One shot can save your round.
A good example is the round one of the students in our golf lessons group played the other day.
She was scuffling pretty badly. Her drives were finding the rough. Her approach shots were missing the greens. And her putts were missing badly. She was completely out of whack and she knew it.
But then came the sixth hole. Her approach shot landed in front of the green about 15 yards from the pin, which was located toward the back of the green.
It looked like she was would card a bogey or double bogey. But then she holed the chip saving par. The chip turned her whole game around. In the end, she shot an 88, not bad for a round that started out poorly.
Chips, Pitches & Bunker Shots
Chips, pitches, and bunker shots can resuscitate a round. Unlike drives and putts, these shots can save you a lot of strokes during a round.
Hitting good drives and good approach shots can certainly help your score. But as many golfers will attest, it’s the chips, pitches, and bunker shots that can really save your bacon during a round.
But for this to happen you must become proficient at hitting them. Hitting good chips, pitches, and bunker shots is a challenge for many golfers.
If this sounds like you, eliminating the three mistakes below and executing our golf tips below can help:
1. Playing the ball up on chips
One common mistake when chipping is moving the ball too far back in your stance. When you do that, you tend to put too much weight on your back foot. This in turn can cause you to flip the club over to get the ball airborne, producing poor chips.
In our golf lessons, we suggest moving the ball up in your stance. Play it about a clubhead back from your front foot or about in the middle of your stance
Playing the ball up encourages you to put more weight on your front foot—where it should be. It also eliminates the need to flip your wrists to get the ball airborne, leading to better and more controllable chips.
2. Trust the club’s loft
A common error pitch shot is trying to scoop the ball up. If you tend to do this, it may be because your forgetting about the mechanics of hitting a good pitch shot—something we see all the time in our golf lessons.
When you try to scoop the ball, you tend to hang back on the shot. Any time you do that, you increase your chances of hitting the ball fat or thin.
Instead, move the ball to the middle of your stance. This allows you to shift your foot forward and hit down on the ball. Then you need to trust the club’s loft to get the ball airborne.
3. Hit down when in the sand
A second mistake when hitting from the sand is not rotating your hips through the shot. By doing that, you’re forcing your hands to reach the impact zone too soon. By the time your hands reach the ball, they’re hitting the ball on the upswing.
To fix this swing fault, focus on striking the sand with a downward blow. To do this, shift your weight forward and rotate your body fully through the shot. Make sure the ball is positioned up in your stance also.
A good swing thought when hitting from the sand is to think of “knocking your knees” on the follow-through. It’s an old but proven trick.
Knocking your knees encourages you to drive your weight forward, which helps when trying to make a downward strike. It also encourages you to release your hands through impact at precisely the right time.
Chips, pitches, and bunker shots can resuscitate a round. But you need to execute the shot properly for that to happen. Keeping our golf tips in mind when you have one of these shots will help you do that.