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Decide the best way to chip

There are essentially two ways to chip.

One is with a stroke in which the arms swing as a unit from the shoulders with little or no wrist-hinging - a pendulum-like stiff-armed action. The other is to stroke the ball primarily with a hinging action of the wrists, with any arm or body action simply a response to the hand and wrist motion.

Some feel the later technique provides greater feel, a critical ingredient on these little recovery shots. This chipping action involves swinging the clubhead back by breaking or hinging the wrists, then pulling it through the ball with the left hand controlling the path of the swing and the right doing the releasing or hitting as the wrists unhinge.

Both methods work well with practice, and you should experiment to find which suits you best. Once you've discovered that, stick to your chosen method, because there's nothing worse on those "touch" shots than indecision about the technique you're going to use.

Apply These Fundamentals

Here are some tips that will help you achieve good chipping fundamentals.

Standing slightly open to your line makes room for your hands and arms to swing directly out toward the target, rather than around your body.

Setting your weight mostly on your left side makes it easier to keep you head and body still, and to contact the ball with you hands leading the clubface.

Gripping down on the club, by bringing your hands and eyes closer to the ball, increases your chances of striking firmly and accurately.

Positioning the ball fairly close to your feet helps produce a straight-back-straight-through swing path, and thus reduces the tendency to pull or push shots that comes from reaching. Practicing one type of chip shot with one club for a reasonable period of time will improve your basic technique faster than moving quickly from one type of chipping situation to another, or from one club to another.

Know What Your Clubs Will Do

Top golfers have different approaches to club selection for chipping.

Some prefer to match a club to a situation, which means they may use almost all of the irons at one time or another. Others prefer to chip with basically one or two clubs, figuring that constant usage breeds greater certainty of achieving particular effects.

I belong to the latter school, favoring the sand wedge for much of my chipping - although obviously I'll use other clubs when conditions necessitate them.

Whichever system you prefer, the key is to know what you can do with a particular club in terms of flight and roll, which comes only from experimentation and practice. Naturally, the less lofted the club, the less the ball will carry and the more it will roll, and vice-versa for the more lofted irons.

One excellent chipping principle, regardless of club selection, is always to land the ball on the green, as it will then both bounce and run most predictably.

"Finesse" Your Chip Shots

I play three basic types of chip shot, depending on ground and course conditions.

Under normal circumstances where straightforward chip will do the job, my left hand guides the club through with a square blade at impact - ensured by no rolling of the wrists as the right hand applies the hit.

If for some reason I need to put more backspin on the ball, I open the clubface a little at address and keep it that way through impact. The effect here is to abbreviate the ball's roll which can be helpful, for example, when the green slopes downward in the vicinity of the hole, or there's little putting surface to work with.

When I want more than normal roll - as, for example, if I'm chipping uphill or across a wide expanse of green - I simply roll my wrists over counter-clockwise a little through impact, closing the clubface and imparting hook-spin to the ball.

If you try these special "finesse" techniques, I suggest you work on them in practice before you try them in competition.

"Read" Before Reaching the Green

The truth in the expression, "You can't see the forest for the trees", has victimized many a golfer trying to determine how to play a given putt.

Players who don't begin assessing the line of a putt until they are actually on the green are already in the "forest", so to speak. They are so close to the putt that they fail to note the overall contour of the green and the surrounding terrain, both of which can make a putt break differently to the way it looks when you crouch behind the ball.

I learned this lesson way back in 1959 at the Broadmoor, a mountainside course in Colorado where I won my first U.S. Amateur. There I discovered that putts invariably broke away from the mountains, even when a close look at the line itself seemed to indicate otherwise.

Ever since, I've made it a habit to note the terrain surrounding a green as I'm walking to the putting surface. If you do the same, I think you'll soon take yourself "out of the forest" and do a better job of choosing the correct line for your putts.

Ingrain a Pre-Stroking Routine

Whatever stroking method you adopt, you'll get the ball in the hole more often if you develop and stick to a definite step-by-step procedure. Watch the pros on TV to see what I mean: you'll notice that almost all of them go through a distinctive series of actions before every putt.

My own greens routine rarely varies. First, I analyze and determine the speed and direction of the putt by assessing the line, general contour and lie of the land, grain, turf condition, and any weather factors that may influence the ball. Next, I make a couple of practice strokes, trying to exactly reproduce the stroke I intend to play. From there I place the putterhead behind the ball square to the initial portion of my selected line and position my feet and body to form a general stance. Next, I make the slight adjustments necessary for comfort and proper alignment as I confirm the direction and "weight" of the putt by looking toward the target past my left shoulder. Finally, I stroke the ball, holding my breath as I'm doing so because I feel that this helps to keep my head and body perfectly still.

Try These Stroking Thoughts

I have a number of key stroking thoughts when putting, as follows:

Hold the putter firmly enough to be able to control its swing path and face alignment, but not so tightly that it can't swing fluidly of its own weight. Maintain the same grip pressure for all lengths of putts.

Start the putterhead straight back from the ball smoothly and slowly.

Keep the putterhead low to the ground on both the backswing and throughswing.

Swing firmly through the ball, ensuring that the putterhead does not decelerate before impact. Stroking at a constant speed back and through helps me to achieve this absolute fundamental of good putting.

Use the length of the backswing to determine the distance the putt rolls, rather than pronounced change in hitting force.

Seek Improvement Like This

If you putt well stroking as you do now, don't let anyone talk you into changing. But if you think there's room for improvement, consider trying any or all of the following.

Set up with you head and eyes over the target line but slightly behind the ball, so you can see through it to the target and also cultivate the feeling of hitting the ball more directly away from you.

Be sure the putter shaft is perpendicular at address, neither laid back (which can cause you to hit the ball "thin") nor angled targetwards (which can cause the ball to roll erratically by being driven downward at impact).

Set your right hand on the club with the palm directly facing the target, and tuck your right elbow into your hip and keep it there throughout the stroke.

Develop the feeling that your left hand guides the stroke while your right does the work of pushing the putterhead squarely through the ball and directly out toward the target.

Try These Cures for Common Faults

Here are three tips to help cure some of the more common putting faults that may afflict you.

If you tend to jerk the putter head away from the ball, try beginning your backswing off a slight, easing of your wrists towards the target - a small forward press. Keep it slight, though: otherwise, you'll open the putter face.

Can't stop moving your head? Instead of thinking "head still", focus on not allowing your left shoulder to lift up or move forward as you stroke through the ball. This will help you keep your upper body steady, which in turn will help keep your head in place.

To check whether you're swinging the blade squarely through the ball, fix your eyes on a spot two or three inches ahead of it, then make your normal stroke. the angle of the blade as it passes the point you're looking at will tell you whether you're opening or closing it through impact.

Get Yourself a Good Sand Wedge

If you don't already have one, get a sand wedge: a heavy-headed, well-lofted club with a flange that protrudes below the leading edge of the blade.

The purpose of the flange is to prevent the club digging too deeply into the sand, thus enabling you to "explode" the ball out by sliding the clubhead through the sand beneath the ball. this is much more difficult to do with any club lacking a protruding flange, so possessing the proper tool will definitely make bunker play easier for you.

The depth of the flange is a playability factor, so take it into account in selecting a sand wedge.

The deeper the flange protrudes, the more shallowly the club will slide through bunkers. the shallower the flange, the more deeply the club will cut into the sand. That can be an advantage in wet or hard-packed bunkers.

My preference is a medium depth of flange, because it best suits the widely varying bunker conditions I encounter, and also because it allows me to use the club for pitching and chipping from fairway and rough.

Don't Try for Miracles

In assessing bunker shots, recognize that the deeper the ball lies in the sand the more it will roll when it hits the green. Accept that, from a buried lie, it may be impossible to stop the ball near the hole, which makes your top priority simply getting out somewhere on the green. In other words, don't compound your first mistake of landing in sand into a disaster by leaving the ball there as a result of trying for too much.

The deeper down the ball lies in the sand, the more of a "knifing" impact action you'll need to get the club down and under it.

To achieve this, square up or even close the clubface at address and set your hands a little ahead of the ball. Then swing back and down on a sharp upright plane using mainly your hands, wrists and arms. Hit hard with your right hand as close to the ball as you dare, and don't worry too much about a follow-through, particularly when the ball is fully buried.

Take A Safer Club

If you're typical of most golfers, the idea of using less club than a driver off the tee is often tough to swallow. The urge to go for the big hit seems almost irresistible. However, success in golf depends largely on playing shots to pre-determined positions. this is never more true than on tee shots.

Discretion may be the better part of valor if you're faced with a hole that has bunkers about where you could land a good tee shot.  True, a perfect drive would leave you a relatively short second shot to the green. but consider the odds against making such a shot - and the penalty for slicing or hooking into the sand.

I'd certainly suggest using less club off the tee, say 3 or 4 wood instead of the driver. When you really analyze it, the extra 20 yards or so you'll be adding to your second shot is a small sacrifice if it will ensure playing from fairway instead of sand.

Save your big hits for holes where directional errors won't cost you so dearly.

These tips and comments are written in part by Jack Nicklaus.

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