Hi, I’m Rick Sessinghaus, PGA coach and coach for Collin Morikawa.
Chipping is a lot about feel. Certainly technique is important, but what I’ve seen is people break down in the feel of the shot. So here’s a three step process I want you to go through.
Imagine that you’re over the ball and you’re actually going to just throw the ball underhanded. It is kind of like hand-eye coordination here. I’m just going to toss the ball to the hole, allowing myself to get a feel of just the simple motion.
Then one of my favorite chipping exercises is to place some tees at roughly three feet apart, and these become your landing intermediate targets. And I want to hit one to each one of them on the fly.
So the first one, then we go to the second one. And then finally, the third one. Now, all I changed was the length of my swing, my tempo stayed smooth. But it’s almost like I was just tossing a ball underhanded.
Then when you’re out on the golf course, certainly in a good pre-shot routine, you want to start figuring out what is the best spot for me to land this specific shot. Well, I’m slightly uphill, I’ve used my 56 degree sand wedge and I’m going to roughly hit it just in front of that final tee.
My practice motion, I’m rehearsing it. Look at my target again and then commit to the shot. Chipping is about feel. Allow yourself to be more athletic, like you’re tossing a ball. Start using some specific targets here to gauge how big of a swing you need to make and then put it in a pre-shot routine to trust it.
And now we’re going to start chipping the ball closer and lowering your scores, always accompanied with great focus on the mental game.