I line up with my 7-iron, I assume that’s my target, and go after it. I'm going to hit the ball quite hard. I'm not going to be slowing down. The difficulty when chipping or pitching is often we're not hitting the ball hard. We're hitting the ball with a relatively short, more controlled action. But because it's a short, more controlled action, the classic thing is for the golfer to decelerate. So setting up to the ball here looking at my target, if I decelerate as I am hitting it, often I'll hit the ground heavy. I'll have a short follow-through, a bit of a sort of a yippy kind of follow-through. And we don't use the ball really short into the ground in front of us. What we'd like to have as a golfer hitting through the ball is yes, we can have a short controlled swing, but we really want to be able to accelerate. So we have a short backswing, and then we accelerate on the way through. But because I was able to accelerate all the way through even though I take a nice divot, the divot comes largely after the golf ball. So I take the ball turf and the ball goes the relevant distance rather than slowing down and hitting the ball first. So by always accelerating and turning through the ball with great confidence, a better mindset should improve and hand up with better chipping technique. 2016-10-20

Confidence is one of those really difficult things to sort of gain on the golf course, a really difficult thing to quantify on the golf course. And confidence particularly when it comes down to chipping can be difficult to attain, and then difficult to keep because you might hit a hundred really nice chip shots. Then you hit one bad one, one duff and the ball falls into the front bunker. You can guarantee the next time you set up to a chip shot you're not thinking about the hundred really good ones that you hit previously. You are certainly thinking about that duff that goes in the front bunker. And then having a lack of confidence when you're chipping can manifest itself in some pretty awkward ways within your technique.

The classic lacking confidence chip shot is quite detrimental because we end up with a golfer that's leaning back at the point of impact, scooping and slowing down. This is a golfer that looks like they don't have any confidence in lifting the ball up onto the green. So they're trying to help it, the leaning back, to try to help the ball go up on the green. Because they are scared of thinning the ball or fatting the ball that's slowing down at the same time, very difficult to have confidence in a technique like that. Then you might feel that you're lacking in confidence with a lot of [Indiscernible] shots. But actually when you've got something like a 7-iron or a driver you can line yourself up to a relatively big target.

And just tell yourself to go after it. Going after it with a 7-iron or a driver just pretty much means pulling the trigger and you're not going to be slowing down. If I line up with my 7-iron, I assume that’s my target, and go after it. I'm going to hit the ball quite hard. I'm not going to be slowing down. The difficulty when chipping or pitching is often we're not hitting the ball hard. We're hitting the ball with a relatively short, more controlled action. But because it's a short, more controlled action, the classic thing is for the golfer to decelerate. So setting up to the ball here looking at my target, if I decelerate as I am hitting it, often I'll hit the ground heavy. I'll have a short follow-through, a bit of a sort of a yippy kind of follow-through.

And we don't use the ball really short into the ground in front of us. What we'd like to have as a golfer hitting through the ball is yes, we can have a short controlled swing, but we really want to be able to accelerate. So we have a short backswing, and then we accelerate on the way through. But because I was able to accelerate all the way through even though I take a nice divot, the divot comes largely after the golf ball. So I take the ball turf and the ball goes the relevant distance rather than slowing down and hitting the ball first. So by always accelerating and turning through the ball with great confidence, a better mindset should improve and hand up with better chipping technique.