Rick Shiels – PGA Teaching Pro
Oh! It’s just going to run. How many times have you hit a chip shot and you’ve thinned it? And it’s landed where you've wanted to land but it's rolled and rolled and rolled. And you are playing partner will say, oh you lifted your head that time. Well, most of the time you probably haven’t but the important thing is something has changed. So something from your set up is now different. So, when you set up to the club, you are not hitting half of the ball, you’ve got the club directly behind the ball. As long as you return a similar position, you should clip the floor. Now what tends to happen with golfers that are playing the chip shot, then they are getting a little bit flicky on it, a little bit wristy on it and they’ll try to pull their arm up to try and lift the golf ball up in the air. So, what we are going to look at is reducing those two factors to make sure that the bottom of the golf club reaches the bottom of the golf ball when we are coming to hit. One of the most common ones that we see, is a chip as the club comes into the ball, the hands almost stop and the club overtakes. So that you get into this position where the club almost leaves backwards but all you do, is you simply present in the ball with the leading edge. So you’re always going to hit it halfway at the ball, shoot it across the green and everyone’s going to tell you let’s get it. So what you need to work up is making sure that when you come into the shot, you lean the shaft forward more to make sure you present in the bottom of the club, the bottom of this lead net into the bottom of the golf ball. So, if I hit this shot here all I’m going to do is I’m just going to lean the club forward and click the ground. Do that one more time so there is no flick in there, all I’m doing is leaning the club forward and clicking the ground. The other one is pulling the left arm in when you hit. So the left arm goes in and up rather staying straight and almost punching down into the floor a little bit. Good drill for this, just practice with one arm. Just practice with your leading arm. And just hit a couple of shots where you stretch the arm making sure that when you swing you keep it stretched and every time you’ll hit the floor more. Then introduce your right hand again, swing and stretch and I will almost guarantee you will not thin the golf ball again and you are certainly probably not lifting your head up. It’s either flicking or you’re bringing that left arm in. Practice that next time you play and you will hit more consistent, better golf chips.
2013-06-26 Rick Shiels – PGA Teaching Pro
Oh! It’s just going to run. How many times have you hit a chip shot and you’ve thinned it? And it’s landed where you've wanted to land but it's rolled and rolled and rolled. And you are playing partner will say, oh you lifted your head that time. Well, most of the time you probably haven’t but the important thing is something has changed. So something from your set up is now different. So, when you set up to the club, you are not hitting half of the ball, you’ve got the club directly behind the ball. As long as you return a similar position, you should clip the floor. Now what tends to happen with golfers that are playing the chip shot, then they are getting a little bit flicky on it, a little bit wristy on it and they’ll try to pull their arm up to try and lift the golf ball up in the air. So, what we are going to look at is reducing those two factors to make sure that the bottom of the golf club reaches the bottom of the golf ball when we are coming to hit. One of the most common ones that we see, is a chip as the club comes into the ball, the hands almost stop and the club overtakes. So that you get into this position where the club almost leaves backwards but all you do, is you simply present in the ball with the leading edge. So you’re always going to hit it halfway at the ball, shoot it across the green and everyone’s going to tell you let’s get it. So what you need to work up is making sure that when you come into the shot, you lean the shaft forward more to make sure you present in the bottom of the club, the bottom of this lead net into the bottom of the golf ball. So, if I hit this shot here all I’m going to do is I’m just going to lean the club forward and click the ground. Do that one more time so there is no flick in there, all I’m doing is leaning the club forward and clicking the ground. The other one is pulling the left arm in when you hit. So the left arm goes in and up rather staying straight and almost punching down into the floor a little bit. Good drill for this, just practice with one arm. Just practice with your leading arm. And just hit a couple of shots where you stretch the arm making sure that when you swing you keep it stretched and every time you’ll hit the floor more. Then introduce your right hand again, swing and stretch and I will almost guarantee you will not thin the golf ball again and you are certainly probably not lifting your head up. It’s either flicking or you’re bringing that left arm in. Practice that next time you play and you will hit more consistent, better golf chips.
