Golf Tips for Chipping Video

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Golf Tips for Chipping - Golf is Hard TV

Marc: Hey! Everybody, welcome to another episode of Golf is Hard TV, The Golf Show for the Rest of Us! You could see we are out here in the chipping range. We are going to take it to the next level with some basic lessons today. We are going to talk about some basic chipping or share some concepts. So pay attention this is going to be similar to the grip, posture stuff that we did earlier. I just want to remind everybody, please send in those comments, keep them coming, we are getting some good ones and we want more, we want you guy’s to talk to us. So, Dave, I have really struggled chipping, as you suspected as a high handicapper. Talk to me about the basics. What should I be thinking about in terms of when I am close to green, maybe not on the green, but certainly close to the green, what should be going through my head? Dave: This is the area where average players can save a lot of strokes, and this is why peoples shoot a 120 instead of a 100 or even in 90’s and it's all short game seriously, because I mean you would agree we played last week, and I know that your game has improved a lot in the last year or two. You are either going to be on or around the green most of the time in regulations. So with the par-four, you are within 10, 20, 30, 40, yards of the green and two, then you hate to walk up for an 8. You hit it in the bunker, you leave it. Marc: Bad chip and you left really long three putt and that kind of thing. Dave: Exactly, you know it's all short game. So the rule of thumb tip to recommendation of everyone is if you have time to practice, spend at least 80% of that time on your short game, really. That’s where you drop strokes. Marc: Now most guys I see come out here, like we are out here by ourselves. There are some guys up on the range. Dave: It’s unbelievable. Marc: Most of the times nobody even comes down. Not that nobody comes down here, but my perception is that people spend more time on the range; by the way range the range is over that way from where we are standing. It seems like an error basically what you just said. Dave: You know why, because they buy that new Nike driver or whatever. Marc: Yeah, they want to go hit that thing. Dave: They go at the range and they are not even warmed up properly in the range which we will get to in a future episode. First club they pile the bag in the range, first of the year, driver. Dave: It's really -- this is a place to spend the time, because okay we talked about the fundamentals, grip, stance, posture you can work or grip, posture and alignments, stance alignment is kind of same thing, it's changeable. You can work on that stuff here, which is great and you can take some nice, short, controlled little shots. Then you get used to then you grip, getting into a good posture which will cover, and to get a nice feel around the greens. Again, this is where you save a lot of shots. Marc: Yeah, so let’s break it down, what’s kind of the first concept. We will break this down in a bunch of different little shows. So let’s talk about maybe the core, what's the core concept when it comes to chipping? Dave: The one thing that everyone needs to know about chipping, and this ties into a past episode as you have to hit down on the ball to make it go up. What a lot of people do is, let’s say you have this shot here on the rough. A lot of people who want to try to get under this ball and scoop it in the air, and you can see that thing just scull right across the green, because you might remember, our viewers please go back at few episodes and look at concept. I think we labeled episode concepts where we drew a picture, you got to hit the little ball before the big ball. And if you do, the ball will pop up in the air based on the loft of the club, if it's a wedge a sand wedge or a seven iron or whatever and you are good to go. So that’s the number one thing is, hit down on the ball to make it go up. So the question is, how do we do that? Marc: Yeah. Dave: And that’s pretty simple, really. Again, and we want to try to keep this as simple as possible, because they are talking about a tip, right, where the guy recommended three clubs in every 27 different options. Marc: Sounds some ridiculous, he was talking about cheat sheet, wasn't he? Dave: So they are -- it can be confusing, it can be complex. That’s why if you read the golf magazines you are going to get a different tip for everybody. But these are the basic concepts that you need to understand, and already get the ball in the air. It's very simple, but it might take just a couple of seconds here to explain it. Now remember we need to hit down on the ball, it make it go up. Question is, where is the bottom of the swing? We talked about this. The bottom of the swing for every one happens at your sternum, right here. Here is the bottom of the swing. So if I have the -- how does the view look right there? Marc: It looks good. Dave: Excellent! So if I have the -- I know that the bottom of the swing is going to happen at my sternum. So if I set my weight towards the hole, then you can see the bottom of the swing moves to here which in this case is now in front of the ball which is what you want. That alone will ensure that you are going to hit down on the ball. If I have got my weight back on my right side, you can see the ball is here, you can see where the bottom of the swing is. Now I am going to be hitting up into the ball and if my side is that I need to get under it and lift it and scoop it for a chip shot or any given shot, then my weight is going to be back and I want to be coming up in here, and I am going to be hitting at the ground first, which is that one where you just flub it and the ball ends up right there, very frustrating. Or more or less like I did there, you miss the ground, but you come out and you just scull it right across the green. That’s all based on concept which is very simple, hit down on the ball to make it go up, which means the ball needs to be on the down side of the swing. You can just do that simply by setting up properly, doesn’t matter what club you are hitting or chipping with around the green. So how do we know we are in the right position? Very simple. Let’s start with the ball in the middle of our stance, right about there and then naturally the way we set up that puts our hands ahead of the ball, which they should be. So we have a square club face, we want to make sure our right foot is at square of the target line. We are going to kind of chip it off towards that ball over there. So we have a 90 degree angle for a target line, our right foot easy to set up, ball is in the middle of the stance. Now we lean forward and you could see how that’s the sternum in front. So very simple now with our good posture, and you can go back and review posture, because very important to have a good posture for chipping; it ensures that we are heading down. So really I know the bottom of the swing is out here, I can let arms fully hang, the club is actually off the ground a little bit, my weight is in front and we had a nice chip right there right up in the air, beautiful. Marc: That was a nice field. Dave: That’s wasn’t great. Marc: No, that wasn't great. It was a good setup though. Dave: It was a good setup. Marc: So that’s good tip. We are going to keep continue on more chipping maybe to show you some different drills, some games. I was like playing games around the green. So maybe we will play to see who wins later. But for now I think that’s a good overview for chipping. That’s it for another episode of Golf is Hard TV, keep watching and I will see you next time.

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Marc: Hey! Everybody, welcome to another episode of Golf is Hard TV, The Golf Show for the Rest of Us! You could see we are out here in the chipping range. We are going to take it to the next level with some basic lessons today. We are going to talk about some basic chipping or share some concepts. So pay attention this is going to be similar to the grip, posture stuff that we did earlier.

I just want to remind everybody, please send in those comments, keep them coming, we are getting some good ones and we want more, we want you guy’s to talk to us. So, Dave, I have really struggled chipping, as you suspected as a high handicapper. Talk to me about the basics. What should I be thinking about in terms of when I am close to green, maybe not on the green, but certainly close to the green, what should be going through my head?

Dave: This is the area where average players can save a lot of strokes, and this is why peoples shoot a 120 instead of a 100 or even in 90’s and it's all short game seriously, because I mean you would agree we played last week, and I know that your game has improved a lot in the last year or two. You are either going to be on or around the green most of the time in regulations. So with the par-four, you are within 10, 20, 30, 40, yards of the green and two, then you hate to walk up for an 8. You hit it in the bunker, you leave it.

Marc: Bad chip and you left really long three putt and that kind of thing.

Dave: Exactly, you know it's all short game. So the rule of thumb tip to recommendation of everyone is if you have time to practice, spend at least 80% of that time on your short game, really. That’s where you drop strokes.

Marc: Now most guys I see come out here, like we are out here by ourselves. There are some guys up on the range.

Dave: It’s unbelievable.

Marc: Most of the times nobody even comes down. Not that nobody comes down here, but my perception is that people spend more time on the range; by the way range the range is over that way from where we are standing. It seems like an error basically what you just said.

Dave: You know why, because they buy that new Nike driver or whatever.

Marc: Yeah, they want to go hit that thing.

Dave: They go at the range and they are not even warmed up properly in the range which we will get to in a future episode. First club they pile the bag in the range, first of the year, driver.

Dave: It's really -- this is a place to spend the time, because okay we talked about the fundamentals, grip, stance, posture you can work or grip, posture and alignments, stance alignment is kind of same thing, it's changeable. You can work on that stuff here, which is great and you can take some nice, short, controlled little shots. Then you get used to then you grip, getting into a good posture which will cover, and to get a nice feel around the greens. Again, this is where you save a lot of shots.

Marc: Yeah, so let’s break it down, what’s kind of the first concept. We will break this down in a bunch of different little shows. So let’s talk about maybe the core, what's the core concept when it comes to chipping?

Dave: The one thing that everyone needs to know about chipping, and this ties into a past episode as you have to hit down on the ball to make it go up. What a lot of people do is, let’s say you have this shot here on the rough. A lot of people who want to try to get under this ball and scoop it in the air, and you can see that thing just scull right across the green, because you might remember, our viewers please go back at few episodes and look at concept. I think we labeled episode concepts where we drew a picture, you got to hit the little ball before the big ball. And if you do, the ball will pop up in the air based on the loft of the club, if it's a wedge a sand wedge or a seven iron or whatever and you are good to go.

So that’s the number one thing is, hit down on the ball to make it go up. So the question is, how do we do that?

Marc: Yeah.

Dave: And that’s pretty simple, really. Again, and we want to try to keep this as simple as possible, because they are talking about a tip, right, where the guy recommended three clubs in every 27 different options.

Marc: Sounds some ridiculous, he was talking about cheat sheet, wasn't he?

Dave: So they are -- it can be confusing, it can be complex. That’s why if you read the golf magazines you are going to get a different tip for everybody. But these are the basic concepts that you need to understand, and already get the ball in the air. It's very simple, but it might take just a couple of seconds here to explain it. Now remember we need to hit down on the ball, it make it go up. Question is, where is the bottom of the swing? We talked about this. The bottom of the swing for every one happens at your sternum, right here. Here is the bottom of the swing. So if I have the -- how does the view look right there?

Marc: It looks good.

Dave: Excellent! So if I have the -- I know that the bottom of the swing is going to happen at my sternum. So if I set my weight towards the hole, then you can see the bottom of the swing moves to here which in this case is now in front of the ball which is what you want. That alone will ensure that you are going to hit down on the ball.

If I have got my weight back on my right side, you can see the ball is here, you can see where the bottom of the swing is. Now I am going to be hitting up into the ball and if my side is that I need to get under it and lift it and scoop it for a chip shot or any given shot, then my weight is going to be back and I want to be coming up in here, and I am going to be hitting at the ground first, which is that one where you just flub it and the ball ends up right there, very frustrating. Or more or less like I did there, you miss the ground, but you come out and you just scull it right across the green.

That’s all based on concept which is very simple, hit down on the ball to make it go up, which means the ball needs to be on the down side of the swing. You can just do that simply by setting up properly, doesn’t matter what club you are hitting or chipping with around the green.

So how do we know we are in the right position? Very simple. Let’s start with the ball in the middle of our stance, right about there and then naturally the way we set up that puts our hands ahead of the ball, which they should be. So we have a square club face, we want to make sure our right foot is at square of the target line. We are going to kind of chip it off towards that ball over there. So we have a 90 degree angle for a target line, our right foot easy to set up, ball is in the middle of the stance. Now we lean forward and you could see how that’s the sternum in front.

So very simple now with our good posture, and you can go back and review posture, because very important to have a good posture for chipping; it ensures that we are heading down. So really I know the bottom of the swing is out here, I can let arms fully hang, the club is actually off the ground a little bit, my weight is in front and we had a nice chip right there right up in the air, beautiful.

Marc: That was a nice field.

Dave: That’s wasn’t great.

Marc: No, that wasn't great. It was a good setup though.

Dave: It was a good setup.

Marc: So that’s good tip. We are going to keep continue on more chipping maybe to show you some different drills, some games. I was like playing games around the green. So maybe we will play to see who wins later. But for now I think that’s a good overview for chipping. That’s it for another episode of Golf is Hard TV, keep watching and I will see you next time.

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