Have you ever stopped to notice just how great professional golfers are able to chip the ball?
Their ability to get their ball close to the hole is perhaps the greatest difference between those who survive a professional career, and those who don’t.
I see countless players with beautiful golf swings on the practice range, yet the beauty of their swing doesn’t follow them over to the chipping green. The chipping motion becomes fast and tight, and it’s clear that something needs to change.
My suggestion for those of you who fall into this category is to try chipping with a hybrid.
Having a good short game doesn’t require that you pitch the ball high into the air and land it softly next to the hole. Instead, it simply requires that you learn how to stop your ball next to the hole, regardless of how you do it.
When using a hybrid around the green, you aren’t doing much more than putting the ball towards the hole. A hybrid has just enough loft on it to produce topspin on the golf ball, and this can be a much easier way for many of you to get your ball close to the hole.
But when should you use it?
Most golf courses you play have fairways that extend all the way to the putting green.
Off to the sides, of course, is typically sand and thicker grass, but the middle is genuinely short grass. When your ball is in this short grass, it’s a wonderful time to try out this hybrid putt.
Simply set up to your golf ball as you would for a putt, and you chip the ball forward. Your ball will stay low to the ground, and the result will be much more consistent than it would be for a regular chip.
One of my favorite sayings in golf is “the scorecard doesn’t have pictures.” This means that you need to focus on making the lowest score possible on each hole, regardless of how it’s done.
The same thing can be said for chipping. Using your hybrid may not seem like the conventional way of doing it, but you will be rewarded with much more consistency over time.
