00:00Do you struggle with your chipping?
00:01Well, if you do, this could be the video for you.
00:04We're down here at Sandy Way Golf Club in Cheshire
00:06with Golf Monthly's top 50 golf coach, Jed Walters.
00:10And he's going to be taking you through
00:11six common mistakes amateurs do around the green
00:14when it comes to chipping.
00:16Right, save me talking, let's get into it.
00:19Over to you, Jed.
00:20Thanks, Monty.
00:21So, there's no better place to start
00:23than with the biggest issue, the number one issue.
00:27Poor, poor setup leads to everything.
00:31What is the most common setup that I see?
00:33Well, I see people setting up
00:34as if they've got the seven iron in hand.
00:36So, they're doing this,
00:37and they are literally three feet away from the green.
00:41Now, if you're like this,
00:44and then all of a sudden you're trying to hit a shot,
00:45which is going about 25, 30 feet,
00:48we see, and then it's a big slow down.
00:51So, we try and help the ball up into the air,
00:54not hit it too far,
00:56and that leads to hitting the ground too soon.
00:58It leads to hitting the middle of the golf ball
01:01and thinning it across the green.
01:02It leads to topping it
01:04and a lot of frustration more than anything else.
01:06So, how do we get the right setup?
01:09Well, you're set up for,
01:11let's start with this sort of basic shot.
01:15Just on a lovely lie here.
01:18The keys that we want to get is,
01:20we don't want to go too wide.
01:22So, we want to narrow the width of the stands down.
01:26So, if I was to put my club head in between my feet there,
01:29you can see it's only ever so slightly wider
01:32than the width of my golf club.
01:35Now, I don't want to be miles away from the golf ball as well.
01:40I want to be a little bit closer than normal.
01:44So, from here,
01:47there is very little space between me and the golf club.
01:52If I was to just change to here,
01:58that's about the distance you would want to be.
02:02So, we want our golf ball for this as a generalized shot,
02:07being generally more central in the stance,
02:10because that's just going to help you
02:12with your angle of attack then moving down.
02:16From this position here,
02:17you are in a much better place to be able to move the club nicely.
02:21More importantly, be able to move the torso
02:25and allow the body's rotation to support the release of the club.
02:30One which I see loads all the time
02:33is a loss of structure in the arms.
02:35So, you can see here,
02:36I have a little ball just dangling from my neck here
02:39on a little lanyard.
02:41You don't have to use one of these.
02:42You could use a deflated football.
02:44You could use a swimming armband.
02:46But what this is for is to maintain a little bit more
02:50of the structure of the arms.
02:52If we think about when we were taking our set-up position,
02:57if I was just to pinch this between my forearms here,
03:00from here, you can see that the structure
03:03between my shoulders and my arms is more like a triangle.
03:08So, if we then take that down into the golf club itself,
03:11it's almost like creating the letter Y.
03:14Now, what I see loads of is a struggle from golfers
03:19who want to try and get the golf ball up in the air.
03:22They lose that letter Y and it comes from
03:26the separation of the elbows as they try and help the ball into the air.
03:30Now, the release of the club.
03:33So, this movement in the wrists is an essential movement to really control.
03:38We want to have that.
03:40We don't want to take that out of the way.
03:41But what we do want to stop is this shortening of the radius.
03:45So, if we think about the club being sat on the ground,
03:48as soon as I separate my elbows, the club comes away from the ground.
03:52So, that's shortening the radius.
03:54Well, if I now move on to the golf ball, well,
03:56I've got no chance of hitting the golf ball there.
03:59The club isn't going to collect the ball on its way through.
04:01So, I'm going to do one of three things I see.
04:05We stick the club into the ground too soon because we then start leaning back.
04:10We thin the ball across the other side of the green or we just catch it right on the top.
04:14So, controlling the structure is really, really important.
04:17So, if I keep the forearms pinched together so they're maintaining the ball in place,
04:25all I have to do then is just maintain the height of my posture and then keep the club moving.
04:33And I can brush the ground.
04:35And as long as I keep doing that, I'm going to brush the ground all the time.
04:38So, then the club is going to collect the golf ball on its way through.
04:43So, if I was then to address the golf ball, all I'm thinking about is maintaining the Y,
04:50maintaining the structure of the arms and keeping my movement.
04:56And I'm going to make really nice contact all the time.
04:59So, the length and speed is going to then control the distance.
05:03Another common mistake is a lack of movement in the upper body.
05:08There's a lot of players who just try and use their hands and arms and forget
05:12that the real sort of engine of the motion is about turning the torso.
05:18So, what do I mean by that?
05:20Well, when you see a lot of chipping actions, we see a lot of this.
05:28So, when you look at it from face on, you see that my chest is still facing the golf ball.
05:35So, it's a lot of this kind of action.
05:37Now, what happens I see a lot from there is when we see that lack of motion, the club moves
05:45quite a bit
05:45and then it starts to slow down and the speed of the arms tries to control the shot.
05:50And then lots of that happens.
05:52So, what we need to do is we need to make sure that this bit moves.
05:56The chest has got to start moving and it's got to have that motion where the arms then follow.
06:03And it's the chest supporting the release of the club head as we go through.
06:09Now, as long as we get that happening, we'll be able to allow the golf club
06:15to almost land on the turf, glide along the turf and then take off.
06:22Almost, if you imagined an aeroplane landing on the runway.
06:26So, it would come down, it would touch down wheels, it would then move along the runway.
06:33And then imagine it wanted to sort of take off again, it would then move up.
06:39So, we're releasing the golf club, but we're supporting this release with the turn that we're going to make.
06:45So, now when I make a backswing and I rotate the torso, I can allow the club to land on
06:54the ground.
06:55The sole is going to do most of the work, so it'll just bruise the turf as we go through.
07:02And then, even if I was to get the club to land, say here, an inch, inch and a half
07:08behind the golf ball,
07:09because of the way I'm using the club and the body,
07:13the club is actually going to still move along the ground.
07:17It's going to be like the plane is still going along the runway.
07:20So, I'm not going to get that duffed shot, I'm actually still going to get a really good outcome.
07:25So, on this shot, I'm now going to support that release with the rotation
07:30and we're just going to allow the club then to bruise the ground.
07:38And then you can see it just pops up nicely off towards the target.
07:43Another one of the big mistakes that I see from lots of people when they're chipping
07:49is they move the club inside very, very early.
07:54Plenty of golfers are moving the club in and around here very, very early.
07:59So, the only thing they can either do from there is try and come back this way
08:04and the body's then got to start working away to keep the club away from the ground
08:09because it would just stick into the floor back here too far away.
08:13So, this leads into a lot of pushed shots, a lot of shanks and stuff like that.
08:20Or, they then try and loop over the top.
08:23Now, sometimes you can get away with it but there's a lot of timing involved
08:27and when there's timing involved sometimes it stays with you for a bit
08:30but when it disappears you just don't know when it's going to come back.
08:32So, if we think about what's going to happen if we move the club on a more natural plane,
08:41as the club moves away from the golf ball, if you thought about it moving in a straight line,
08:47it would be moving straight back but the more it moves off the ground, it arcs.
08:52So, it's moving back, it's moving up and it's moving in but it's not moving too far in.
08:58So, you can see the club's relationship to the shaft, the stick that I've got there just on the angle
09:03just to match the shaft playing.
09:05So, it's moving back, up and in, then from here you can rotate back through
09:12and the club will come back down and through to execute your shot.
09:18So, having that picture in your mind of the club moving back and up and in
09:22and even practicing where the shaft or an alignment stick in the ground like we have here,
09:27a shaft or alignment stick on the ground.
09:30So, you've got a visual of the direction that you're moving the golf club in.
09:34That's the important thing.
09:36So, from that point of view there you could be able to practice and hit shots like this
09:41just taking your setup, just picturing that back up and in motion
09:46and making a nice smooth controlled swing.
09:55Another of the big common mistakes that we see is when players try and steer the ball towards their target.
10:01So, what I mean by that is when they swing the club through the impact, what they're trying to do
10:09is move the club in the direction that they want the golf ball to go in.
10:13When we look at how we want to move, when we're moving around the arc, as you can see there,
10:20as I move the club around the arc, it's moving up that exit route stick there to the left.
10:27Now, if I try to move it in the direction that I would want the golf ball,
10:31what we would see then is I'm pushing my arms and the club away from the golf ball,
10:37which is where a lot of you guys will hit the shanks from.
10:41So, I'm just going to play a little shot here now where you can see
10:46that as long as I make the right movement, we've got golf ball exiting up the stick towards the target
10:55and I've kept moving around so the club has exited round to the left.
11:01Finally, one thing that I see way too much is people just picking up their most lofty club.
11:08So, I've got four clubs in my hands here. I've got my most lofty club, 58 degree.
11:13The amount of time I see people just going in for their 58, their 60,
11:18wanting to hit it up in the air, it's get rid of that. 54, that's plenty of loft.
11:26Now, behind me where the bunker is, if I was in that situation,
11:31people would still want to go for their most lofted. 54 degrees is a lot of loft.
11:36So, the ball will get up in the air. You don't really need to go too severe, as I say,
11:42unless it's a real sort of challenging lie, downslope situation, something like that.
11:48So, again, 54 degree from this situation, that can go over there as well.
11:52There are two options really that I would want to see most golfers use
11:57that would lower their scores. It's all about lower scores.
12:00It's not about hitting a sexy shot, it's about the lower score.
12:03The putter and a seven iron, they're the keys.
12:07The reason is, we've got loads of green to work with.
12:11Now, the seven iron will help you get over this little bit of grass here and get the ball running
12:17nicely. The putter will just run through, because this is cut really nice and short.
12:23So, it's one of the two options, whichever you feel really more comfortable with.
12:26But I like to see the ball on the ground as quickly as possible,
12:31because it's one, more predictable, and two, it's telling you what the green's going to do.
12:36So, if you leave it short, you're getting a look of how the green,
12:40how the ball is going to move down towards the hole.
12:43If the ball goes beyond the hole, please pay attention to it,
12:47because it is reading the put that you're about to hit for you.
12:50If you watch how that ball moves, you are then going to see how the ball
12:54is going to be expected to come back towards you.
12:57So, from here, if I just put the putter down for a second,
13:01and in terms of playing this seven iron shot, I want to play it just like you would play a
13:08putt,
13:08but with a narrower stance, nice and tall, and just moving back and through nice and smooth,
13:17keeping the triangle of the arms in place, keeping the shoulders rocking back and through.
13:25You just want to nudge the ball and let it run.
13:27That's all you want to do.
13:29If you want to use your normal grip, if you want to use your putter grip,
13:32that's entirely up to you.
13:34It's personal preference, but just making sure that your feet are nice and close together.
13:39So, it's only about the width of the club head there.
13:42A little bit of pressure just leaning into the left side,
13:45so that you've got an ever so slight downward angle of attack,
13:48and we're just going to put a little bit of a putting stroke on it,
13:52and just roll it forward.
13:54And you can just see how that ball is reading the green for me.
13:58So, it's moved in from right to left, and now I've left myself,
14:03I don't know, what's that?
14:04Three half feet, maybe, for my next shot, which is just all you want to do.
14:09You want to keep it as simple as possible so the next shot is very, very easy.
14:16Thanks, Jed.
14:17Lots of great information there for you guys to take away and implement into your own game.
14:21I hope you found it useful.
14:23I definitely have.
14:24But that's it from us here at Sandy Way Golf Club in Cheshire.
14:27See you next time.
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