How To Play The Spinning Chip Shot

Advice from Golf Monthly's Top 50 Coach - Trey Niven

Transcript

00:00So the spinning chip shot from 20 yards, this is a shot that a lot of people crave to hit.

00:05We're going to talk about how to do it, a couple of things that we're going to talk about in the

00:09motion and also give you a drill to help you play the shot a bit better. So firstly let's talk about

00:14how we create spin. Now we've got a shot here with 20 yards with a bit of a flat part up near

00:20the green. It can be a good idea for us to land it on that flat part and get the ball stopping

00:24with a bit of spin. So firstly how do we create spin? Spin loft is a term that we use when we

00:30reference the difference between the dynamic loft, so the loft that we produce at impact

00:35and also the angle of attack or the angle of descent or ascend into the ball. If we separate

00:42these two that's when we create and we can increase the spin loft and that number there is going to

00:48really benefit us when we're trying to produce some spin. Now a couple of things that I typically see

00:53when people are around the greens and they're trying to create spin they really think that

00:57they have to hit down so the ball position goes back in the stance, they lean forwards and they

01:02get this stabby motion here and that's when the lead and edge can really dig into the ground

01:07and the ball will then launch higher up the face. This probably isn't a good idea when we want to

01:12produce spin, we want to try and get that strike right down the bottom of the golf club and also what

01:18I see is that people really deal off that golf club so they get their hands leading forwards

01:23and that really takes all the loft off the golf club. Remember we want to separate the angle of

01:28attack from the dynamic loft so we want to try and produce some speed and some loft at this golf ball

01:34so the setup is a really key part to that so when we're taking our setup here really good idea let's

01:40get the ball position right in the middle of the stance we're going to keep a very neutral shaft

01:45position here we're not going to try and lean it too far forwards and then if we talk a little bit

01:50about the motion now the motion we want to produce is almost like you're lighting a match on the way

01:56through if I drag the club slowly we don't create much friction we want to speed the club up and

02:03really keep our pivot going through the ball that's going to really help us produce some speed which is

02:09going to help us produce some spin so let's talk a little bit more more about playing it now so I'm set

02:14up balls right in the middle I've got some loft on the club the handle's back and I'm really going to

02:19try and see if I can control where the golf club is striking that ground let's see if we can get this

02:27one back pivot stop you see that launch a little bit far there but we saw a little bit of grab at the

02:36end and we can see when we look at the ground there there's no divot so I'm really controlling

02:41where the bottom of my arc is in this golf swing we've got one really good drill to help you do this

02:47if you take one tee peg and you can pop a ball on the tee peg here and now what we're trying to do

02:55with this drill now we're trying to clip the ball off the tee peg without actually moving the tee peg

03:02if we get players with a ball back hitting down you can see the tee peg's moved and the golf ball

03:07hasn't moved very far what we're trying to produce is a golf ball that comes off that tee peg

03:14but the tee peg's still in the ground let's see if we can control this one now so same setup feet

03:19close together a little bit of weight left very neutral shaft and we're going to try and see if

03:25we can clip that ball there so tee peg kind of flitted around the ground there but what I really did

03:33there to strike that ball well and get a decent result was control the lowest point so where that

03:39golf club was at the bottom of the arc keep that body turning make sure you've got the strike make

03:45sure you've got the speed and you'll hit great golf shots just like that