SIMPLE setup changes to level up your short game

February 9, 2023

Earlier this year we had the pleasure of working with ladies long drive competitor, Sofia Arthur. However for this lesson in particular she asked us to help her with her chipping.

Ahead of making any changes we needed to look at her technique and set up at the beginning of the lesson. As you can see from the image below, Sofia had the ball quite far back in her stance. Having lots of shaft lean contributed to her having a very steep angle of attack when she hit her chips.

We could also see after she hit a few shots, that her backswing was significantly shorter than her follow through swing, and from asking some exploratory questions we found out that this was likely because she was focussing on the idea of getting through the shot.

Because of this set up and follow though, Sofia’s ball flight was considerably lower than we would want for regular chips, making it harder for the ball to stop. So, here are the changes that we suggested she make to improve her technique:

Ball Position: We moved Sofia’s ball position further forward so it was more central between both feet.

Backswing: We suggested that she thought of her chipping swing like a pendulum, however far back she swung is how far through she needed to swing.

Swing thought: Instead of focussing on the length of swing, we got Sofia to focus on feeling like she was brushing the grass with her club. Be sure to check out the full video below to hear my “Airplane analogy” that we also used!

These three small changes helped to contribute to a higher ball flight, allowing her to stop the ball more quickly in situations like this.

Now, this won’t work for every kind of lie, up until now all of these tips have worked on the premise of a good starting lie. So what do you do if you find your ball sat down in the rough? In this case we would recommend something very similar to Sofia’s initial technique.

This is because rough is an unpredictable surface, so you want the club to spend as little time interacting with the grass as possible. So a steep angle of attack where you hit ball first, then grass is preferred.

We also offer another couple of ways we would recommend to chip out of the rough (watch the video below).

If you’ve loved these chipping tips and want more then be sure to check out our Complete Chipping coaching plan.

It covers every aspect of chipping, from the basic technique to how to factor slope into the shot. We even have a section dedicated to speciality shots, so you can really show off in front of your playing partners.

You can watch it via the Me and My Golf app, so be sure to click the button below to get access now.