(golf club hits)
(bird sings)
- Well, there's a little seven iron chip and run shot.
My name's Adam Bazalgette,
founder of scratchgolfacademy.com.
I wanna talk to you today
about golf ball position when chipping in golf,
where do we play the ball, and what are the variables?
Stay tuned.
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Okay, so golf ball position when chipping in golf,
let's talk about a few of the variables
and what should be similar.
Now, I've got two clubs, a pitching wedge,
and then a seven iron you saw me chip with just a minute ago
and we're gonna show you
what would be the determining factors on that.
Before we do that though,
I wanna show you a couple of general things,
or at least discuss them with you.
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So, what are the basic premises,
if we put the pitching wedge down,
the basic premise is that your club is likely to bottom out,
or hit the bottom of it's, the lowest point of its swing
right underneath your body center like so.
So, if you wanna hit the ball
just at the bottom of your swing,
and we'll give you the variables in a minute,
that's the position.
In general though,
you wanna hit the ball a little bit
before you get to the bottom of your swing
when you're chipping.
So, what I would recommend is just plumb bob a club
from your shirt buttons like so, ball about middle,
and just put your weight a little forward,
so that you think that's just hitting the ground,
oh, a couple of inches in front of it,
and say to yourself,
once you've looked down and memorized it,
that would be my bread and butter ball position.
So, just something like that,
put the club back in your hands, and get familiar with that.
Let's talk about a few variables,
and for that we'll do a close-up camera angle.
Okay, so we've got two slightly different situations.
This is tight fairway grass,
and this is a little bit spongier light rough,
and of course there's there's other situations
you could get into, such as heavy rough,
but we'll just talk about these more typical chipping lies.
In this case of a seven iron,
because it has less loft,
the sweet spot of the club leans up against the ball
a little bit more easily than does, say,
a more lofted club, again there's the sweet spot,
something like a pitching wedge.
This club requires a little bit more forward lean,
or a fractionally more descending blow for solid contact.
Similarly, the more the ball is sitting down
in flat, firm turf,
the more I have to lean the club forward for solid contact,
but the more the ball is sitting
in more fluffy kind of a ground,
I can put some pressure in the ground,
I don't need as much forward lean for solid contact.
Now, these are reasonably subtle things,
but they make a real difference
when you're chipping, that you understand them.
Whatever you are doing,
you're trying to get the sweet spot of the club
in a normal chip against the ball,
and some lies,
and some club choices require less lean of the club,
some require a little bit more lean of the club,
and you have to master that to figure it out.
It's one of the reasons
it takes a while to become a really quality chipper is
because it's not just vanilla solid contact,
but the subtleties
of how you use the club and the ball position,
related to the lie, really, really affect the trajectory
and the way the ball comes off.
Obviously, a pitching wedge hit
with more lean is gonna come off lower and harder,
and one with a spongy lie,
where I can kind of brush underneath it,
is gonna come off a little higher and softer,
and you have to practice a little bit to get these down,
it really isn't that difficult,
but it takes some time on task.
So those are the principles as to what we're looking for.
Let's look at a couple of other general ideas.
Okay, so I hope that gives you a little bit
of a sense of the subtleties involved,
in what you're trying to achieve with ball position,
namely solid contact.
Now, let me say one little thing here,
and let's say you move to a new city,
and you don't know your way around,
you wanna know a couple of general main roads,
and then as you get more comfortable in that city,
you start to learn shortcuts, back roads,
and a little bit more detail.
Same with chipping.
Start out with that ball position I recommended,
where your shirt buttons are slightly in front
of the ball, weight's a little left,
and just make relatively consistent contact,
and get used to maybe two chipping clubs,
I like a pitching wedge and an eight iron,
or at least a club gap between them,
you may like more than that.
As you get more confident
and more sophisticated, start to branch out,
like knowing the different back roads in a city.
Maybe you use three clubs,
maybe a six iron, an eight, and a pitching wedge,
or whatever you choose to do,
and you start to learn a little bit
about different lies and varying it a little bit,
that comes with some practice.
Again, not impossible, just takes a little time on task.
But whatever you do, I would not vary much from
ball slightly, slightly back of center.
If it's sitting up in the rough,
play it just a little bit more under your center of forward.
If it's really in a tight, wet spot on the grass,
maybe play it just a little bit further back.
But if you vary it too much,
you'll either start stabbing down on the ground
and digging the club here,
or scooping too much and changing the loft,
or mis-hitting there.
So just a little variance from slightly behind center,
to center, give or take a little bit.
Hope this helps you with golf ball position
when chipping in golf.
Again, please subscribe to the channel,
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Scratchgolfacademy.com is my website.
All kinds of material there for you,
hope you'll check it out.
Hope this helps you.
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