Why You Need This:

I know, I know. “How to set up for chips” is about as boring as it gets.

But it’s vitally important if you want to drop your handicap and reach your scoring potential.

We’ve all hit those chunked chips that go 6 inches…

And those skulled ones that zoom across the green and cause your playing partners to dive for cover…

If you ever want to eradicate those from your game like the scratch players…

…you’ve gotta start here.

Watch this video now because I’ll teach you how to set up for chips so that you can hit them crisply every time!

What's Covered: Main points of set up and execution of a proper chip.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 6:20

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, I’m Clay Ballard, welcome back to Top Speed Golf. Today we’re going to talk about the proper chipping technique and the set up for the chipping technique.

If we can get set up correctly, the chip is actually very, very simple. We’re simply going to be rocking back and through, very similar to what we do with a putt.

A lot of times I see people get into the wrong set up position, and then from there they start to scoop the ball, they start to chunk the ball, hit the ball thin, all kinds of different things, and it all stems back to just their set up, and address, and where they put the ball position.

It’s very, very simple, I’m going to give you several keys to work on today and some great drills to help you engrain that set up position.

First let me go over what’s commonly taught, and then how we’re going to do something a little bit different than this.

This leads to a log of chunks and a lot of scooping and flipping through the stroke, and a lot of times what we’ll hear people say is you want to put the ball off the inside of your back foot, you want to have a lot of forward shaft lean, and you want to simply pinch down on that golf ball.

Well what that’s going to have you do, is that’s going to have you coming into the ball very, very steep.

If I let this club swing naturally from my left arm, then it’s going to ground out kind of on the inside of my left foot, that’s going to be the bottom of my arc.

That’s how the golf swing works not only for your chipping, but your pitching and your full swing.

Everything wants to ground out, kind of under the logo of my shirt, or the inside of my left arm, that’s going to be the bottom of your arc.

If I try to go against this by putting the ball really far back, now my swing naturally wants to ground out up here closer to my left foot.

I’ve got the ball way back in my stance, I’ve got a lot of forward shaft lean, and I’m going to be kind of chopping down into the ground which can lead to a lot of chunks or to try to combat that, to make sure that I don’t chunk that, I’m going to start flipping and scooping the club up to try to pick it clean.

It gets really, really difficult. So what we want to do, is we want to make sure that we have the ball just behind the bottom of our arc.

So as I set up to this, I like to take a fairly close stance, so two and a half to three club head widths between the feet.

So they’re probably going to be about eight inches apart or so, a little bit wider, a little bit narrower, that’s OK.

I just don’t want to have a really wide stance, or a really, really narrow stance because I’ll lose balance and I won’t have as good a feel.

Now from there, from my ball, I want to play it just off my left ear. So if we’re looking at this and I’m setting up, if I put a club ear from my left ear it’s going to come down and that’s going to be just a little bit behind my left foot.

What that’s going to allow me to do is I simply let this club swing back and through, I’m actually going to come down and through the ball, and I’m going to ground out just in front of it if I just let my body do what it naturally does best.

That’s where our ball position is going to be. Now from here, we’re going to go ahead and get a little bit of forward shaft lean.

The reason we have forward shaft lean, with my hands in front of the club head that makes things very, very stable. For any of you that have read Dave Peltz’s short game book, a great analogy that’s in there is talking about using the pull cart.

If I have a pull cart and I’m pulling it behind me, it’s going to track right along with me. If I’m trying to push that cart and my clubs are in front of me, that’s going to be very unstable.

So we always have to have the force or where our hands are in front of the mass, or where the club is. So just a little bit of forward shaft lean.

My feet, two and a half to three club head widths apart, my ball position off the left ear, just a couple inches behind my left ankle if you want to look at it that way.

A little bit of forward shaft lean, and then from here all I’m going to do is make a nice, easy stroke back and through, very, very symmetrical.

I’m going to go back and through about the same amount, and as I hold my finish, I’m going to keep my left wrist pretty nice and flat.

I don’t want to have my left wrist flipping up like this, I don’t want to be breaking that left wrist because that can allow a lot of scooping, I’ll hit shots high and low, and it would be a little bit more inconsistent.

I want to keep that wrist nice and flat as I’m coming through. The club head might set a little bit, or the club might set, get a little bit of wrist hinge going back, that’s perfectly fine.

As I’m coming through I just want to make sure this stays nice and flat, and I pivot on around. So it’s OK to have a little bit of lower body movement, you just want this to be very, very smooth.

It feels a lot like the swinging of a pendulum, very similar to like what we’d have in the putting stroke.

So if we can do these things correctly, proper stance width, ball just off the inside of my left foot kind of by my left ear if I was to draw a line down from that, little bit of forward shaft lean, nice pendulum stroke with the left wrist nice and flat as I come through, I’m going to be pretty consistent.

Oh, actually made that one. So I’m going to be pretty consistent with this stroke.

I’ll show you a couple from different angles here in a second, but that’s going to allow me to hit that ball clean every time.

If you get the ball too far back in your stance, you get a lot of forward shaft lean, now we have to do a lot of things to make sure that we don’t chunk.

That was originally to make sure that people come down and hit the ball first, but if you’re coming down too steep like that, you’re liable to hit the ball first and it shoot right across the green because you hit it then, and then you have to try to hit it heavy, and it’s just a mess when you do it that way.

Get these fundamentals right, get set up correctly, and chipping is going to be so much easier for you guys. Let me go ahead and demonstrate a few.

Good luck with your chipping, I’ll see you guys soon.