A Different Take on Chipping and Pitching

A little different tip on chipping and pitching.  I keep seeing articles about your setup on short shots and chip shots, but for some reason, no one mentions that alignment for each shot is slightly different.  The length of the shot and how high or low you want the ball to fly is determined by your setup and alignment.

While ball position and lower body alignment may vary, the one constant is shoulder alignment.  Your shoulders should always be parallel to your target line on any shot whether you are hitting a driver or a putter.  NOT pointed at the target, but parallel to it.

Lower Body Open

The lower body – meaning the feet, legs, and hips - will be open or pointing left of the target in order to get yourself out of your own way.  The club needs to travel down the target line as long as possible and a square stance makes it much more difficult to accomplish that.

The single most important factor in developing a good short game is that you absolutely must learn to contact the ground in the same spot in your swing every time.  To accomplish this you simply need to stabilize your weight.  The low point in your swing arc is wherever your weight (body mass) is.  If you shift your weight the bottom of your arc moves constantly with your weight.  The odds of winning the lottery are better than the odds of getting your weight in the same spot every time if it is shifting.

One point that needs to be made at this time is watching and reading about how tour players do it is a waste of time unless you are already that good.  Tour players have extraordinary hand-eye coordination, touch, and feel so they can do things in their swing that would be problematic for the average golfer.

Keep the Weight on Your Left Foot

It is easier to just place the weight on the left side or left foot and keep it there throughout the swing.

Keep the club low to the ground as long as possible on the backswing and the follow through.  Never make any attempt to lift the club or forcibly cock the wrists unless hitting out of deep grass.  Keep the hands quiet.  Over active hands will result in fat and thin or skulled shots.

Another very important factor is to be able to have your hands in the same position at impact that you did at address.  The club head must never pass the hands until well after impact unless you are very talented with a high lob shot.  The chipping or pitching swing is made primarily with the hands, arms and shoulders.  Unless it a long pitch the lower body does not get involved.

How long the shot is determines how wide or narrow the stance and how open your body is.  For a chip shot your right foot is very close to your left foot and your lower body is very open.

For a pitch shot it is less pronounced.  The hands will generally be more forward on a chip, but the height of the ball flight will be determined by the loft of the club and the forward lean of the shaft.

 Choke Down

One final point that needs to be addressed is gripping down or “choking up” on the club.  The shorter the shot the more you choke up.  It is perfectly fine to grip all the way down to the bottom of the grip.  This enable you to be firmer and more aggressive because the shorter you make the club the shorter distance you will hit the ball.

Hubert Green who had 19 PGA Tour wins including 2 majors used to choke the sand wedge all the way down onto the steel and open the face so he could be firm and aggressive.  Never let the golf club slow down prior to impact.  Taking it back too far and slowing down prior to impact will cause the club head to pass the hands with the absolute certainty of a bad shot.

Practice with slightly different alignments until you find what is most comfortable for you.  I suggest practicing extensively with a sand wedge which is about 56 degrees.  By adjusting the shaft lean forward and backward you can learn to hit a variety of shots.  I am not a fan of using the lob wedge to chip or pitch with.  I agree with Barney Adams, the founder of Adams Golf, when his club designer told him they were going to design a 60 degree lob wedge he told them to stamp a skull and cross bone on it.

As you go from a full swing to a less than full swing to a chip the right foot gets closer and closer to the left and the hips open more and more.  Shoulders stay parallel to the line.
Once you have learned to develop a solid short game simply start taking a bigger and faster swing and gradually square your body alignment and you will have an excellent full swing.

The video below will show you how practicing the chip swing helps your full swing.

Note to My Younger Self On Teaching

The golf business in general and the golf instruction business in particular are much different today than when I got my start over 40 years ago.  That alone makes me Old School, but I can truthfully say that I have never stopped learning from and listening to the best and brightest in the business.  With what knowledge I have gained over my career I have reached some conclusions.

If I were a young person just starting out in golf instruction today here is what I would tell my younger self.

Take the time to study the great teachers of the past and learn everything you can about “how” they taught.  The “what” they taught is not as important as “how” they taught.  Also learn as much as you can about how people actually learn.   Learning is learning and it is the same for golf as anything else.  Also develop and polish your communication skills because no matter how much knowledge you gain it will be pointless if you can’t convey it to the student so that they can assimilate it and make use of it.

I would also advise him to be very selective with technology.  Much of what is out there today will suffer the same fate as the Polaroid Graph Check Sequence Camera and Sony Betamax even though it is being hyped as “The Answer” to revolutionizing how the game is taught. It is also very,very expensive so choose wisely.  There is new technology in the pipeline that will be more useful than some of what we have today so you need to keep your eyes and your mind open and be ready to embrace it.  The younger golfers coming into the game today have a much different attitude than the people of my generation and they want and expect technology.  They are not going to just take your word for things.  They want it verified by numbers that they can understand and relate to.

Their lifestyles are also very different and the vast majority doesn’t have time for or even want a series of one hour lessons followed by hours of practice.  That’s what the new customer wants so learn to adapt to it.

Final note to self:  If you are going to become successful today you will need to combine Old School simplicity, New School technology, great communications skills, and a healthy dose of brain compatible teaching knowledge.  If you combine of all that you will stand out from the competition and be well on your way.

The Masters Tournament Makes the Competitive Juices Flow Like No Other

The reason it is so difficult to predict a winner for the Masters Tournament is that no other event affects the players quite the same way.  You can hear it in their voice when they talk about the drive down the fabled Magnolia Lane.  The comments over and over about the emotions it stirs no matter how many times they have played there.

We are all aware of the fact that this would complete a career grand slam for Rory and elevating himself to the level of Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods is a tremendous motivation.  We also know how good Sergio is playing and Lord knows Sergio wants it.
 
Bubba Watson also seems to rise to the occasion at the Masters and the course seems to suit his game. Can he win a third Green Jacket to go with his first two?
 
There are three players out there with some age and experience that you can’t rule out because they have tools necessary and could easily catch the Masters Magic.  They are Fred Couples, Lee Westwood and Phil Mickelson, especially since Phil has won it three times already. Experience is a big advantage in these weather conditions.

I personally believe that this has to be killing Tiger Woods.  He would be the prime candidate to get caught up in the “Masters Effect.”  Nobody has more motivation to embrace it than Tiger and he certainly has the history and memories to ignite it.  The most dominate player of his era is still in there somewhere and the Masters may be trying to pull it out again.

Jack Nicklaus was the perfect example of what I’m talking about.  I do realize that Nicklaus is one of the best to ever play the game, but he is exactly what I’m talking about.  In 1986 the Tournament Players Championship was played two weeks prior to the Masters and Nicklaus failed to make the cut.
The week prior to the TPC he withdrew after the first round.  Three weeks later he arrives in Augusta and came home to the magic of the event, Magnolia Lane, and the memories of his previous five wins.  The last win had been eleven years earlier in 1975.  On that Sunday the memories and the emotions grabbed him and propelled him to a 30 on the back nine for his 6th Masters and final major.

Every year we see the competitive juices start to flow in players that have a history with Augusta and this year will certainly be no different.  Strap yourself in and hang on for the ride.

That is it from the Golf Cave for this week.  Enjoy the Masters!