Today my friend Nick and I played Cypress Links. If you want that story, please scroll down to Cypress Links at Mangrove Bay - A Wednesday Game and give it a quick read. But anyway, the last whole I managed to par without taking my putter out of my bag. How is that? Well I chipped it in. Now, I'm not saying this to brag (okay, maybe a little), but my short game is fairly decent. Most times when I'm near the green I can chip on from the ruff, fairway, bunker, whatever, and end up within a few feet of the hole. Most of the time I end up close enough to one putt. Sometimes I even manage to sink it without even putting.
Now, after I chipped it in on the last hole, I did some thinking about that shot. I probably did the thinking because I was proud of it, but nonetheless I realized something. I've known this for a while, and have heard it told to me a few times, but that was a long time ago. Today, after some thinking, I was able to bring it forward to the conscious part of my brain and stick it into words, and I think if I can get to the main point of this article by the third paragraph, it would be a good tip to all who read this.
 |
| A lot of times chipping from a distance such as this can be easier than attempting to putt through the rough grass, and all the way to the hole. |
So without further a due, I present to you the big question: when should you putt and when should you chip? A rather simple question you may think. However, I see this with a lot of people I play with as well as other people I observe on other greens while I'm waiting to tee off. I see people putting from the ruff/fairway right off the green. Now I understand putting from the fringe as you don't want to chip there and mess up the closer cut grass, but putting from the ruff or the fairway! Why? In my thinking today I realized that it's a more efficient and reliable technique to chip from off the green than to putt.
But why? Why would you use an extra club and attempt to hit the ball again just to get it to move three feet onto the green? Well, when you're in the ruff or the fairway, it's difficult to judge the speed of the ball, the break, and many other factors that come into play when the ball is rolling along the ground. If you're in the ruff, you don't know what's down there. There could be a hidden sprinkler head you missed, or a rock that's hiding, or the grass may be just especially thick, or it may be thin and the ball could run way past the hole. If you're regularly putting from three or four feet off the green, you can't tell me you haven't came up dramatically short or sent the ball steaming past the hole.
I try to chip and get the ball in the air as much as I can. For me, chipping is easy. I've worked at it more than any other part of my game mainly because it's the only thing I can do at my house because I have a small back yard, and no carpeting in the house to practice putting on. So I chip. If you concentrate on that aspect of your game like I did and get to the point where you can put ten or twelve balls down on the side of the chipping green at the driving range and get them all within one putt distance from the hole, then you just shaved some strokes off your game not having to putt from the fairway and two putt to finish. Think about how many times you putt from the fairway or ruff in a game. What is that? Two? Three? Seven times? Whatever that number is, imagine being able to shave that many strokes off your game because you chipped it within three feet and one putted instead of putting it within eight and two putted.
How can this be easier? Before you chip the ball, get behind it and read it like a putt. Thing about how far you want it to fly and where you want it to land. Also, don't forget to read the green! Remember, when you chip the ball isn't going to have a ton of backspin and just stop; the ball is going to roll, and therefore will slope left or right or uphill or downhill just like it would if you putt the ball. So remember to think about the shot just like you would a putt. Think, "Okay, I want it to land two feet onto the green and roll eight feet to the hole. Hmm, well it's downhill, so I should put the ball a little further forward in my stance so I can get more backspin. Oh and wow, look at that left break. So I should aim right. Okay. Practice swing one. Practice swing two. Let's do this." Or maybe you don't think out loud to yourself as much as I do...
Basically, the moral of this story is, for me, it's easier to get the ball close to the whole when I chip the ball from just off the green instead of attempting to determine how hard and at what break I should whack a ball through the fairway or ruff just off the green. So take a few balls into your backyard or the chipping green at your favorite driving range and pick a target and go for it. You might find it much easier to just pop the ball over the thick stuff than to trudge through it. Let me know how it works out.
--Tom K.
No comments:
Post a Comment