Solid Chipping Shown Down The Line

Ok, this is the first video I have posted to my blog of myself doing the work.  I wanted to do it to provide quality instruction and now the weather finally got good enough to do it.    Anyhow, here is what I want you to take from this video.


#1.  At address, my arms and hands are far enough away from my body that they have room  to swing yet not so far that it makes me off balance, out of sync, or causes me to swing the club back inside behind me.  Sometimes bad chippers are bad chippers because they merely have this part of their set-up goofed up.


#2.  When my club reaches parallel to the ground on the backswing there are a couple of good things happening here.  First, when my club is parallel to the ground, the shaft is parallel to the target line.  Second, at this point of parallel to the ground and parallel to the target line, my clubface angle should match my spine angle.  Mine does, and that means my clubface is square in consideration to my body which means I have a great chance of returning it to square at impact and the ball will go in the direction I hope it will.


#3.  Ok, for you shankers, toppers, skullers, TC Cheners, etc.  HERE IS THE BIG TICKET Item.
My clubhead moves back and around in the backswing.  When the club moves back and around with the proper amount of both this is what we call being on plane.  Now on the through swing, my club moves up and around as well, this is ultimately a perfect path and what we call an inside to inside path.   Unfortunately shanks can happen from clubpaths that are either way to much inside out or outside in, shanks can also come from a few other things as well.  Anyway, when we are chipping, we want to keep the clubface down by the ball as long as possible and we don't want to flip the clubhead up or release the clubhead like we would in our full swing.  We want solid contact and a square clubface and this happens by holding the grip ahead of the clubhead coming into the ball at impact.  So, if we are holding the angle of our hands ahead of the clubhead at impact then there is only one way that the clubhead will continue to move through and also move up and to the inside and that is if we pivot our hips and rotate our body through the shot.  Since you don't release the club with your hands, wrists, and forearms the way you would with a 5 iron, you have to release your body through the chip.  This is essential.  This is the secret to chipping that many folks don't know ... Coming into impact and through impact you want to release your body, not your hands, but this is not what most people do and that's why their chipping includes too many undesirable results.  


So for review, 


#1, Set-Up - Make sure your hands are not too far from your body and really make sure they are not tucked in too close.
#2, Takeaway Position - Make sure you reach the 2 points of parallel and the clubface angle matches your spine angle.
#3, To help you with holding your hands but releasing your body, feel your right leg drive towards the target while you keep the handle of the club ahead of the clubhead coming through the ball.


Good Luck, God Bless, and Have a Fantastic Weekend.