Golf Chipping Practice Routine
When you arrive at the golf course, it’s easy to fall into the trap of grabbing a wedge out of your bag, dropping a few balls on the fringe, and hitting some chips to a hole on the green without really putting much focus or effort into your practice.
Today I want to give you a simple, but effect golf chipping routine that will elevate your chipping practice sessions so you know what to work on as well as how it’s making you better at your short game.
Try This –> Best Chipping Practice Plan to Follow
Step 1: Get 10 Golf Balls Out of Your Bag
For the follow golf chipping drills you’ll need to work with 10 golf balls to get more reps in quicker for the volume chipping practice routine.
Try to use the same golf balls you would use out on the golf course to get accustomed to how they feel during impact as well as how they spin and roll. Learning how a golf ball released on the green and rolls can vary by golf ball brand since some balls are softer and others are harder materials inside their core.
Step 2: Pick a Spot in the Rough 15 yards Away from Green
To be honest, most golfers won’t be chipping that often from fringe during a golf round. When we miss a green with our iron shots, we usually miss by 5 or more yards.
In other words, our chip shot is going to be coming from the rough and we will be at least 5 yards away from the green if not more.
So starting at 15 yards away is ideal to practice chipping onto the green to try and get up and down for a par.
The goal with this drill is to chip all 10 golf balls onto the green successfully from 15 yards away. We don’t want to end up short and still in the rough, having to chip a second time. Wasted stroke on the scorecard.
Once you can successfully get all 10 balls chipped out of the rough and onto the green in a row, you pass the drill. If one chip shot doesn’t make it onto the green, you fail and have to start over. Go collect the balls, bring them back and try again to hit all 10 in a row onto the green.
Step 3: Setup a 6 foot boundary around the hole
Once you pass the challenge in step 2, you’re now ready to start focusing on how close the chip shots finish to the hole!
Grab some ball markers (5 or 6 of them) and create a circle around the hole. Each ball marker should be 6 feet away from the hole so you build a 6 foot radius circle around the hole.
This circle is your target zone to chip golf balls inside of. When done successfully, you leave yourself a short putt (less than 6 feet) which gives you a better chance at making par than if you had a putt from outside of 6 feet.
Hit 10 chip shots from 15 yards again, but this time don’t worry about starting over. Hit all 10 regardless of where they end up on the green.
Now walk to the hole and remove the balls that didn’t end up inside 6 feet. Count them as -1 point.
Next, count the balls that made it within the 6 foot circle and give yourself 2 points for each ball.
Lastly, try to make the putt of the balls inside the 6 foot circle. For each made putt, give yourself 3 points. For each missed putt, give yourself -1 point.
Keep track of your score. Repeat this drill 5 times for a total of 50 chips and see what your final score is. Then come back another day and try to beat your score!
A perfect score would be getting all 50 chips (5 sets of 10) inside 6 feet circle, scoring 100 points. And then making all 50 putts you’d get 150 points (50 x 3pts). Total possible points of 250. If you can score above 200, your chipping skills from 15 yards are professional level!
Each successful up and down scores 5 points (2 pts for the chip inside 6 feet, and 3 pts for the made putt to finish the up and down as a par).
Step 4: Score Yourself from 5 Yards, 10 Yards, 15 Yards, 20 Yards, and 25 Yards
Once you learn how this chipping practice routine works and how it’s scored, you can replicate the drill from 15 yards away from the green and test your skills at other distances.
Move your chipping location to a spot in the rough 5 yards away from the green’s edge, then try at 25 yards, then come back to 10 yards, and finally 20 yards.
See what you score at these different distances with your 5 sets of 10 chips (5o total) at each distance. If you can complete all 250 chips (50 at each of the 5 distances) in one practice session, you’re going to get better at golf so much faster! But if you need to split it up and try one distance at each practice session, that works too.
Record your scores on your first test at each distance. Then you can compare later down the road to see how much you’ve improved when you get better and better scores from 5 yards to 25 yards by completing this golf chipping practice routine.
Remember, start by focusing first on getting all the chips onto the green in a row successfully before moving onto the scoring game. You must pass phase 1, get the ball onto the green every time, first before worrying about how close it is to the hole and trying to sink the putt (phase 2 of chipping routine).
Overall, you’re going to get better at chipping, save more pars from getting up and down around the green. When you miss your approach shots with your irons, you’ll feel confident you can still score par having practiced chipping from all kinds of yardages away from the green.
Missing the green won’t phase you!
For more golf drills and practice routines check out our 12 week practice plans laying out a program to follow step by step.
