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Chipping Drills for Beginners | Best Short Game Practice Chipping Tips and Beginner Golf Drills and Instruction

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Increased club head speed, ball speed, maximum distance, long drive competitions, and Bryson DeChambeau have become the rage in the golf world. But no matter how expensive your new driver and how far you hit the ball, if you want to shoot the best scores of your life, stop trying to blast the ball to the moon and practice on these specific chipping drills for beginners.

Suppose you have two golfers on the tee; one is a scratch golfer, and the other is a mid-handicapped player, but you don’t know which is which. Both tee off and hit the ball nearly equal distance down the fairway. The one dead giveaway comes on the play around the green. Nearly every time, the scratch player will get up and down much more frequently. Or perhaps you should ask yourself: Should I get golf lessons?

Dont know much about handicaps? Learn how to calculate your golf handicap here. 

Practicing chipping isn’t glamorous and exciting; after all, you don’t see chipping competitions on any media channel, but the long drive competition is always televised. However, excellent chipping will save strokes around the green, give you more gimmies for pars, and more realistic chances at birdies on par 5s. Learn more about how golf bounce is explained here. 

If you put in the effort around the green, you’ll eliminate the chunks or sculls and start playing your best golf. There are many golf accessories to help with your golf chipping practice. Once you get more serious, you can look at the SM8 vs SM9 Vokey golf wedges to help improve your game. 

Interested in the best golf accessories to improve your golf game? 

3-way Beginner Chipping Drills

Start by doing some of these golf exercises at home to get you flexible and ready for the chipping drills. 

The Y shape chipping drill

The Y shape is one of the best beginner golf drills. The idea behind the drill is simple. When practicing the chip shots, concentrate on maintaining a “y” shape with your arms and the club’s shaft if you were looking at yourself straight on. You can have someone take a video of you from this angle to see if you maintain the “y” throughout the shot.

chipping drills for beginners - y method

Weight on the front foot

As you can see from the pictures above. This is one of the best chipping drills for beginners. Keep about two-thirds of your weight on your front leg and focus on keeping the shape, letting the shoulders do the work. If performed correctly, your arms and wrists will remain quiet. By doing so, there will be a downward ascent on the ball, allowing the club to do the work to get the ball in flight.

Short shots around green

This drill is ideal for short shots around the green and will create a more distance-controlled chip shot. This will teach you how to use the bounce on the golf club. Don’t know what that is? Learn how to use the wedge bounce explained here.

Back Hand Focus Chipping Drills

Don’t get the yips or blades

Having the “yips” is a common and terrifying problem around and on the green. Chipping “yips” are typically caused by the front hand stopping before contact with the ball and the backhand flipping the club, trying to get the ball airborne. The idea is always to allow the club to do the work.

chipping drills for beginners setup
chipping drills for beginners - backhand follow through

Work on chipping stance

First, take your normal stance for chipping, which includes a narrow stance, ball off the back foot, and about two-thirds of your weight on your front foot.

Next, during your normal chipping stroke, be sure you remove your front hand from the grip prior to taking your golf swing. Place your front hand on your back shoulder.

Concentrate on keeping the back arm swinging towards the target through the impact zone. Make sure that you follow through with your trailing arm.

Train your front chipping hand not to flip

This drill is perfect for players that skull shots or have the yips. The drill trains your body to NOT flip the trailing hand through impact, but rather getting through the impact zone. 

***You can also swap hands and use your leading arm to pull the clubhead through the zone***

10-yard increase chipping drill for golf

chipping drills for beginners distances for chipping image

100 Yards and in golf practice chipping drills

This is one of the best chipping drills for beginners I can give you. Practicing 100 yards in is the best advice I was ever given.

The average golfer weekend player may fail to consider that nearly 70 percent of all shots hit in a round are from about 100 yards on in. Yet if you go to the range, most shots are pounded with the driver.

Common sense should tell us that we should spend more time practicing shots from just off the green out to the 100-yard range. By mastering those shots, your scores will improve. One drill that can work wonders is the “ten by ten” drill.

Improve you chipping – Place yardage markers every 10 yards

First, use this short game drill to greatly improve your game. Find some yardage markers of your choosing and place them at 10-yard increments up to 100 yards. The idea now is to practice carrying your shots the exact distances or as close as you can to each 10-yard marker. Keep a mental note or jot on paper what kind of swing and club consistently produced each distance.

Slowly increase the chipping club’s swing speed

For example, perhaps you noticed that using your 56-degree wedge with the ball back in the stance and about two-thirds of the weight on your front foot with a 20 percent swing resulted in a 10-yard chip shot. Increasing the swing to about 40 percent resulted in a 25-yard chip shot. Of course, the actual percentage isn’t really known, but the estimates used will allow you to gauge in your mind what level of swing and club you need for each shot. Which leads us to another question: how hard should you swing the golf club

FUN FACT: Bryson DeChambeau will swing speed train even with his chipping irons.

Practice chipping with different clubs

This is most of the most secret chipping drills for beginners. You will have all different kinds of golf shots on the course. NO PGA professional golfer hits 100% of greens or fairways. You aren’t confined to just your wedges when it comes to “chip shots.” Maybe you find that you prefer your gap wedge from 10 yards and a 7 iron from a 20-yard uphill shot. For longer shots, keeping the stroke the same length, you may need a 9-iron from 35 yards, an 8-iron from 50 yards, and a 7-iron from 60 yards. The ball flight will be lower, and the ball will roll more as you take more club.

Find out the different types of golf clubs and when it’s best to hit each one

Chipping Practice and Patience 

My favorite chipping drill for beginners is the 10-yard increment shots. However, consistently hitting shots in 10-yard increments and then determining what club and the approximate percent of the swing can be a very time-consuming process, and probably not very fun, but is one of the best chipping drills you can do. 

My advice is to hang in there and grind through it! In the end, it’s worth it when you see shots closer to the hole resulting in lower scores and closer to even par. Find out what does E mean in golf here. 

Small circle Chipping Drills

Best short game chipping drill for beginners

The hula hoop drill short game drill can be done anywhere, so long as you have up to 40 yards of free space. The idea is to consistently get your ball within a hula hoop distance from your target. If you can consistently get yourself within three feet of the hole (the diameter of a standard hula hoop), then you should get up and down most of the time.

Check out our best golf accessories here!

Best At Home Chipping Drill for beginners

If you don’t have a hula hoop, you can make a circle of similar size with a string or even draw it with some chalk. Set up different types of golf balls starting from five yards away from the hoop and increasing to around 40 yards. You are beginning with the balls closest to the hoop.

They make a chipping net that you can also purchase for probably the same price a hula hoop.

Then, you chip with the intent of landing the ball inside the hoop or circle. Once you’ve hit a successful chip, move back five yards. The idea is to need only one chip from each location. If you miss any chips along the way, return to the five-yard shot and start again.

Practice chipping drills makes perfect

It is unlikely that you’ll succeed with all the shots on your first try. Keep a note on how far away from the hoop you can go before going back to the beginning. Eventually, you will hit all shots successfully, translating to reduced pressure hitting those shots on the course. This will increase the percentage of successful shots, lowering scores.

Pair this with the best indoor putting greens, and you will have no excuse to practice indoors!

Chipping practice at home

During inclement weather or a harsh, cold winter, many players are hindered in the amount of practice they get. However, you can do the chip-a-coin drill right inside your home. You can also check our our post on tips for playing golf in the winter!

The challenge of chipping a coin is real, but successfully doing so will train you to make more solid contact with chips. In addition, if you can chip a coin, a much larger object like a golf ball will seem infinitely easier to chip.

Carpet works best

The at home chipping drill forces you to stay down through the entire shot and creates precision with the wedges. All you need is some coins, preferably an old carpet or practice putting a green type of surface.

Place the coins on the surface and simply try to make crisp contact, sending the coin airborne. Once you get more confidence chipping coins, set a cup or bowl some distance from the coins and try to chip them into it.

Practice chipping at home using older clubs

You must note that if you perform this drill often, the metal from the coins can create small dents into the club, so ideally, this should be performed with an older wedge.

Make it a point to warm up chipping

If you only have a few minutes to warm on, only warm-up chipping

This is the best chipping drills for beginners. This is more of a piece of advice rather than a drill, but it is probably the most important. Try to use some golf alignment sticks to help you. Learn more about how to use golf alignment sticks here. 

Don’t bypass the practice area, whether you are teeing it up in a tournament or arriving at the course for your weekend round with your buddies. While you may be tempted to loosen up by hitting some irons or drives at the range, be sure to time to hit a few chips and pitches.

Get to course early!

Give yourself enough time to stay at this practice area until you successfully hit some chips from various distances and lies. This will enable you to gradually loosen the muscles and help increase confidence on the course that you will be able to make solid contact and your chips.

Check out Rory’s pre-routine warm-up shots. 

Long Bombs Golf Final Say:

Don’t forget that the vast majority of golf is played from around 100 yards and in. Therefore, focusing on the short game is essential for improving your game and striving to get to even par. Be sure to spend a quality amount of time practicing, around an hour or more per week. Focus on these chipping drills for beginners and you will be guaranteed to lower your score. 

If you miss the green and are a good chipper, you first feel less pressure on the long shots to stick them on the green, and second, you have the confidence to make up for a missed shot. In addition, there is less pressure on the short stick because you’ll leave yourself with much shorter putts.

Constant double and triple bogeys result from dreadful work around the green. Working on your chipping can turn those dreaded scores into more pars and even birdies. Find out how much are golf lessons here. 

Everything worth having is worth working for, including lower scores on the course. What are you waiting for? Get your wedge and some balls, and start practicing your chipping today!

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