You are simply off the green with a simple one chip shot. The hole is 20 feet away on a flat green. This should be easy. You set up, take the club back, and then, at the last second, your hands curl under the ball, trying to help it into the air. The result? A chip shot that travels three feet or a bladed racquet that flies past the green. You’ve just made the most common slicing mistake.
You are not alone.
The mistake everyone makes
The grip motion feels natural. The ball is sitting on the ground and you need to get it in the air so your instinct tells you to pick it up. Your hands drop behind the clubhead at impact. The leading blade of the club digs into the ground behind the ball or catches the equator and sends it screaming.
Beginners do it. People with disabilities do. Even low-handicap players get back into it under pressure. The grip motion is the default golf setting because it matches what your brain thinks should happen.
Your brain is wrong.
Why your instincts betray you
In most sports, you help the ball go where you want it to go. You lift a basketball toward the hoop. You roll your wrist to make a tennis stroke. Golf is different. The club is designed to do the lifting.
When you take a chip shot, you are fighting the club design. A wedge has 56 to 60 degrees of loft built into it. That loft creates height when you hit the ball. Trying to add more loft by flipping your hands actually reduces the effective loft on the shot because the clubhead is moving up instead of forward.
The other problem is consistency. or scoping the move requires perfect timing. Lose that time for a fraction of a second and you slice or puncture it. Good breaking relies on a repeatable motion that produces consistent contact.
What actually works
It is critical to understand that good chopping is about hitting down, not lifting up. Keep your weight forward. Let your hands guide the clubhead through impact. The ball gets trapped between the descending club face and the ground and then pops up due to loft. You are not creating the height. The club is.
I know it seems completely wrong at first. It goes against everything your instincts tell you. But look at any pro chip and you’ll see. Their hands are in front of the ball at the kick. The club head is moving down and forward. If there is a split, it happens behind the ball, not in front of it.
Technical regulation
Get started with your setup. Put most of your weight on your front foot and keep it there. Your hands should be in front of the ball at address which means the shaft is pointing towards the target.
The movement itself is simple. Your shoulders roll back and through. Your wrists stay relaxed, not locked, but not actively dangling or rolling. The clubhead stays low to the ground on the backswing and follows down after impact.
At impact, your hands are still in front of the ball, the shaft is still bent forward, and your weight is still on your front foot. Hold these positions and the club loft does the work.
What good chippers do differently
Good chippers trust the loft. They choose a club with the right amount of loft for the shot and then make a simple swing that delivers it to the ball. Choice of club determines stroke height, not hand manipulation.
Good players practice a basic move and use it for most chips. The movement remains the same. Club selection and swing length vary based on distance, but the basics remain constant: weight forward, hands forward, swing down.
Good players also commit to movement. Once they start the decline, they believe that the strike will produce the result they want. Hesitation and last-second adjustments cause scooping. Commitment gets in the way.
How to practice fixing
Start with a simple exercise. Place a mallet on the ground two inches in front of your ball. Your goal is to first hit the ball and then wipe the ball. This forces you to hit down through the stroke.
Another exercise: practice chips with your weight entirely on your front leg. Lift your back leg slightly off the ground. Hit a few chips this way, then return to a normal stance. The feeling of forward weight will stay with you.
Best practice is iteration with feedback. Hit the chips and pay attention to where the club contacts the ground. If you are hitting after the ball, you are grabbing. If you’re catching it cleanly or with a bit of ball at first, you’re doing it right.
The simple truth
I understand, believe me, I understand. Your instincts will fight you for this. They will keep whispering that you need to remove it. Ignore them. Because once you start making clean contact, once you see that ball come up with a predictable flight every time, once you can control how far it goes? You will get it. The clubhouse was built to create lofts. You have to trust it enough to let it work.
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