subject: Best Golf Chipping Tip Ever? [print this page] When Tom Watson hit his famous chip-in in the 1982 U.S. Open on Pebble Beach's 17th, he credited his teacher and friend Stan Thirsk for the golfing tip. Thirsk had been his teacher since Watson was a kid. Watson said the chip in was the result of practicing his teacher's advice for years.
The advice to Watson was simple: When chipping, open the face of a wedge, take it back outside the target line and up, then slice across the ball--hard. This technique allows you to hit the ball firmer. It will pop in the air, go a shorter distance and land softly.
Watson said his only thought on that chip-in at Pebble was to land the ball as softly as I could and get it rolling down the slope like a putt.
Here is his technique from Golfing Tips Online:
1) You must hit the ball crisply, by pulling the club across the ball sharply with your left arm,
2) Hinge the club out and up, then chop across the ball with your left arm, keeping the clubface open at impact.
Watson recommends to practice chipping balls from different situations and seeing how hard you can swing and how short you can make the ball go. He goes onto say you could use this same strategy further away from the ball.
In terms of clubs, selection is crucial in chipping. It is determined by wind, lie and slope. Into the wind, uphill or hitting to an upslope, almost always pick a lower-lofted club. Go with higher lofts in the opposite situation.
Watson uses three clubs, in this order of frequency, when I chip: sand wedge, pitching wedge, 9-iron. Into a severe wind and/or severely uphill, he might use as much as a 5-iron, but rarely.
