- Welcome back, Adam Bazalgette here
in sunny Naples, Florida.
Two-time PGA Teacher of the Year Award winner down here,
want to touch on a subject today, an important one,
how to chip and pitch a golf ball, stay tuned.
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So, how to chip and pitch a golf ball?
We're gonna look first at the definition,
are they the same, are they different?
Try to clear that up for you a little bit.
At least I'll give you my version.
And secondly, and most importantly, we're gonna look at two
of the most common pitfalls I see when people
try to hit chips and pitches, and how to counteract that.
One of them is kinda cool, you'll see something
really instinctive and easy that could solve
a problem you might have been having.
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So, let's get started.
So, there's a little pitching wedge shot here
by the edge of the green.
Let's talk briefly about definitions.
Now, what's the difference between a chip and a pitch?
Let me just say, we're talking now
about short pitches near the edge of the green,
not long and intermediate pitches.
Best definition I've heard,
and you've doubtless heard the same one,
is a pitch goes more in the air with less roll,
and a chip, just the opposite,
less in the air with more roll,
but I would say when you're near the green,
more than anything, that's a function of club selection.
So, you could potentially have a long chipping stroke
if you had an enormous green to roll over,
or you could have a sand wedge
and have a fairly small pitching stroke
if you only needed to go five or six yards,
but you had to stop the ball.
So I would say this, they're both,
when you're near the green,
very similar in this critical area
from about there to there.
Now, certainly if you get a little bit beyond that,
you're gonna start cocking your wrist a little bit,
and you're gonna start pivoting a bit more,
but I think you'd do better off to just think
of what's a good stable stroke there at the bottom
and not necessarily feel like you do something different
from chipping to pitching.
We've got more on that in other videos I've done,
so I don't want to camp out there.
I want to go to these two pitfalls that are so common
'cause I think these'll really help you
if you can solve these.
Let's check out the first one.
Okay, so first of the two pitfalls,
this is a very, very common one,
and that's kinda snatching the club to the inside,
getting it behind you there
in the beginning of the takeaway.
I see this all the time.
First thing is, is causes two real problems.
Number one, the more you get the club to the inside,
and you gotta remember now on a short shot,
you don't have the time to hike it up
and change you're swing plane.
When you're stuck back here,
you're gonna tend to hit the ground sooner
than you would if you were on plane.
The more from in here you swing,
the earlier you'll hit the ground.
Of course, that causes a problem
and the solution so often is that the mind
stabs at the ball to try to get up there
and not hit it fat, so we don't want that.
And perhaps just as damaging,
if you get the club behind you,
you're either gonna hit the ball to the right,
or again, you've gotta kinda flinch with your hands
and try to knock the ball online.
Likely not as dramatically as I just demonstrated there,
but they're very damaging effect,
these very damaging effects
come from getting the club to the inside.
Here's the thing of it,
it's not actually a natural movement.
Now, here's what I mean by that.
Let me grab a couple of clubs.
I've placed a towel on the target line here,
and I've done this with a lot of people,
if you were to stand here with a golf club
and look at the target,
so there is no ball in this equation,
and just toss a club towards the target like that,
you can do that at the house or in the yard,
I'll bet you your club would go back
in a direction that is matched to the target line.
And you do it without thinking.
So, I'm telling you, toss a couple of clubs,
start to get a feel for that.
And to me, level two of that drill,
I've got a pitching wedge here.
Go ahead and make a little chip shot looking at the target.
Now, the target could be the flag
or just trying to land it over the towel.
Now, there's a reasonable chance
you're not gonna make solid contact with the ball,
I may not right here,
that's not really the point of it though.
You'll start to feel, hey, where does the club
want to go that relates to my target and lock into that.
Make sure though, if you do that,
you do a pretty small backswing
'cause with your eyes over there,
you're not gonna be able to make much of a pivot,
so keep the backswing small.
Let's give it a go.
That was actually a pretty good shot there.
Probably better than I could do with my eyes
on the golf ball, but anyway,
that happened to be a good shot.
So, do that, do some looking at the target
on the small scale, then do some regular ones
and start to notice if you're doing it a lot differently
than you would if you were, say, tossing a club.
So, pitfall number two,
I would describe that getting your body center
too far behind the ball.
You'll often see too much shoulder tilt this way
when you do that.
And remember, when you have a little shot like this,
you don't have a lot of dynamic weight transfer and lag,
you don't want that on a little shot like this,
so your swing is gonna tend to bottom out
more or less under your body center.
So, here's the key.
You've got to get that body center up here.
If you don't, you're gonna bottom out too early
and what happens is, you either get a miss-hit,
or you have to sort of salvage the shot
with a little recovery,
and again, that's very, very hard to repeat.
So, the key is to know what the ball looks like to you
when you're in the right relationship to it.
Here's what I would recommend.
Get a setup, I've got a ball in this hand,
get yourself to where you're sure
you're in the right relationship,
and simply stick the club out in front of you.
Now, it's in a perpendicular relationship
to where I'm hitting,
and just drop a golf ball from under that.
You can see that that landed,
oh, I'd say, right around the front edge
of the ball I intend to hit.
So, that would be a good spot,
and once you've done it,
you've just gotta kinda look down there
and camp out and kind of figure out
how everything looks to you.
Get your geometry right in your mind's eye.
Now, if you can get that swing plane right,
and if you can get yourself
in a good relationship to the ball,
the geometry should match,
and you should be able to bottom out
in front of that golf ball you're trying to hit,
and here's the key, you should be able
to do it absolutely effortlessly.
So, here's the test.
I'm gonna set up opposite that ball,
get my position, my swing plane feels good,
and with absolutely no effort,
I should time and time again be able to bottom out there.
That's when you're really gonna have some confidence
on these little shots.
Now, certainly, hey listen, if the ball's sitting up
in some fluffy grass and you want a nice high shot,
no question about it, you might want to lean back
and add a little bit of loft.
We're looking at generic shots though,
where the ball's down fairway grass.
So, work on these two things.
I'm confident they'll help you.
I actually think this backswing plane thing
would really be helpful to a lot of people
in their full swing as well.
Hope you're doing some good
chipping and pitching after this.
Well, hope you found that helpful,
how to chip and pitch a golf ball.
Get on my home website, scratchgolfacademy.com.
I have courses in every aspect of the game.
A nice full course on chipping,
one-on-one internet lessons with me.
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