Pop Culture Piece

How to successfully ruin every single chip shot in a round of golf

My drive was tremendous; perfectly straight, at least 200 yards, twenty yards from the hole, and only ten yards from the green. I grabbed the lob wedge and studied the terrain. I got in my stance and tried to just swing and let the club do the work, but the outcome wasn’t pretty. The ball soared on the ground, bounced twice on the green, and deep into the woods beyond it.

Chipping: It looks easy, sounds easy, but it’s certainly my worst skill in all of sports. Everything could be going superb, and then the chip shot comes along. As I reach for that club with a P, or some random degree number, I’m already disappointed. After the shot, disappointment usually evolves into frustration. As many of you probably know, golfing and frustration never go too well together.

Now it makes sense that if someone keeps practicing the same way to chip shots, they will eventually succeed. But without the patience, time, or even the money, I have completely refused to attempt this method. So I turned too advice and tried to get as much as possible.

When I finally decided to give up on finding the ball in the woods, and take a drop, another chip shot lay ahead of me. “Keep your arms straight…” my friend yells from the green. I take my swing, my arms as stiff as possible, and the ball moves about 2 feet. Maybe I just didn’t get under it I thought and I immediately swung again. This time the ball soared high in the air and for a second I thought it was a great shot, but not in this world. Again, I was right where I took my first chip, twenty yards from the hole, and ten from the green.

I could avoid the chip shot as much as possible, but on the fourth hole I was at it again. This time, even shorter, as I carefully counted the yardage: two from the green, eleven from the hole. “Open your stance this time man. That’s all I do,” the best golfer in our group advised me. His ball had dramatically placed itself a foot from the cup, after a perfect back-spinning chip. All I wanted to do was put it on the green, and tried his idea.

The ball merely dribbled two feet and I immediately began continuously smashing the pitching wedge into the ground. Through out the rest of the round, I heard sayings like “just chip it like it was soccer”, or “swing harder”, and when I did, “don’t swing as hard”. By the end of the eighteen holes, I had roughly taken a total of fifteen chip shots, and miraculously one had turned out right – I would even par the whole.

Why can’t I just imitate what I did on that shot, well I couldn’t tell you what I did. It was the last hole of the day, and I patience and confidence had been not just thrown out the window, but burned to a crisp. I just swung my club and the ball took the perfect bounce and somehow rolled in.

I guess chipping comes down to an art like a soft touch in basketball, or throwing a curveball in baseball. No matter how many times it tries be taught, everyone has to learn within themselves the technique to success. Unfortunately, by the time I get good at chipping, my putting skills will probably have disappeared.