I work quite a lot with my clients on the chipping and the pitching. And quite often people are talking to me about how they struggle with their pitching and chipping particularly with the distance control. They're often hitting the ball too hard. So we often play this one yard pitching challenge and people look at a bit funny well one yard pitch why would I need a one yard pitch? So I question them. We are chipping and pitching is that a long short shot or is that a short long shot? And they'll say well it's a short long shot because my full swing is my seven-iron swing that goes a mile and my pitch shot is a short versions of that and that's why people get into difficulty. They have way too much power and then they're trying to nullify and negate that power to hit the short shot.

So let's flip it on its head. Let's take a chip shot as a long version of a very short shot. First we need to practice the very short shot hence the one yard chipping challenge. Take a cane, take a yard and put the cane down. Now I want to hit genuine proper chip shots with proper technique that bounce over that so we have to land this side and jump over it. So I want a proper setup, a proper grip and a little dinky swing and just brush the ball a yard. Now I need to land short of that cane and then bounce over it setting up again land it short and bounce over it. That landed on the cane. So again short and try and land on it. And if I can genuinely get a good chipping action that is only this dinky short one, land here, bounce over the cane like those three shots did that and repeat that exercise. You know you could do this for a good deal of time. You can actually do this in the house. It's such a short little shot. You're not going to start making big swings with it and that's the problem really isn't it when people chip, they swing the club back here and then they try and hit a yard and end up dinging it. So we're working on here is a very short shot.

It's almost like a putting stroke. It's a putting stroke that has a bit of loft to it. We want to try and hit the ball even shorter than that last one very, very short shots. Now if you're good at doing that and then we suggest well now make that a bit longer. Suddenly that feels easier. Once you've got your short shot boxed off it then feels easier to start making a longer swing. It gives you a bit more freedom back in your swing. Then suddenly hitting a five or ten yard pitch feels a lot easier because you practiced hitting a really short one rather than trying to have this big swing and then trying to learn to hit that one shot. So it looks like a very simple challenge, but I promise you its incredibly difficult to only hit the ball a yard. Everything in your body wants to hit the ball a lot further than that.

Now it is I'm not stopping on that either it's not a ding. It's a proper little swing through like a putting stroke with a bit of loft. Learn to chip the ball a yard and you'll find your general chipping and pitching improves massively.