Stop Chunking Your Wedges: Dan Grieve's Short Game Secrets

The dreaded chunked chip shot and I know it's a shot that a lot of you suffer with and really there is no need to suffer with it at all. It's a shot that is really going to hurt your ability to score and it doesn't take long for you to get quite nervous and start worrying about what might happen over the ball. The key reason I see for that is the player is unable to manage the low point and the arc depth but really the low point of the swing is the most important aspect to it. So for a chip and run shot it's really important to make sure that your weight is on your forward side here so you really want to make sure that the ball position is just inside your trail heel there with a little bit of shaft lean, don't go crazy, a little bit of shaft lean there but really make sure that the majority of your weight is through your lead side. So imagine a line that runs through the middle of the foot, through the knee, through the hip, through the shoulder and almost through your left ear. That's what I call your pivot line, I think it's really important in a short game to establish a pivot line and then from there once you've got that set you've got something in which you can rotate around because I see so many golfers setting up for a chip shot with a lot of shoulder tilt, it's great if you're not a driver by the way, a lot of shoulder tilt and most of the weight back on the right hand side, suddenly here the chest bone is way behind the ball and that's why we tend to get those heavy strikes. So let's hit some from that improved set up position. So we go ball position just back, nice narrow stance as well by the way, the wider you stand the more capacity you have to start moving from side to side and again getting those heavy strikes. So ball position, right heel, hands a little forward, weight forward, keep your weight forward there throughout the swing and you can start getting really solid shots like that low flight, a little bit of check and if you're lucky they might go in, not quite, but you can see how controlled that was and it was very much a ball first contact and that's what you're looking for with that chip and run strike, a ball first contact. The other way in which you can really struggle with contact, assuming you've got a good set up position like you just got into there, is if you go to the top of the swing and you can also chunk it with this handle travelling downward for too long. So it can lag and it can pull down into the ground which can then get that lead in there digging and sticking in too much. That's why I talk about how you release the club and how important that release is. So when you start releasing the club, you start opening up through the ball, your spine will lift a little bit and the club will start to flow and the club will start to bruise the turf. So we don't want to feel like we're going downward, we are releasing the club. As the club releases, the body will rotate and it will sort of avoid your body going down into the ground. So you'll see how I'm actually sort of slightly standing up through the shot and you can see I get that really good quality strike every time, no divot at all, it's just bruising the grass and sliding through, makes it so easy to repeat. One more doing that, so I've got the ball positioned inside the right heel, my chest bone is in front, I want to hit a low shot, always a good idea to get the hands nice and high by the way, that pulls you in a little bit closer to the ball and we release through and it slides through really nicely, really easy. I'm using my MG5 56 degree SB 12 degree bounce for that and it feels very easy in terms of how that's sliding through the turf. So that release of the club, very important. Also grip pressure, I can't say how important that is. I've taught so many golfers and I probably don't think I ever remember telling one golfer to grip it tighter, so you're probably gripping a little bit too tight and when you start to grip it lighter, it is amazing how that club starts to flow, starts to release almost on its own and your spin rate will really improve if you start to loosen your grip off ok, so that's really key to do that. In terms of grinds, the Taino 8 MG5 grind, they're all designed to get the club working through the turf in a friendly fashion. The standard bounces, the SB, the SC, the SX, fantastic for working through the turf. I've moved to an SX here, this has got 11 degrees, it's a wider sole and it's got a nice bit of camber on the back here, so I can just know that the club is going to want to work through the turf a little bit easier with this grind. So if you are a golfer that perhaps has been struggling with this a little bit and you don't feel fully confident with what I've just taught you for now, you know you're working through it, then an SX grind is probably going to help you out a little bit more. I've hit that there on purpose around about an inch before the ball just to show you, you can see the contact is absolutely fine and that's what short game is about, it's not always about trying to be perfect, it's about getting an increased margin of error. So there I hit a little before and it kept sliding through because of this wider sole and that's something you can think about as well. So make sure you know your basics, become world class over the ball, chest in front of the ball there and allow the club to flow and release as you rotate to really get those perfect strikes on your chip and run shots.