Conference 7.286::golf

    I hood a seven iron, aim right of the target and hit with a putting
    stoke.  Intent is to land on the green at the point nearest my
    position and let the ball roll to the hole.  If the distance to the pin
    is very short from the first point on the green, I will use the same
    procedure with an eight, nine or wedge.  Most of the time I use the
    seven, with just enough back swing to reach that previously described
    point and a full follow-through as on a put (or more if I am some
    distance from the green).  Results are that even a missed shot
    turns out pretty well, the ball is rolling.  
    
    Short pitches over hazards usually finds me using my wedge, with 
    my weight concentrated on my left side, aimed right of the target,
    with a short back swing and full follow through.  Again, hit the
    closest point on the green and the ball will release and roll to
    the pin.  I want the ball on the green for as much of the time as
    I can.  Round before last, I sank one each way and yesterday I had
    three puts of under six inches, all using my first approach with 
    the seven iron.
    
    Big Mac 

    
     MH,
    
       Early this year, I had severe problems with my chipping.  Off-line 
     shots, chilis, you name it.  After fiddling around with all sorts of
     stances and all sorts of swings, I found something that ensured that
     the ball stayed on-line  with no stubs or chili-dips.  The putting
     stroke analogy is a good one.  The technique to start off with, is
     to drag the club back very low against the ground, then pull the
     clubface through and towards your target. Exaggerate this technique
     at first, then pretty soon you will feel confident enough to to make
     a more normal swing.  
    
       The 7-iron is a good club from the fringe when you have a lot of
     green to work with, but you still need to know how to hit the wedges
     for those shots when you don't have a lot of green and you need the
     ball to land softly and stop quickly.  Use the above technique and 
     with lots of practice, your confidence in the chipping game will
     return like mine did.  Good luck!
    
    -rick

    
    MH,
    this from memory cause it ain't as good as it use to be but I taught
    my kid and he's excellent so it must be old age with me:
    
    Size of green:
    
    On small greens, you can use the "grandfather clock" swing with
    a 9 , 8 , or 7 . The "grandfather clock" swing doesn't work that
    well with S/W or W.  That is slow take away, right shoulder back,
    
    blade square away AT START and kept square, stance on narrow side,
    hands ahead of ball, follow through WITH STIFF LEFT WRIST,
    don't let the left wrist collapse at impact(much like the no wrist
    break putt) and go through 6 inches  past the hitting zone.
    
                  More green the rough, use 7 iron
                  Less green than rough, use 9 iron
    You'll start to get the distance yourself, left shoulder slightly
    left of target, kep right one back for inside take away.
    
    
    For large greens: (medium fast)
    
    Well you have 3 chipping and "pop up" swings:
    
             1. Same as above
             2. Same as above only with more green and more rough to
    carry you need a second chipping swing and that is the slow breaking
    of the left wrist(SLOW) come into the chipping area with left wrist
    slightly back to give you more"air loft" follow through.
             CAN play the ball A LITTLE up in the stance to promote
    more "air time".
    
             3 The pop up shot , that is almost all air and little run.
                   Most important is the right hand goes UNDER and not
    rolls over at impact, other wise it's skull city!
    
    FOR FAST GREENS:
    
            I almost always use s/w , w , or nine iron. You start to
    get used to your own distance.
    
                        Practise is important, and If I could only
    practise with one club it would be a sand wedge,  CAUSE YOU
    CAN"T FOOL IT !! Any flaw in the swing will show in a sand wedge.
    
    Good luck,
    former good chipper,
    AV
    
                                                  
    
    
    
    
    

    I may have started letting my right hand roll over the left on
    my chip shots. They are much worse than pitching which is mainly
    distance control right now and the occaisional pull. If I am within
    10 feet of the green I feel like reaching for my putter no matter
    what the lie or length of grass !! A real foolish situation ! YAHOO-
    ride that Texas wedge !!!!!
    
    Mad Hacker

    I've improved (in my opinion anyway) my short a great deal this year
    and it's been because of only one thing - PRACTICE.  Many weekends, I
    head out to the practice green at my club (Amherst, NH) and chip & putt
    for hours.  I try chipping with the 7, 8, 9, PW & SW.  This is a large
    green with a lot of holes so I get to practice chipping to a pin with a 
    lot of green to work with or very little green.  
    
    Some things I have learned are:
    
    	Lot of green, little fringe - pitch and roll w/7 iron
    	Little green, little fringe - PW or SW try and land the ball in the
    				      fringe
    			     Uphill - Use less lofted club, 7 or 8
    			   Downhill - Use more lofted club, 9, PW, or SW
    	Read the green before you hit your shot
    	Pick a spot to land the ball and aim for that spot
    	
    Get out those old copies of GD or Golf and browse through for pointers.
    But the best remedy is:
    
    		PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!!!
    
    Good Luck
    
    Len
    

    MH,
    
    	Alot of people will tell you that I have an excellent short game.
    Actually I'm a single digit handicapper on the strength of my short
    game.  The previous replies have some good advice and some suspect
    advice.  I guess you'll decide what's good and bad after you've tried
    it.  There are some important things to remember when trying to get up
    and down.  First is what I call soft hands.  It's not so much holding
    the club with a wimp grip as it is trying to feel the clubhead and the
    stroke necessary to execute the shot.  I almost always grip the club at
    the bottom of the grip, I believe the closer your hands are to the
    clubhead the easier it is to control.   Next is to get the ball on the 
    ground as quickly as possible.  The more roll you have/can afford the 
    more room for error.  Always (well almost always) hit the ball crisply.
    If you wimp out on the shot the results will be less than exciting.  As
    with putting, don't move your eyes.  NEVER break your wrists, use a
    shoulder swing.  Lastly, how hard should you hit it?  Well you can
    probably throw the ball underhanded to the pin.  (try it)  That's how
    hard to hit the shot.
    
    These are the 'fundamentals' of chipping/pitching.  I have basically 4
    different types of shots with 3 different clubs.  (With variations of a
    theme maybe it's 10 shots with 5 clubs)  Anyway the important thing to
    remember is to look at the situation and figure out what you have to do
    to get the ball ON THE GREEN.  Then what to do to get it close to the
    pin if possible.  Then pick the club that will best execute the shot
    that you've planned.
    
    If you have questions on specific shots/situations maybe we can come up
    with some interesting shots for you to try.
    
    
    
    						KO

    My biggest problem lately has been (due to our drought) chipping
    from hardpan knobs around the green. Usually they are 2-3 feet 
    higher than the green and there will be longer grass down in the 
    little valleys next to the fringe so it is almost immpossible to
    putt from up there. Usually blade the ball 20-30 feet past the hole.
    Always seems to happen when the pin is downhill from the mound. I 
    need to carry the ball about 8-10 feet then roll it down to the hole.
    Guess if I kept the ball below the hole and on the green this wouldn't
    be a problem !!! If I did this, I wouldn't be a 24 either !!!!!!!!!!!!!
    
    
    Mad Hacker

>    Usually they are 2-3 feet 
>    higher than the green and there will be longer grass down in the 
>    little valleys next to the fringe so it is almost immpossible to
>    putt from up there. Usually blade the ball 20-30 feet past the hole.


Hi MH,

	Sounds like you would be better off putting the ball through the
valley and the longer grass, I'll bet 9 out of 10 times you could get it
closer than the 20-30 feet you have been averaging.

					
			    		-Paul

    Hi paul, how ya doing ? Yea, last saturday evening as I walked away 
    from yet another blown par opportunity I had the same feeling. I
    could have hit it closer with my putter !!!
    
    Mad Hacker

    re:  .6  KOBRIEN
    
    Hi KO.  You say never break the wrist.  I always did the same.  But
    after reviewing my tape by Jack Nicklaus, "Golf My Way," he uses a
    "wristy" stroke while pitching, and a putting stroke while chipping. 
    Do you use a "wristy" stroke with your short pitches?  
    
    -dwight

    Just as an aside, Nicklaus has never been known for his short
    game prowess.
    
    Mad Hacker

I only think about one thing, once I have chosen the club I'm going to use.  
That is, no matter how easy and/or short the swing is, ALWAYS make sure the 
clubhead is accelerating thru the ball.  This has really helped my short game 
a bunch.

Beak

    
    
    Good point Beak, accelerating through the shot is one of those basic
    	things that tend to go away when you get closer to the hole. Along
    	with that is the tendency to "peak" ... which causes anything from
    	the Hormels to blading it.        So now the last thing I say to
    	myself before taking the club back is, in Dice Clay Lingo
    	"Hit the Faughen thing" :)
    
    
    	Walta
    		

    Dwight,
    
    	No I never use a wristy stroke (on the golf course) because I feel
    that the club head speed can vary too much with relation to the arm
    speed.  Short pitches are from about 40 yard in (that's what I mean by
    a short pitch short.)
    
    	I've never seen "Golf my way" so I'm not sure what a wristy
    stroke means in this context.  Does the right hand come over the left 
    through the swing (like a normal swing)?
    
    RE: a couple back about comming off of hardpan.  If the putter idea
    doesn't pan out try using say a 4 or 5 iron and pitching it into the
    fringe.  The bounce on a sandwedge or even a pitching wedge can cause
    you to 'belly' the ball.  With the lower lofted iron there's more face
    than sole.
    
    
    						KO

    KO,
    
    The wristy stroke was snapping the wrist straight thru as he made
    impact which got the ball up quick.  Sort of the same kind of stroke
    that a "wristy putter" uses.  I've been playing with it and I sort of
    like it, but it takes some getting use to, as anything strange.  I had
    been hitting into the balls, lately, on occasion, when just using the
    arms, although that was the way I always pitched.  I may go back to
    that.  But using the wrists does get the ball up nicely and sit it
    down.
    
    -dwight

    Having spent the last week practicing off my carpet has
    helped ! I have developed a chipping stroke to use with
    my short irons that incorporates my putting grip and
    stroke and my pitching stance and I seem to be hitting 
    the ball very straight and with good distance control.
    It will take some time to get really precise with distance
    but at least I can hit it at the hole now !!!! By using my
    putting grip, my left wrist stays firm through the ball.
    Thanks for all the tips.
    
    Mad Hacker

    >	things that tend to go away when you get closer to the hole. Along
    >	with that is the tendency to "peak" ... which causes anything from
    >	the Hormels to blading it.        So now the last thing I say to
    
    
    Can you explain the term "peak"?
    
    Thanks,
    Dan
    

    Reply -1
    
    Hi Dan,
    
    	The term "peaking" means to lift the head up in an attempt to see
    where the shot is going. If we were to turn our head, keeping it 
    pivoting around the upper spine, which will keep the nice underhand
    toss type of swing... rather than trying to watch the shot by lifting and
    turning the head so the eye's become horizontal, it would be OK to
    peak.
    
    	Geee what a confusing statement !
    
    
    	If your head remains like this through the stroke;
    
    				: )	the eye's remain , one on top		
    					of the other. Keeping the
    					underhand toss type of swing.
    					See how happy you'll be !!
    
    	If your head comes up so your eyes are ;
    
    				..      by trying to watch your ball you
    					just pulled your right shoulder
    					up. See, now you've lost face !
    					No more mouth !
    
    	This type of peaking will destroy a swing. All kinds of BAD things
    	will result.
    				
    
    
    	Walta

MH,

re: .0 

	On the pulling the pitch shots left -- could be that the left hip 
is open.  The cause is sometimes a straight left knee at impact.  According 
to Toski, the knee should be slightly flexed at impact.  If you try it in
slow motion you'll notice your hips will be square to the line at impact
with the knee slightly flexed.  With the knee straight your hips can get
ahead of your swing resulting in a outside-in pull on easy swings (with a 
SW, for example), and an outside-in pull/slice with the less lofted clubs.

Bill Breen asked that I write up my technique, so here goes...

	For any shot from 30-100 yards I usually use my SW. My swing
thought is the back of the left hand is the clubface.  I want the clubface
to be square at impact. I don't worry about wrist cock unless I know that I
have to hit a short, high shot over a bunker, at which time I will make a
conscious (unnatural...) wrist cock.  The back of the hand feels
perpendicular to the target line when I reach the top on the backswing, and
then I move it to square at impact.  That is how I get it to go straight. 

	In terms of distance, there are two different backswing methods
which I use -- either take the club back to the same position and vary the
swing speed, or take the club back to specific positions (9, 10, 11
o'clock) and use the same swing speed.  To keep it simple for me I usually
take it back to the same spot on the backswing till I reach my own comfort
zone (i.e. I feel the back of my left hand in the correct position,
everything else feels good). For shorter shots I will mess a bit with wrist
cock and length of the backswing, but those are the tricky half-swing shots
which can lead to jerkiness because each swing is different. 

	Attitude is important.  I try to avoid the thought of "just get it 
on the green, two-putt, and get the heck out of here...", especially when a 
two-putt will bring something worse than par.  When I think like that, and 
I'm sure others must as well, my scores balloon up.

	For chip shots, Gary Wilson has absolutely the best game I've 
every seen.  He always uses his SW and is able to "hit" a spot and get the
appropriate roll to the hole.  I always end up short and slightly off line
on short chips with a SW. Since I am unable to use Gary's technique I rely
on reading the line and using less lofted clubs to roll it to the hole.
Also, I found that with my Ping perimeter weighted clubs I could not easily
judge how to chip for distance (felt like I was using telephone poles). 
This is my second summer using tour blades (first MacGregor and now
Titelist).  My feel for all shots, especially my chipping, has improved
dramatically with the new clubs.

Jeff

   re.  .17 & .18

      Ahem...I think what was meant was "peeking" not "peaking".  Perhaps
   .17's reply was tongue-in-cheek.        ~             ~

-rick

    
    
    	Reply -1  > Rick
    
    	Well then;
    
    		As Gilda Radner would say	"Never mind"
    
    	Walta