Where to Land Your Chip Shot

Once you get comfortable with your golf chip shot technique, you will want to work on where you want to land your shot on the green. Many players are of the opinion that it is better to get the ball on the green quickly, rolling it out like a put. This isn't a bad approach to chipping, because you want to get the ball rolling as long as possible, however, what if you don't hit the ball hard enough?

You certainly do not want to chip yourself into another chip shot, which is what can happen if you try to force a ball to get down too quickly. When you are short of the green and trying to land just onto the putting surface, you risk hitting the fringe (or worse), where it is much harder to predict how the ball is going to react.

What this tells you is that you should leave yourself a decent margin of error. Typically I am shooting for between one and three feet beyond the precise spot I think is ideal. For shorter shots one foot should be enough, but if your chip is 50 feet or more you should widen that margin of error to give yourself some extra room to work with. Better to land it a little past the hole and leave it short for another low percentage chip attempt.

What is the advantage to landing your chip on the green? The ball reacts much more consistently when it hits the green compared to off the green. The greens get watered every day, are cut the same length on every hole, and are typically the best maintained areas of the course.

When you reach a point where you feel you are little more advanced at chipping you will want to look at how level your landing area is. When you are landing on a level surface you will get a predictable bounce. This isn't always possible, however, because some greens do have elevation variations.

If there is a hump in the area you are trying to land you ball in you will want to try to carry the ball further. Humps are terrible for distance control. If you hit the ball a little short the uphill slope kills your bounce and you end up short. If you carry the ball too far, the downhill slop will exaggerate the roll and carry your ball further past the hole.

A dip in the green should help you control your distance better. When you hit the chip too short the downhill part of the dip will give you some extra momentum to reach the hole. If you strike your chip too hard, that uphill part of the dip should take the extra force off of your shot.

Now that you know the ideal places on the green to land your shots, make sure your technique is flawless by studying our golf chipping tips.

If you are new to golfing or just looking for some golf chipping tips to trim some strokes off of your game, be sure to read more of our articles on mastering the chip shot. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jamie_Faidley