Golf Tips: Understanding your Surroundings When Chipping

Being from (and still residing in) the Pacific Northwest, most of the courses that I come across have trees on them. It’s pretty common for most courses to have trees somewhere on the course, and a lot of them even have them around the green.

We start with this one for golf tips as its the one that makes you change your shot the most. A lot of players will make the initial mistake of not thinking through their shot. It’s very difficult to hit a wedge when you are underneath or behind a tree.

Making sure to step back and imagine your ball flight is important here. likely, you are going to need to hit a little punch shot to get your ball near or onto the green. Dropping down to a 5-7 iron is the club of choice.

The secondary mistake that gets made here is swinging the club too hard, especially for newer golfers. A 7-iron can easily go 150 yards. If you are hitting one from 30 yards, you need to swing it softly. As you finish up on the range, hit a couple of these shots, so you can get used to the speed. They are effective bump and run shots, and will help you in multiple areas of your game.