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Contact

Symptom

I can't judge how far a chip will carry and roll

The strike is acceptable, but chips land somewhere other than planned and finish a different distance every time, often running well past the hole.

This usually traces to something already true before the club moves: grip, aim, posture, or where the ball sits in your stance. All of those are checkable standing still, which is why the questions ask you to look rather than to guess.

Common ways golfers describe this

  • Which club should I chip with?
  • I don't know how hard to hit my chips
  • No feel for chip distance
  • Where do I land a chip shot?
  • Landing spot for chipping
Feet, hips and shoulders all square, seen from aboveA golfer at address seen from directly above, with the target at the top of the picture and the golfer standing to the left of the ball. A dashed line runs from the ball straight up the page to a pin: the target line. Three lines cross the body, drawn one behind another. The nearest to the ball runs through two footprints and is the feet, square to the target line. The middle line, dashed with a cross tick at each end, is the hips, square to the target line. The furthest line, dash-and-dot with an open circle at each end, is the shoulders, square to the target line. The figure moves. The three lines are laid down one at a time in the order a golfer checks them, feet first, then hips, then shoulders, and each arrives square to the target line before turning to the aim it is drawn at. A line that is aimed off the target is therefore seen turning away from square rather than only being reported as off it.
  • Feet, in the footprints: square to the line
  • Hips, cross ticks: square to the line
  • Shoulders, round ends: square to the line
  • Target line
Aim is three lines rather than one, and they can disagree without a golfer feeling it. They are drawn square here, which is the position the questions ask you to check yours against.

Narrow it to one cause

Each question is here because golfers answer it differently, and that difference is what rules a cause out. Nothing is generated while you answer: every question, cause and fix was written and checked in advance.

Start the questions

A few questions · no account needed

What you will be asked

  1. Before you chip, how do you decide what the ball will do?
  2. When a chip misses the distance, which part of it surprised you?
  3. Which lie produces most of the chips that surprise you?
  4. Spray the face with foot powder spray, or use a dry-erase marker, and hit ten chips to the same flag. How do the marks compare?
  5. Set up to your normal chip. Where is the ball in your stance?
  6. Still in that setup, look down the shaft. Where is the grip end of the club?

Where this can come from

These are the causes this symptom resolves to, in the order they turn up most often. That order is not a diagnosis and it is not your answer: two of them can produce a shot that looks identical from behind. Each has a fix you can read now, whether or not you answer anything.

  1. No repeatable setup or routine

    Aim, ball position, stance width and grip get rebuilt slightly differently on every shot, so face angle, low point and strike location all vary with them. Address is the reference the whole swing is measured from, and a reference that moves explains misses that seem to have no pattern.

    Read the fix

  2. Handle pressed too far forward at impact

    Driving the grip end well ahead of the clubhead strips loft off the club and pushes the low point forward, presenting the leading edge to the ball. It is the opposite error to flipping and it is what turns a delicate chip into a skulled one.

    Read the fix

  3. Strike scattered across the face

    Contact lands somewhere different on nearly every swing, so distance and curve change shot to shot even when face and path are reasonable. Centredness is a cause in its own right, and it is measurable in two minutes with face tape.

    Read the fix

  4. Grass or moisture between face and ball

    Anything trapped between face and ball at impact reduces the friction that creates spin. The shot launches higher, carries further than expected and runs on landing. This is a lie problem rather than a swing problem, and no swing change fixes it.

    Read the fix

  5. Ball too far back in the stance

    The ball sits well before the low point, so the club is still descending steeply when it arrives and delivers less loft than the club actually carries. Flight is low and the ball meets the face while the path is still travelling right, which is why a back ball position so often adds a push or a hook.

    Read the fix

  6. Slope changes effective loft and face aim

    Tilted ground changes where the face points once the club is soled, and where the turf sits relative to the bottom of the arc. Ball above the feet aims the face left, ball below the feet aims it right, and up or downslopes add or remove loft before the swing has started.

    Read the fix

Related symptoms

These are not here because they sound similar. Each one can come from a cause on the list above, which is why fixing one sometimes quietly fixes another. The closest matches are first.

What this rests on

If something here contradicts what a launch monitor tells you, say so. Corrections change the page.

Discussion

Golfers who have had this shot, on what it turned out to be and what sorted it. Read it as experience rather than diagnosis: the questions above are what narrow it to a cause.

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