By Joe O’Connor – Teaching Professional at Tommy Fleetwood Academy
One thing I love helping people get better at in my lessons are short greenside chip shots. The issues people have with these shots are often easily fixed without too many technique changes, so I’ve seen big improvements in a short amount of time. Hopefully I can help you here too.
Firstly, the main culprit for bad shots from just off the putting surface with a wedge in hand is set up. I often see players stand too wide – or even too narrow – when setting up to 15 to 20 yard chip. I’d like to see you standing with your feet just slightly narrower than shoulder width apart.
Then, with your feet in position, lean slightly onto your lead side. I’m not talking your entire weight here, rather up to 70 percent. This helps to get a nice solid base for us to work with. Once you’ve nailed this, your half way there to hitting a decent shot.
Next up is understanding the body is what moves the club and utilising that effectively. What I mean by that is don’t overly use hinge your wrists, and dramatically bend your elbows. Your torso has more than enough power to help you here and can help improve your consistency.
I often see people taking very long backswings, with short follow throughs, and vice versa. This is not what we want. We want both to be equal, and a good way to do this is to use your shoulders to move the club. Focus on an equal tempo, back and through.
For example, I like to reference a clockface when explaining this to my students in person. When in your set up, the ball is at six o’clock. If you pull the club back to nine o’clock, your follow through should finish at three o’clock. This is the same all the way around the clock face.
Once you’ve mastered the set up, then next thing is to understand how ball position can influence ball flight. As you can see here, I’ve got three balls in front of me. Keeping the set up the same, but shifting the ball around can really change things.
For example, the ball towards my backfoot will come out lower and should roll more. The middle ball is my stock shot, while the ball towards my lead foot will come out higher and land softer. Give these a try and don’t be afraid the try them on the course. Remember though, it’s all body movement, not the hands!
