The chip shot is usually over-analyzed, causing golfers to freeze up over the ball and second guess themselves or their chipping technique. Remember that the chip shot is simply a short version of the full swing. We swing the club back, then accellerate down and through. Simple, right? Well, it should be, but unfortunately golfers often grip the club too tight due to being too tense or trying to force the issue, resulting in deceleration or flipping at the ball and fat or thin shots.
The following drills will help free up your form so that this shot becomes easier:
Line em' up:
Line up six or seven balls a few feet off the green, about four inches apart. Take the club you usually hit chip shots with (a fifty-four degree wedge for me). Now pick any arbitrary spot on the green, take a good look at it, and tell yourself that that is your general target area. Then, hit each ball towards that target with a VERY light grip, walking down the line and letting the club brush back and forth as you hit each ball. The club should never stop moving and you should not even look at where the balls are going, just keep the eyes down on the balls.
It is important that the clubhead never stop moving. In other words, hit the first ball, allow the clubhead to swing back and brush the grass before stepping slightly forward to hit the next ball. The point of this drill is to: A) give the golfer a feel for letting the club do the work and not forceing or manipulating it and B) keep the golfer's eyes down until after contact. Remember to keep the same light grip pressure throughout the drill (this also helps the golfer to learn to let the clubhead accellerate through the ball and not decellerate).
With a little work, you will usually find that after you have hit all the balls in the line, when you look up all those balls will be in about the same area on the green, providing you contacted them reasonably well.
Left hand only:
Chip balls using just your left hand. This will help you learn to hit the ball on a decending arc, and teach you to be more left hand dominant on chips and pitches (as the right hand/ arm has a tenedency to take over and cause the dreaded flipping motion at the ball).
Grip touching left wrist:
Choke down on your grip so that the hands are on the bottom of the grip (the best method for chip shots incidentally). Angle your wrists so that the hands are ahead of the clubhead (clubhead by your back foot, hands by your front hip. Do this to the point that the top of your grip is touching your left wrist. Now, hit some chip shots and try to keep the grip touching the left wrist throughout the entire stroke. If the grip separates from the wrist, this means that you are 'flipping' at the ball and need to work on getting more 'left hand dominance' in the stroke. You may find that physically wrapping a velcro strap or large rubber band around your grip and left wrist helps.
Think of the shaft of the club as being an extension of the left arm on chip shots.
