Improve Your Feel With This Golf Chipping Drill

Distance control around the greens is key if you want to become a great chipper and bail yourself out of trouble when the long game isn't firing. While technique plays a part, most of it comes down to developing good feel.

It can be a difficult thing to learn as it's not something tangible that can be measured but in this video and article, PGA professional John Jacobs shares his thoughts and a simple drill that's sure to help...

Golf Chipping Drill: Get visual

A good place to start is to remove the club, believe it or not. As golfers, we can get too focused on what we want the club to do rather than what the ball needs to do to put us in a position to get up-and-down.

So, when practising, bowl the ball towards your target a few times and see how you get on. You'll probably notice that you aren't worried about what your arms are doing to achieve the desired outcome. Rather, your primary focus is on the main objective.

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It's a great mindset to apply when you're chipping. Once you've done it enough, grab whatever club is right for the shot and visualise what you want the ball to do, letting your brain and natural instincts take over.

Obviously a golf club adds more weight to the equation, but if you can keep your focus on the shot rather than the technique, everything else will start to fall into place.

Distance control is everything in the short game. So, if you’re still struggling to get the right ball speed when chipping, this brilliant clockface drill will help.

Without altering your set-up in any way, practise taking the left arm back to the seven o’clock, eight o’clock and nine o’clock positions, then swinging through from there with the same tempo.

This will show you how far the ball goes with each length of swing, and how you can control everything by letting the weight of the arms and the club just drop back on to the ball from whatever position you’ve chosen.

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You may initially think this is a little too mechanical but, with practise, you'll be able to get to the stage where hitting these positions is second nature. What's more, not only will this drill improve your touch around the greens, but it will also give you three different shots with each club you can add to your arsenal.