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How to Chip - Club Selection
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You've undoubtedly heard the great chipping debate: "Chip with your favorite club every time" vs. "Use different clubs depending on the situation." So, which is right? The video explains the winner and helps you understand how to get the most out of that strategy.
- When chipping you want to get the ball onto the green as quickly as possible and let it roll out to the hole
- Set up a 6' chipping ring on a flat spot near the edge of the green, and a smaller one farther in for your target
- Use an 8 iron, then a pitching wedge, then a sand wedge as you move farther and farther back
- Each time, work on getting the ball to hit the landing area and roll out to the target
Proper club selection on a chip shot shouldn't be that complicated, but for a lot of golfers, they lose a lot of really easy strokes around the green because they don't pick the right club.
They're really not sure what they should use and how come they should use that club over another.
I'm going to make it really simple today so you never have to struggle with this again.
I have three clubs with me.
I have an 8 -iron, a pitching wedge, and a sand wedge, a 56-degree wedge here.
Around the green, you can use 7-irons and so on and so forth, but these days the irons are so jacked up on their lofts that a 5-iron is like a 2-iron I used to play with back in high school.
So this 8-iron pitching wedge and some sort of wedge like a 56 or a 60 is really good for most of these shots around the green.
But what I want you to think about when you're choosing between one of these three or maybe four clubs that you're going to chip with.
Most often is developing a routine to figure out carry versus roll.
Because that's really all it is.
It comes down to one simple thing.
How far do you want the ball to carry and how far do you want it to roll once it lands on the green? Now the only way that you're going to figure this out is through some really simple practice.
And the way that I want you to do this is to pick a club.
Let's say we're going to start with the lowest lofted one here in this case in the 8 -iron.
And what I'm going to do is make what I would consider a standard chipping stroke.
Now there's no such thing as a standard shot around the green, right? But what I want you to do is develop one so that you have a reference for how hard you hit a normal shot.
So for instance, for me, the shot that's really comfortable is about like that.
So I took the club about parallel to the ground, give or take, and then I came through on the other side.
Now for that basic pitch shot, if I do that, that ball is going to carry about 15 yards and then roll the rest of the way about equal distance, depending on how fast the green is, of course.
Now when I take my pitching wedge in this case, and I make my same standard chipping stroke back and through.
Now that one carried about three yards shorter than the one before.
And now when I go to the 56, I'm going to make my, again, my standard chipping shot.
And that one carried about three yards shorter than that.
So I know that on my standard shot, each shot is going to carry about three yards less with these clubs.
That gives me a great reference point.
So now all I got to do is walk it off and see how far my eight iron carried.
And I eyeballed it there.
That was about three yards shorter in each one.
And now I have a baseline.
And that's really what you're looking for around the green so that when you get approach a shot and you've got, you know, you've got to carry it 10 yards, but you needed to roll 20.
Well, obviously the sand wedge is not really going to be the ideal shot there.
So I know with the eight iron, if I hit it and it's going to carry 15 yards or 10, 12 yards, whatever it may have been.
And then I know it's going to roll about the same distance on the other side.
Well, I know I've got 30 yards of turf that I can cover with that club.
Now with the pitching wedge, it's going to carry, let's say 20% less.
Let's say it carried 10 yards and it's only going to roll about eight.
So I know that's going to be 18.
And the same thing with this, this is only going to carry about seven, eight yards.
And then it's only going to roll a few yards.
What you want to do is spend enough time around the green so that when you're practicing on your standard chip shot, that you know, you can make a little adjustment and maybe take a little bit off.
So that's my standard one.
Now I'm going to take a little bit off of it.
And I took about a yard and a half, two yards of carry off.
So now from my standard baseline shot, I can make adjustments for the typical shots that I'm going to hit because every shot on around the green is always going to be different.
But once I've developed through practice, a simple baseline club selection to be a piece of cake.
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