Improve your chipping touch with the gong drill

GM Top 25 coach Peter Finch explains how using a frying pan as a gong at your landing spot can really help you improve your chipping touch

In this latest addition to Golf Monthly's comprehensive short game video tip library, I'll be showing you how a frying pan can help you improve your chipping feel!

A frying pan may sound an unusual golf practice prop, but allow me to explain how this great frying pan-based little chipping feel drill will help you improve your chipping touch and find your landing spot more consistently.

You’ll need a green, some balls, your preferred chipping wedge… and, of course, that frying pan! Put them altogether and you have ‘The Gong Shot Drill’ – perhaps best practised on the chipping green rather than out on the course where you may get some strange stares.

Put the pan down at the point where you think you’re going to have to pitch the ball to get it to roll up to the flag, propping the handle up using a tee so the base of the pan is angled towards you.

The idea is that you then chip the balls and get them to land on the frying pan so that you hear a nice resonating sound when you achieve your goal. That way, you can then feed that back into your emotional response to success and say, ‘Yes, that’s the sound I want to hear. That’s what I like!’

Your mind will then register that sound as the result of a good shot, so when you’re next facing a similar shot for real, you can focus on something on the green, imagine it being that frying pan and trust your touch to land it at that point, from where it will hopefully then roll out and end up close… or perhaps even go in!

Key reminders...

1. Work out where

Use the knowledge gained from  to work out where your ball will need to land for the chip shot you have selected.

2. Prop it up

Prop the pan up facing towards you at this point using a tee peg as you want to hear a resonating sound at impact that reinforces success.

3. Find the feel

Now find the feel and flight required to land your ball on the frying pan and create a gong-like sound that registers an audible dimension to success for future recall.