A Golf Guide for Beginners: How to Hit Solid Chips

Hitting chip shots solidly is important because it will enable you to be more consistent with your distance control on the chip shots. Chips that are hit off-center on the clubface are harder to control, and will usually leave you with a longer putt as a result. Before you start worrying about hitting too many different types of chip shots, it is a good idea to get comfortable and confident in hitting your chips solid time after time. Once you are able to achieve that, you can move on to hitting a wider variety of chip shots depending on the lie and situation that you find your golf ball in.

The three tips below should help you learn how to improve the contact that you make when chipping the golf ball.

• Hit down. This is one of the keys when hitting chip shots from around the green. You should be hitting down with the clubhead to make the ball pop up out of the grass. If you are trying to ‘scoop’ the ball up into the air, it will be difficult to make solid contact very often. To help achieve this, lean a little bit onto your front foot at address before you start making the chipping motion.
• Keep your head still. It is tempting to look up and see where the ball is headed, but that mistake can lead to poor contact. Make it a point to keep your eyes focused on the ball until after you have made contact and the ball is on its way toward the target. Once the ball has been struck, you can feel free to look up and see how well you have done with the shot.
• Keep your body quiet. Since a chip shot is such a short shot, you don’t need much body movement at all to give it enough power to reach the hole. With that in mind, make sure to keep your body as quiet as possible while you are making the chipping motion. The more moving parts you have involved in the swing, the more difficult it will be to hit the shot solidly. Specifically, try to keep your lower body nice and still as the club swings back and through. When you are able to do this, you should find that it is suddenly much easier to make solid contact with the ball.