Problems With Hitting Fats Or Thins With Putting Stroke When Golf Chipping (Video) - by Peter Finch
Problems With Hitting Fats Or Thins With Putting Stroke When Golf Chipping (Video) - by Peter Finch

One of the biggest issues that people talk about when they start using that putting technique for chip shots is the consistency of strike, particularly with heavy shots and with thin shots. Now, this has all to do with angle of attack and how putting is very different than what you want to be doing with your chip shots.

With putting, you want your club to be moving through impact on a very shallow trajectory, even moving upwards through the point of impact. That’s because you are using a very flat blade in club as you hit, you want the ball to be contacted and then rolling as quickly as possible. Now, putters have a very, very small amount of loft, just holding to the ball or if any indentations that you may be on the green. But they also have face technology most of them, which gets the ball rolling much, much quicker. Now, obviously with a wedge, if you start hitting up on the ball, you are going to start catch its thin. If you hit very up on the ball, you could bottom out the club a long way before in its arc and start hitting the fat shot. And this is the big issue that many people will have when switching from putting to chipping using the same technique. Now, we’ve already spoken about the adaptations that we can make. So, we’ve already moved that ball position slightly further back in the stance. We’ve already pulled 60% of the weight on the front foot and those hands have moved very, very slightly ahead. Now, if you’ve made those adaptations and you are still hitting your fat and hitting a thin, there is one more thing that you can try before you have to really start the stroke string and going for a much more consistent chipping technique. Very simply, all we want to be doing is getting in the same setup, but I want to narrow the stance up, so the ball position is still back, but the stance is much more narrow, again popping that 60% away on the front foot, moving those hands very slightly ahead, but then from there I just want to move it back just keep the wrist nice and soft and start adding in a tiny little bit of wrist hinge on the weight back. Now, again, this is going to help ensure that your angle of attack is now traveling slightly downwards and not up through the point of impact. The angle of attack which travels up through impact is not going to be beneficial for this type of technique. So, ball position back a little bit away forward, hands ahead, and just add that little bit of hinge on the weight back and you should ensure that you are dropping the club on to the ball more consistently. Any more adaptions in this from the putting technique, you’re really starting to move into a full blow in chipping technique, which you should want to do anyway. But just try that if you are having that stands thing, because it’s all about the angle of attack through the ball. 2016-10-31

One of the biggest issues that people talk about when they start using that putting technique for chip shots is the consistency of strike, particularly with heavy shots and with thin shots. Now, this has all to do with angle of attack and how putting is very different than what you want to be doing with your chip shots.

With putting, you want your club to be moving through impact on a very shallow trajectory, even moving upwards through the point of impact. That’s because you are using a very flat blade in club as you hit, you want the ball to be contacted and then rolling as quickly as possible. Now, putters have a very, very small amount of loft, just holding to the ball or if any indentations that you may be on the green. But they also have face technology most of them, which gets the ball rolling much, much quicker.

Now, obviously with a wedge, if you start hitting up on the ball, you are going to start catch its thin. If you hit very up on the ball, you could bottom out the club a long way before in its arc and start hitting the fat shot. And this is the big issue that many people will have when switching from putting to chipping using the same technique.

Now, we’ve already spoken about the adaptations that we can make. So, we’ve already moved that ball position slightly further back in the stance. We’ve already pulled 60% of the weight on the front foot and those hands have moved very, very slightly ahead. Now, if you’ve made those adaptations and you are still hitting your fat and hitting a thin, there is one more thing that you can try before you have to really start the stroke string and going for a much more consistent chipping technique.

Very simply, all we want to be doing is getting in the same setup, but I want to narrow the stance up, so the ball position is still back, but the stance is much more narrow, again popping that 60% away on the front foot, moving those hands very slightly ahead, but then from there I just want to move it back just keep the wrist nice and soft and start adding in a tiny little bit of wrist hinge on the weight back.

Now, again, this is going to help ensure that your angle of attack is now traveling slightly downwards and not up through the point of impact. The angle of attack which travels up through impact is not going to be beneficial for this type of technique. So, ball position back a little bit away forward, hands ahead, and just add that little bit of hinge on the weight back and you should ensure that you are dropping the club on to the ball more consistently.

Any more adaptions in this from the putting technique, you’re really starting to move into a full blow in chipping technique, which you should want to do anyway. But just try that if you are having that stands thing, because it’s all about the angle of attack through the ball.