Top Chipping - Lesson by PGA Pros Pete Styles & Matt Fryer
Top Chipping - Lesson by PGA Pros Pete Styles & Matt Fryer

In this video tip PGA golf professionals Pete Styles and Matt Fryer will talk you through three key points that should encourage you to strike your chips better and get the ball nearer to the hole. We start by looking at taking a short back stroke and a longer follow-through. This, followed by moving the body weight forward towards target and also focusing on a more accurate landing spot, should see us chipping the ball closer on a more regular basis.

So one of the things to producing better scores is having a good short game if we're able to chip the ball closer to the hole theoretically we should have more ease of getting into the hole, and would you say that's a common thing that some amateurs are struggling with. Yes I think so I think it's a concept of we want to make the putt as easy as possible and we're not going to be expected to hole putt some 30 feet so we can chip the ball to 5 or 6 feet that's going to make the putting a lot easier like you said bring the scores down. Definitely yeah and it's something that I say I don't think a lot of amateurs are doing right now. So if you could you know give 3 tips to highlight the short game get it closer to the hole what would they be? I think the 1st thing I'm going to suggest is I am going to pick the ball up which is a bit of a strange start to a tip but I like to visualize the chip shot by imagining I'm going to throw it. Right so when I arrive at the ball a lot of golfers just grab the sand wedge and then will try and do everything they possibly can with that's sand wedge. I like to work with clients and tell them the idea would be to imagine your holding the ball on throw the ball the best you can to get it near the flag. That the concept of chipping is the so many different clubs that you could use pretty much every club in your back will reach the 25 30 yard chip shot distance, but I'm going to work on 2 different options. Do I want the ball to go low and roll out onto the green or do I want to have a completely different shot? For example if there's a bunker in the way I would have to throw the ball a lot higher and those 2 balls will land in largely the same position just at the end of this practice ground, but flew in 2 completely different ways and that's why how I'm going to choose the club. OK So if you're there you've assessed the situation to choose the shot type relevant for that situation. Absolutely and it would probably be a lob wedge to play the high one and maybe even a 7 iron to play the low one and pretty much anything in between depending on what I've got to go over.

Right OK so when you do that would you focus on the finishing spot or you picking a landing spot or is it? Personally I like to work on a landing area. So I'm going to visualize the landing area think about getting the ball to go there and then the same as I'm playing the shot so as I set up the ball. I'm looking at my landing area not the flag I'm working out where I want a ball to land and potentially also I'm going to read the green. I mean look at the left to right the ups and downs right pick the ball or pick the landing that's appropriate. So it does not always in line for example I got a big slope I'm going to be aiming left chipping onto my landing spot rolling around close to the flag. For the assessing of the shot is as important to my mind as playing the shot. Excellent a really good tip there. What would be a second tip that you give? I think is possibly related to the actual way we set up the golf ball particular ball position. We see an awful lot of amateur golfers when they're trying to chip the ball they don't have the ball in the correct place. A lot of people get the ball too far forward in the stance to my mind where they're trying to scoop the ball would have the ball near it to the left side here that would probably be a bad contact or he hit the ground too far behind the ball hitting the ball heavy. Right possibly even not hitting the ground heavy but thinning the ball so I like to see the ball more in the center of the stance. So taking the ball around about the middle of my feet maybe even put into the back 3rd if the lie isn't very good having the ball back a little bit should encourage more of a downward angle of attack and a downward strike. So it's not that we're trying to help the ball in the air we're letting the loft of the club do the work with and given it an ascending blow? Yeah it would be exactly that ball more back and then making sure that we're striking down into the ball and I think that would give us a better but a contact on the golf ball as well.

Excellent and a 3rd tip you give to the amateurs to try and help you get a bit closer? I think it's the process that we should accelerate through the ball. We know this isn't going to be a long shot we're not going to be making full swing is all the way back and all the way through. It's much more about hitting the short shot that really needs to be generated by short back swing. So a shorter back swing coming back to sort of one third back and then the feeling of two thirds through accelerating through the ball longer follow through and it was a back swing and particularly getting the feet involved. Exactly noticing there you know if you've made that swing one of the real key points there you know as you go through it now. What we will see here is that Pete actually turned to his target to finish instead of a lot of amateurs as we see as they come through the almost freeze the body out and move away from target and see here from the other account camera angle that he's leaning back in his actual lead foot goes up in the air there. So turning it almost going with the shot is going to be something that will help better contact I would imagine. Yeah absolutely I think you can almost now relate to the throwing action again if I was to throw the ball to my target chances are I would turn through and follow through. So it's relatable to other sports of throwing the ball this way and then go ahead and try and play the shot and I think they would be my 3 best chipping technique tips. Excellent then it's just putting those into practice isn't it. Yeah I think that's probably something that isn't there necessarily the sexy part of practice you know we all want to drive the ball 300 yards we all want to roll in a load of putts but we probably don't put enough hours into that short game area. Sometimes due to lack of facilities but if you can find yourself a good practice facility I'd be spending you know a good 20% - 25% my total practice time on the short game on the chipping particularly. Excellent so if you're wanting to chip the ball closer go through those tips see if there's one that really resonates with you get some practice in on it and hopefully going to see the ball getting closer to that hole.

2018-11-12

In this video tip PGA golf professionals Pete Styles and Matt Fryer will talk you through three key points that should encourage you to strike your chips better and get the ball nearer to the hole. We start by looking at taking a short back stroke and a longer follow-through. This, followed by moving the body weight forward towards target and also focusing on a more accurate landing spot, should see us chipping the ball closer on a more regular basis.

So one of the things to producing better scores is having a good short game if we're able to chip the ball closer to the hole theoretically we should have more ease of getting into the hole, and would you say that's a common thing that some amateurs are struggling with. Yes I think so I think it's a concept of we want to make the putt as easy as possible and we're not going to be expected to hole putt some 30 feet so we can chip the ball to 5 or 6 feet that's going to make the putting a lot easier like you said bring the scores down. Definitely yeah and it's something that I say I don't think a lot of amateurs are doing right now. So if you could you know give 3 tips to highlight the short game get it closer to the hole what would they be? I think the 1st thing I'm going to suggest is I am going to pick the ball up which is a bit of a strange start to a tip but I like to visualize the chip shot by imagining I'm going to throw it. Right so when I arrive at the ball a lot of golfers just grab the sand wedge and then will try and do everything they possibly can with that's sand wedge. I like to work with clients and tell them the idea would be to imagine your holding the ball on throw the ball the best you can to get it near the flag. That the concept of chipping is the so many different clubs that you could use pretty much every club in your back will reach the 25 30 yard chip shot distance, but I'm going to work on 2 different options. Do I want the ball to go low and roll out onto the green or do I want to have a completely different shot? For example if there's a bunker in the way I would have to throw the ball a lot higher and those 2 balls will land in largely the same position just at the end of this practice ground, but flew in 2 completely different ways and that's why how I'm going to choose the club. OK So if you're there you've assessed the situation to choose the shot type relevant for that situation. Absolutely and it would probably be a lob wedge to play the high one and maybe even a 7 iron to play the low one and pretty much anything in between depending on what I've got to go over.

Right OK so when you do that would you focus on the finishing spot or you picking a landing spot or is it? Personally I like to work on a landing area. So I'm going to visualize the landing area think about getting the ball to go there and then the same as I'm playing the shot so as I set up the ball. I'm looking at my landing area not the flag I'm working out where I want a ball to land and potentially also I'm going to read the green. I mean look at the left to right the ups and downs right pick the ball or pick the landing that's appropriate. So it does not always in line for example I got a big slope I'm going to be aiming left chipping onto my landing spot rolling around close to the flag. For the assessing of the shot is as important to my mind as playing the shot. Excellent a really good tip there. What would be a second tip that you give? I think is possibly related to the actual way we set up the golf ball particular ball position. We see an awful lot of amateur golfers when they're trying to chip the ball they don't have the ball in the correct place. A lot of people get the ball too far forward in the stance to my mind where they're trying to scoop the ball would have the ball near it to the left side here that would probably be a bad contact or he hit the ground too far behind the ball hitting the ball heavy. Right possibly even not hitting the ground heavy but thinning the ball so I like to see the ball more in the center of the stance. So taking the ball around about the middle of my feet maybe even put into the back 3rd if the lie isn't very good having the ball back a little bit should encourage more of a downward angle of attack and a downward strike. So it's not that we're trying to help the ball in the air we're letting the loft of the club do the work with and given it an ascending blow? Yeah it would be exactly that ball more back and then making sure that we're striking down into the ball and I think that would give us a better but a contact on the golf ball as well.

Excellent and a 3rd tip you give to the amateurs to try and help you get a bit closer? I think it's the process that we should accelerate through the ball. We know this isn't going to be a long shot we're not going to be making full swing is all the way back and all the way through. It's much more about hitting the short shot that really needs to be generated by short back swing. So a shorter back swing coming back to sort of one third back and then the feeling of two thirds through accelerating through the ball longer follow through and it was a back swing and particularly getting the feet involved. Exactly noticing there you know if you've made that swing one of the real key points there you know as you go through it now. What we will see here is that Pete actually turned to his target to finish instead of a lot of amateurs as we see as they come through the almost freeze the body out and move away from target and see here from the other account camera angle that he's leaning back in his actual lead foot goes up in the air there. So turning it almost going with the shot is going to be something that will help better contact I would imagine. Yeah absolutely I think you can almost now relate to the throwing action again if I was to throw the ball to my target chances are I would turn through and follow through. So it's relatable to other sports of throwing the ball this way and then go ahead and try and play the shot and I think they would be my 3 best chipping technique tips. Excellent then it's just putting those into practice isn't it. Yeah I think that's probably something that isn't there necessarily the sexy part of practice you know we all want to drive the ball 300 yards we all want to roll in a load of putts but we probably don't put enough hours into that short game area. Sometimes due to lack of facilities but if you can find yourself a good practice facility I'd be spending you know a good 20% – 25% my total practice time on the short game on the chipping particularly. Excellent so if you're wanting to chip the ball closer go through those tips see if there's one that really resonates with you get some practice in on it and hopefully going to see the ball getting closer to that hole.