Green Grass Golf Shop

Hello friends, it’s Chippin’ Chewsday, innit? A few weeks ago, we talked about creating spin around the green. Remember the steeper that you bring that club head down to the ball, the more spin you create. Now that I learned (five months later shhh) that these shorts can be up to three minutes long, I wanted to expand on that a little bit. What I didn’t have time to touch on during those 60 seconds (that I thought I had) was the takeaway and how important that is for any shot around the green, let alone creating a steeper angle of attack. Most golfers that I see struggling with their chipping, complaining about inconsistencies, take the club back something like this, right? It’s a natural move for a lot of players because you think, well, that’s a short version of my full swing, right? You start inside here, get yourself nice and steep, and have nowhere to go but over the top. It sounds like someone you know? Right. Well, put that mirror down and let’s get to improving. The issues that arise with that takeaway are when you try to take that club on the same path back down to the golf ball. You have to time it absolutely perfectly, which is incredibly difficult. And if you do, that angle of attack is incredibly shallow. The energy you’re transferring into that ball is minimal. You can’t create much spin. In addition, as I alluded to, you have to do a lot with your body movement, the club, everything in your swing to redirect that club back to a place where it gets to the ball perfectly. It’s very difficult to do, especially consistently. From here, if we don’t get our body moving just right, get our hands up, our club out, releasing them perfectly at the perfect time and the perfect motion every time, you’re hitting that chip very fat or very thin. Watch the guys on tour, any tour, not just the PGA. I mean, watch the drive chip and putt finals, PGA Tour Junior League. Most, if not all of them, are taking that club back much more vertically than any of us on the bogey golf tour. They have a very vertical takeaway, a very steep angle of attack, and a very open club face, and mind you I promise, much tighter lies than you or I are used to. If they can get their open club face and that raised leading edge under the golf ball, playing on marble countertops, you can do it with your 10-degree bounce on your public or even private country club fairways by coming into the ball in a more vertical manner. You never need a super low bounce to pull it off either, alright. With such a short swing, it’s even more important than it is on your full swing to minimize the moves that take you off plane. If you have a microsecond to correct, even in your full swing, you have less time with the chipping stroke. Taking your club back more vertically, raising your club head instead of rolling it around behind you, leaves much more room to deliver the club to the ball however you need to pull off the shot you want to pull off. You can launch the ball much higher as well as put a lot more spin on your ball if you deliver the club down, allow the ball to roll up the face and spin itself into the air rather than trying to scoop it off the ground. The wedge was designed with an angle that allows the ball to fly when swung and struck down on the golf ball, let the club do the work, a steep backswing, and that same path down to the golf ball, and then around will lead to a much more consistent chipping, much more consistent spin control, and with that much more consistent distance control. If you need more roll, you need a club with less loft. If you don’t want spin, it’s very easy to take it away with the gap or pitching wedge, nine or eight iron, and a nice short stroke without any wrist movement. Be sure to like and subscribe to the next tip next Chewsday, we’ll see you on the course!