Golf Training Aids

Requiring the utmost authority in golf is a shot that is also one of the shortest in golf. Golf instruction chipping without authority can be thin, fat or even shanked shots. You name what can go wrong and it will. However hitting your chip shots like you mean it, you are more likely to be tapping your next shot in for birdie.

There are a few things that lead to a lack of authority- including fear, indecision, lack of strength – and all lead to poor chipping. Think of your club as a horse.(weird analogy but stay with me ) If your not confident, it has this uncanny knack of recognizing your concern and plays up. The results are way more satisfactory when you show it who is boss and your in charge.

To ensure authority, the best way is by repetition. Add that with these two strength drills (below) and bring some authority back to your short game.                                           
Drill 1; Hold the club horizontally in front of your body and cock the wrists. These simple exercises will gradually build strength and flexibility into those wrists, repeat each drill for 10 repetitions.

Drill 2; Hold your arms outstretched with a weight (a couple of golf clubs or 440gm cans are fine if you don’t have hand weights) and lift up and down with your wrists.

Your Wrist Power
It can be difficult to hit a shot with authority if the club feels heavy in your hand. A good chip is a firm wristed action, the wrist has to secure the golfclub to ensure that you are in control of the swing. Weak wrists are a problem for many beginning women players, but it doesn’t hurt for all golfers to spend some time with these drills.

Be Decisive
You will find any number of articles covering club selection and what type of chip shot for particular situations. What’s your decision, try to erase any doubt whatsoever, convince yourself that it’s the correct choice.
Spend time on a practice green repeating the same shot over and over.
If you’ve got some time at home, place a basket or bucket in the backyard and practice chipping the ball into the target. If you consistently hit your target, that means you’re decisive and have strong wrists, and you are on the right path to hitting plenty of chip shots close.

Learn the proper chipping set-up; weight on lead side, ball slightly back of centre in your stance, eyes and hands closer to the target than the ball is at address.
Use your dominant hand during the backswing, hinge the golfclub slightly.
Hold this position post impact, in the follow through. That is, don’t let the clubhead pass under your lead hand before impact. The back of that hand should be closer to the target than the ball is at impact. After impact, you can release the club a bit.
Relax. Scooping a chip shot into the air, getting to wristy is an amateures number 1 difficulty.

Golf Instruction Chipping Tip- Bet on the percentages

Those high loft greenside shots of the pros might look fancy, but they are very risky, with an increased chance of error when you increase your loft. Extra loft decreases the margin for error at impact and decreases the size of the landing  zone on the green.
The pros have perfected the second-bounce check-up, it is one of the hardest shots to play in golf, so at this stage leave it to them.
I encourage any amateur golfer to go for maximum roll and minimum air time, remembering to land the ball on the green.. When faced with a chip around the greens, relying on a simple formula means using less lofted golfclubs. However first, like any shot in golf a little course management is required. As is a brush up on the finer points of golf instruction for a balanced posture

Golf Instruction Chipping – The Method
Focusing on your landing spot as your target, and not the flag when chipping. Several factors will influence this like the condition of the green, and loft of club chosen. Use the following ratios, start with a five iron and increase the loft depending on the amount of the green available.

• 5 IRON

20 percent flight, 80 percent bounce and roll. ?

• 8 IRON

33 percent flight, 67 percent bounce and roll

• WEDGE

50 percent bounce and 50 percent roll.

Chip with an 8 iron until you master the bump and run,then learn to use a wedge.

Here is a great golf instruction chipping tip I learned a while ago, try this. Use a golfball, take a normal stance for a chip shot, and throw the ball ‘under arm’(softball throw) at the target to get a feel for how hard to swing your club.
Imagine how much strength is needed to fly the golfball onto the green and roll it up to the flag, by throwing the ball about two thirds of the way back to the hole. This is a great technique to get a feel for the shot.

I hope these few golf instruction tips will help you to improve your short game and reduce the number of shots in your round the next time you go out on the course.

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