Here’s why you’re scratching your potatoes—and how to stop

There are few things more rewarding than stepping onto a chipping green or green hoping to drive the ball closer, only to skull the ball over the green or in serious trouble, such as a deep bunker or penalty area.

Why do these shootings happen? Golf instructor Kelley Brooke has the reason—and better yet, a solution to fixing the problem.

In a video posted on LPGA Professionals YouTube Page (see above), Brooke explained that there are two main reasons why a player might kill the ball.

“The first reason is that their fit isn’t great and their weight shifts too much to the back of the foot,” she says. “They hang on the back foot and hit the ball. Ideally, we would like to hit the ball.

“The second reason is that people also cross the road by hand when they pitch.”

Brooke then offers two solutions to these problems.

“Like I said, we don’t want to be on your back foot when you hit a ball, because you’re going to hit it,” she says. “What we want to do then is make sure our feet are closer together when we throw the pitch and we really want to rotate those knees.”

By rotating the knees, Brooke demonstrates a weight shift at address in which approximately 70 percent of her weight is positioned on her lead foot.

“At that point, I’m going to go ahead and wring my hands,” she says. “On the backswing, I don’t want to shift my weight because if I do, I’m going to bite that ball. We want to stay on the front foot.”

If staying on the front foot is a struggle for you, Brooke has a workout that can help.

“You put your feet very close together and then you’re going to lift your back leg up and put it behind you, so you have no weight on it at this point. It would be almost impossible for you to shift your weight. So , what that’s teaching you is to be on your front foot in the shot.”

From this position, you can hit pitches simply by pivoting around your lead leg, says Brooke.

If your weight shift is sound and you still find yourself hitting the skulls, Brooke says you’re likely using your wrist too much. In this case, a stretching stick is all you need.

“Hold the extension stick on your leading side of the club with both hands,” says Brooke. “Set up, notice the extension stick is outside my rib cage. Take a few 10 yard shots with the extension stick. Try not to hit the rib cage.”

If the extension bar ends up hitting your ribcage, you’ll know that your wrists are engaging when they shouldn’t.

Try Brooke’s solutions during your next practice session and start using fresher chips.

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Editor of Golf.com

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural women’s varsity player class, Jessica can blow away anyone in the masthead. She can also drive them in the office, where she is primarily responsible for producing print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Issue, which debuted in February 2018. Her series The original interview, “A Round With,” debuted in November 2015 and appeared in both magazine and video form on GOLF.com.