In this article, I’ll share the simple steps to chipping the golf ball closer to the hole so you can one putt to finish the hole, and save strokes on your scorecard.
Chipping can be a game saver. Short game is something the golf professionals spend hours on, and it shows up on the golf course when they get themselves out of a jam after missing the green in regulation.
Tip #1: Start With Proper Setup for Chip Shots
To hit chip shots closer to the hole, start by practicing the proper fundamental chip shot setup. Here’s a quick video overview to show you my basic chipping setup.
Tip #2 – Allocate 70% of Practice Time to Chipping Drills This Month
The next tip for helping you hit chips closer to the hole is to practice chipping more. You need to spend lots of time practicing. Don’t be like most golfers, who practice at the range more than they do putting and chipping.
Follow my tip for you today and spend 70% of your practice time this month with your wedge.
Next month, we can adjust your time allocation to putting, driver, irons, and wedge play, but this first month, I want you serious about improving your wedge play and dedicating 70% of practice time on it.
For example, if you think you’ll be able to practice 10 hours this week, spend 7 hours practicing chipping.
Resource: Golf Practice System with Step by Step Practice Plans + Video Lessons
Tip #3 – Hit 5 Sets of 10 Balls
The best way to use your 70% of chipping practice time is to do a few simple golf chipping drills. Rather than try to practice multiple drills, find 2-3 drills that will help you improve and then do high repetitions.
Start with 5 sets of 10 repetitions (chips onto the green) totaling 50 chips for Drill #1.
Then move on to Drill #2 and do 50 reps by breaking it into 5 sets of 10 chip shots.
While completing each set of 10, keep track of how many golf balls get within 3 feet of the hole or closer. Total up the number for all 5 sets and see how many out of 50 you got close to the hole.
Once you’ve done these 2-3 drills, come back next time and do them again, but try to beat your score.
Tip #4: The Short, Medium, Long Chipping Drill
Now that you know a simple practice structure to follow from chipping tips #1 and #2 above, this is an example drill you could add to practice to help you chip the golf ball closer to the hole.
Start by measuring out 3 different chips, one from close to the hole (10 feet roughly), one from medium distance (25-30 feet) and one from long distance (50-70 feet).
You can adjust distance by either finding holes on the practice green further away from you, or by moving further back away from the green.
This will alter the carry vs roll however, as when you are further from the green you have more carry to get over the rough and onto the green. When you are chipping greenside or from fringe, you can chip with less carry and more roll.
Then practice chipping a set of 10 balls to the short distance, 10 to medium, and 10 to long distance. The goal is to get 10/10 within 3 feet of the hole. Overall it builds distance control by changing up the distance from short, medium, and long range chipping.
Resource: Check out this step by step practice plan to follow
Tip #5: Use One Wedge During Practice
For most players, the best advice to quickly improve your chipping is to practice and get really good with one wedge. You can dedicate all of your practice time with this one golf club instead of worrying about splitting up time and repetitions among multiple clubs.
As you get really good with your one chipping wedge club, then you can progress later to adding in time with other wedges / irons for chip shots.
Tip #6: Fail Quickly & Don’t Give Up
Understand, that becoming great at golf takes lots of practice and time working on building a skill. Hitting the small white golf ball the precise distance and while keeping it straight where you aimed, is not easy.
With that being said, you need to learn to fail quickly and don’t give up. Keep trying, keep going, even when golf feels hard. Understand that failure and mistakes are part of the game and you’ll learn from them.
Learn from these failures and keep going and eventually you’ll get past the fail stage and see major improvement.
Conclusion
Getting better at golf is quite simple, practice more on short game than you do on long game. I’m going to lay out a few tips you should follow if you want to get better at hitting wedge shots close to the pins.
- Practice your wedge shots more than you practice your driver
- Review your stats often and find weakness
- Study technique and swing sequence from the pro’s so you can improve your swing
Start with some structured practice plans below to improve your chipping…