As many of my clients know, I have an infinite issue with a certain club that I see in the bag of many a high handicapper.
It is a club that supposedly solves the issues golfers find around the greens, a club that has been designed to alleviate the difficulties faced by many.
The club in question is the CHIPPER.
I am lucky to be blessed with a very good short game, so much so that I have never and will never putt from off the green.
But I have never understood why amateur golfers resort to purchasing a chipper, I mean they are a club that costs little more than 40$, and if they were or are, the must have golf “gadget” then surely they would be commanding a far higher price, the same could be said that if they were to revolutionise your game they would be created by the biggest companies in the game.
My issue is not with the cost or the brand of the clubs, rather more the golfer that has become reliant on such a club.
If we think about it, the chipper is designed to be used as you would a putter, yet has a rounded grip and a shaft angled more like an iron than the club it is supposed to be mimicking.
My issue lies deeper than this, it is a mental lie that users are telling themselves.
They have accepted, wrongly that they cannot chip with a normal iron and it is here that I have my greatest issue.
A chipper is a normal iron, it just has a shape more akin to a putter, but the technique you employ is more closely matched to that of a chip than a putt.
So if you own a chipper, please leave it in the shed, or better still the bin and head down to your local chipping green and chip using your irons.
The set-up, stroke and force that you applied to your “chipper” is exactly the same as you would need to use with any of your irons.
A major difference and a simplification of your short game is that by using each of your irons for chipping, you only need to become proficient with just one swing to achieve various distances and shots.
With a chipper you have to “guess” or judge the length of swing or strength of every single shot, making it harder to become consistent.
Every single golfer that can use a chipper is more than capable of using the irons in their bag to achieve the same results, in fact I would suggest better results.
A chipper is a mental aid that will trick you into believing you are unable to achieve a desired result with an iron.
If you want to improve your game, bin the chipper.
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