Golf Drills to Help You Become an Excellent Chipper

While there are a number of areas of the game that you will need to become comfortable with if you wish to lower your scores, chipping just might be the most important. Overlooked by many golfers, chipping is important because it can get you out of trouble and help you save a decent score out of a bad situation. Also, when you are confident in your chipping, you will be more comfortable from the fairway because you aren’t so worried about missing the green.

In order to make progress toward becoming a an excellent chipper, try the drills below –

• Worst lie possible. This drill is great for your development as a chipper, but frustrating at the same time. When you have to chip from around the green, you often will find your ball in a poor lie that makes the shot even more difficult. To prepare for those situations, try placing your golf ball in bad lies all around the practice chipping green. Rather than placing it nicely on top of the grass, put it in the worst spots you can find and work on hitting good shots from those places. When you can succeed from the bad lies, the good ones start to seem easy.
• Chip it in. There is no reason you have to settle for just chipping the ball close to the hole when you could try to chip it into the hole instead. Of course, you aren’t going to chip in all the time, but making it a goal to hole out your chips will narrow your focus and give you the confidence to hit a good shot. To get into this frame of mind, place a few golf balls next to the chipping green and pick out a target hole. The idea is to chip one into the hole in as few tries as possible. Keep track of your personal best for fewest attempts needed, and then try to beat that number each time you practice.
• Use your hands. Don’t be afraid to use your hands when chipping to get a better feel for the club head. Many golfers try to chip just like they putt – using all arms and shoulders. This is a mistake, because chipping requires you to engage your hands in order to work the club nicely through the grass. Let your hands play a role in your chip shots and see how quickly the results improve.