Golf Digest School

Golf Digest, Feb, 2004 by Sean Hanley

Thomas Steben, a 25-handicapper from Lenox, Mass., wanted to improve his chipping. He was hampered by a common mistake--trying to get his shots airborne by scooping the ball.

1. THE PROBLEM

Lofty goals

Tom is smart to focus on developing his short game first, but he had a tough time with chip shots because he tends to scoop the ball off the ground with a swing that's too wristy. He'd either hit the ground behind the ball, chunking the shot, or hit the ball on the upswing with the leading edge of the club, blading the ball over the green. It's easy to tell if someone is trying to scoop a chip: At impact, the handle of the shaft leans away from the target, a move that adds too much loft to the clubhead and makes consistent contact difficult to achieve.

2. THE FIX

Let's do the limbo

I explained to Tom that the only loft you need on a chip is just enough to get the ball over the fringe so it can start rolling on the putting surface as quickly as possible. From a good lie in short grass, there's plenty of loft on any short iron to get this done. In fact, to hit crisp, low-running chip shots, you want to deloft the club through impact with a forward-leaning shaft. I asked Tom to lean slightly toward the target at address and try to propel the swing with his arms and shoulders instead of his wrists and hands. To give Tom a visual reminder to keep the ball low, I held a clubshaft in front of him parallel to the ground and told him to make sure the ball traveled under the "limbo stick."

3. THE RESULT

Dancing to a new tune

I can't stress enough how impressed I was that Tom was trying to hone his short-game skills before getting bogged down with full-swing mechanics. Most beginners come to the game with assumptions about how to hit the ball; often a teacher's job is to "deprogram" them. The limbo stick did its trick and helped Tom understand that a chip should hop and then roll. He started getting the ball close enough to the hole to have a chance of getting up-and-down. Now we have to work on his putting stroke. You guessed it ... he's using his wrists too much.