DUFFING CHIP SHOTS
A du ed chip shot o ers yet another glorious opportunity to lose an entire shot. With the club moving relatively slowly, any ground contact at all pre-impact is generally pretty terminal and you will find yourself playing the same shot again – only with a lot more anxiety. Heavy contact is most commonly the result of overactive hands compromising the angle of attack. Here are two ways to calm them down and clean up your contact ...
CLEAN STRIKE #1 TIDY UP YOUR SWING PATH
Your hands will become more active if they are trying to compensate for an across-theline path. Get more neutral to get more passive.
Drill Down the chute
To correct your delivery path, set up two alignment sticks or clubshafts. Make sure they are ... Parallel to each other.
Just wider than the clubhead. Framing the ball-target path. Bring the ball close in to a narrow stance to promote a less rotational, straighter-back-andthrough plane for this short swing and address the ball.
Between the lines
Now hit shots from between the sticks. Clubhead contact with either stick reveals an across-the-line delivery, but watch out particularly for pre-impact contact with the nearer one; it suggests an in-to-out path that demands a more active hand action to square the face.
Remove the stabilisers
Keep hitting chip shots until the club begins to brush the grass without contacting either stick. Now there is no need to manipulate the face, you will begin to feel the hands settling down and the motion come more from the shoulders and chest. Finally, take them away and hit chips normally.
CLEAN STRIKE #2 PACIFY FLICKY WRISTS
A more neutral path will go a long way to eliminating duffs from busy hands, but for golfers who have played this way for a while, the problem can need an extra step ...
Club extension
Take a stick – if you don’t have one, find something similar like a garden cane – and grip it against the handle of your chipping club, so its length sticks up past your lead hip. The stick and clubshaft will form one extended line.
Hot rod
Now simply hit chip shots from this set-up. A handsy flick will quickly be rewarded by the stick or cane bashing into your lead side. Do this drill correctly and the rod should not make contact with your body right through to the end of this short swing.
Handle leads head
Hit 10 shots with the rod in place. You will begin to gain a feel for how keeping it away from your side means allowing the handle to lead the clubhead through the ball, with some forward lean in the shaft. Eventually, when this feels comfortable, drop the stick and repeat this handsleading delivery.