- Today we're gonna share with you one tip that's change your chipping forever. - Yes, we're gonna be talking about how aiming to hit the golf ball could be harming your chipping, plus make sure you stay with
us till the end of the video for a very cool giveaway. Hi, we're Piers and Andy
from Me And My Golf. Now, if you're serious about
improving your game this year you need to hit that subscribe button, plus hit the notification bell so you get notified on our latest videos. So Andy, let's get straight into this. Let's hit a chip shot. - Okay, I've got a nice
tight flag here as well at the 12th at the Asbury. - Very nice, little bit of
fortuitous bounce maybe, but that's pretty decent. - Exactly as I planned it there. - Pretty decent. Okay, so look, when we
are seeing someone chip for the first time, the big
question that we ask them is, watch the missing shots and we say, what was your intention on that shot? So, Andy, what was your
intention on that shot? - Well, this may sound strange because a lot of people
sort of don't believe us when we say this, but my intention when I'm playing this
shot is to hit the ground. I'm not trying to hit the golf ball. And this may sound really strange, cause a lot of people
who chip are thinking, well, I need to hit the golf ball. But if your intention is
hitting the golf ball, we're gonna show you how that could be potentially
harming your game, because a lot of the best
players in the world now are focusing on hitting the
ground and using the golf club in a very different way to how it's previously
been taught or coached. - And it will sound strange for you if this is the first
time you're seeing this, but we saw this from a great golf coach, very good on short games, Stan (mumbles), a few years ago when we
did a video with him, Andy, and he was talking about
getting his students to hit the ground, and it was
kind of a light bulb moment for us in that it helped
us with our short game, and it really helped a lot of our clients with their short game as well. And, plus, a lot of the
best players in the world are using this technique. So, Andy, hasn't always been
this way though, has it? Last 30 or 40 years. - It definitely hasn't. - Totally different. - And we coached it as
well, and played like this. We've been told we need to put
the ball back in the stance, and we gotta hit down on the golf ball to play chip shots. Well that can work, but it's maybe not quite
the most consistent way of playing this, because
you need to be so precise, and, if you get it wrong
and you're hitting down, we know that club can
crash into the ground before the golf ball and
the ball could go a yard, or we get a bit nervy then it goes through the back of the green. Again, we've all been
there, we've all done it, and what we're going to show you today is really gonna take away that anxiety and allow you to be more
consistent, even on the bad shots. - So let's just hit one now
with the old style technique, cause we're saying that
this obviously can work, but, as Andy says, you got to be precise. - So you'll see here,
ball back in the stance, shaft forward, I'm gonna try and hit down on the back of the ball here. - And it wasn't too bad, hit
it a little bit hard maybe, but it's pretty good. It went low, had a bit of check on it. - Exactly. - That's not bad. - So you can see how low that went, but a lot of interaction with the ground, the club almost sort of dug in the ground, but that was okay cause
I got the ball first. If I had got the ground first, I'm dead. - You are dead, you are dead. Now look, there's gonna be
some people watching this, as I said earlier, for
the first time going, are you two nut cases? What are you going on about, hit the ground and not the ball? But why is it so good to hit the ground? - Well, first of all,
it just frees up any, I suppose anxiety or tension, but the key thing is how we do this and this is what the best players in the world are doing now. What they'll do is they'll
get the club returning to a more neutral position, the shaft. So it's not excessively leaning forward, because as soon as we
lean the shaft forward we expose the leading edge, and then the leading edge wants to dig. So, what we're actually going to do is utilize the bounce of the club, so when we hit the ground
the club actually glides, collects to golf ball, and
you can even hit the ground a little bit early, it still glides and you still make a nice contact. Where if you hit the
ground early with the shaft that's like this, it's dead. So really, the key thing to all this is how we return the shaft and
utilize the bounce at impact, and there's lots of different ways. I will do it different
to Piers, you got Tiger, you got Jason Day, Steve Stricker, a few examples we're gonna go through, all do it very different,
but they use the bounce angle of a club in a similar way. - What I like there is
you mentioned anxiety. Now, if anyone's ever had
the yips with chipping, you're scared of hitting the ground. Well, you're gonna be
scared of hitting the ground if the clubs coming in
like this. - I've had it. - We've all had it. If the clubs coming in like this, you're going to be scared
of hitting the ground, so this is really good because it can alleviate that anxiety, and if we have got someone
who's got the yips, the first thing we want them
to do is get comfortable with hitting the ground. Now, you mentioned some
great players there, Andy. Let's just go through about
how they would do this. - Okay, well let's go
through two different styles. So we got Jason Day and Steve Stricker who are very much passive
wrist, body orientated. Let's sort of take a look at what they do. So, in their sort of set up here, very neutral in their set up, no excessive sort of tilts or shaft lean, but how they will use the club is they will very much govern
the motion with their body. So you'll see here, everything is very much working together, and it's heavily driven by the body, the shoulders, the hips,
everything together. And this really enables
them to use the bounce, and they control their
distance by doing this. - There seems to be a lot
less moving parts almost when that's happening. - Yeah, a lot less moving
parts, which is fine. Let me play a shot and just
show you what that looks like. Little higher you can see. And just short. Hit the flag. So a little higher in loft there, cause we can see now,
use the soul of the club to glide underneath that golf ball. So, that is one way, and I'm still there, returning the club back
to a more neutral position to enable me to do that. Now then, you take a look
at somebody like Tiger Woods or Brett Rumford, who, Brett Rumford, if you've not heard of
him, is an amazing player but he's got an incredible short game, probably one of the best in the world. And what they do differently, is they aren't necessarily
governed just by their body, they create a little bit
more set on the way back and more of a release. So, they'll use a little bit
of wrists on the way back. Now, if I just drive with the body here, I'm creating too much lean with the shaft. So, what they do is they
will have a bit more wrists, but the key thing to get the club back to a neutral shaft is not
to release the angles. So the body is a little quieter, and there's a bit more independent motion with the club head and a
release of the club head. So, little bit of wrists
involved, which is fine, but really the key thing
is understanding which one you're gonna be, and experimenting to find do you need wrists, or do you need body? But if you use your wrists, then you need to have a
bit more of a release. - Let's have go at the
Rumford, Wood's method. - Okay, so you'll see here
lot quieter with the body. Gonna really feel
(mumbles) set the wrists. Little hard on that one, and, again, we have to remember that if I'm bringing the
wrists in that's a speed, and you can see there, because
I'd created some wrists there that's increased the speed there. So, again, it takes a
little bit of working out, but the key thing is what's gonna be most consistent for you. - Yeah, and you can see when you're hitting all
of those shots there, the only one where you've dug
the ground up a little bit, obviously, was the
forward shaft leaning one. So you can see the interaction
on the ground is pretty good. Okay, so look, again, for
all the viewers at home, what about drills? Well, we got some drills that we can.... - Okay, well the first
thing is the intention. So, I want you guys at
home to, first of all, change the way you think. Your focus is going to be grand. So, I'm gonna put a tee peg
either side of the golf ball, and we're gonna put it, imagine
a line between these two tee pegs, and I'm gonna
give myself two inches between where the ball
would be and that line. Now, my focus when I'm
hitting these shots now is to allow the club to actually land in between the tees and ball. This is strange now. The key thing when you do this, if you do this like this
with the shaft forward and you hit that ground, again, dangerous. So, it's gonna train you to
actually try and hit the ground, and you can see every
time I'm doing this now, my focus is to brush the grass, and if I'm doing that
with a good bounce angle it's a huge, huge difference. And I don't feel like
I've got that pressure to be so precise, and I don't
get sort of jerky on it. - And it just makes so much
sense to us, and I think, again, they'll be some resistance from yourself, but, guess what, when you get past that, they'll actually be less
resistance literally in the ground when you're swinging the club through it. - I really just tried to
hit that ground first, that was my natural stroke, which, for me, is, I'd say somewhere in
between the two swings. I like to use a little bit
of wrist to create some feel. - Now, I'm gonna get in
here, I can't get too close, obviously, but I was watching where you hit the ground there, you hit the ground
level with the tee pegs, and the ball is an inch
and half past those? - Exactly, yeah. - Unbelievable. - Exactly. So, let's go through a couple of drills that's gonna help you sort of feel where we should be through the golf ball. So, first one is get the
golf club, choke it down, I want you to feel you get in your set up, so you're arms are sort
of naturally hanging down, and you're gonna jab it
just in the left hip. Okay, so it's just lightly touching there. Now, from here, you're
gonna do a backswing, whether it's passive with the wrists, or whether it's a little bit more wrist-y, the key thing is here now,
as I swing down to impact, I want to return the butt end of the club back into that same spot, back
into where the left hip is. So, as I do this, and swing through, I've got the release of the club, or I've just got the release of the body. So, the beauty of this is,
whether you have the wrists or whether you don't have the wrists, it enables us to actually get the club back into that position,
where the shaft is neutral, and it allows us to use the bounce. - So, whatever style of
backswing and downswing you have, this is the same, isn't it? - Exactly. - It still works really well. - So, you'll see I'm having
the same feeling here, now you'll see the butt of
the club is still pointing in that lead hip, now I'll
do my swing again here, and just sort of hold that finish. Again, intention is to hit the ground. And you'll see I finished there with the butt of the club sort
of pointing at the hip there. Again, strike wise, little
ground first on that one. That's fine. The margin for error when you do this is gonna be so much more. - Would you say, and I
wanna ask you the question because it's come up short, would you say you under hit that one, or maybe was it a little too heavy? - Maybe a little too heavy, but even that was still a good shot. - Better than there, isn't it? - Definitely better than there. - Cause with the old technique,
if you're little bit heavy, you're just literally in front of you. - I've been there before as well, I don't want to be there again. Okay, so the next drill is,
really simple on this one, this is gonna get the arms
and the body working together. Got this from James Ridgeyard,
a great short game coach. So in your set up, you're
gonna go right hand only and, from here, all you're
gonna keep the connection with your trail arm to your body. Now, from here, what we
want to do is swing back and through, and just
maintain that connection as we swing through. What we don't want to do
is get the arms pushing too much away from the body, cause that can cause us
to get the leading edge and get the club head moving
away from the body too much. So it really helps us use the bounce and use the body in a great way, and sort of brush that
ground at the right spot. You'll see here, the shaft
is almost releasing past me a little bit. - And, again, this is a
very passive one as well. There's not a lot going
on with his wrists, he's just literally turning the body. Pretty good. - Little hard on that one, but
really nice contact on there, little bit of ball and
ground together there, which was nice. - It's amazing how good
you can get at that drill. You're thinking, you're chipping
one handed, that's crazy. But you can actually
get quite good at that. - And these are just
designed to give you feels. All these drills are
literally feels for you to go, what does that feel different to me, or, if you do this drill and then you feel that you're doing more of this, it highlights where you're tendencies and your techniques goes. So, they're all feels that
you can then take to the shot, that you can go, okay, I feel
this right arm connected now, or the butt of the club
pointing towards the hip, all designed to give you a better feel. - Yeah, I think the key
for us really with this is that once you have
this different intention, if you can then say I'm gonna
have some practice swings brushing the grass, then simply replicate
that on the golf ball, you'll probably find you'll
get some consistent results, no matter where you hit the ground. - The bad ones are always gonna
be better doing it this way, then when you actually
lean the shaft forward and getting the digging
action, which we don't want. - Okay, so hitting the
ground before the ball, who'd have thought it? Right, we also said there was gonna be a pretty cool giveaway. So, how would you like
to win a Taylor Made, Milled Grind 2 Wedge? Well, guess what, you can. All you need to do to
enter the competition is you must be a subscriber,
you must hit the like button, and then, from there, you
have to leave a comment. So, that's what you have to do to win one of these beautiful wedges. - Yeah, get involved, guys. Leave a comment down below,
and we'll chose the winner as soon as we can. Now, if you wanna have more
couching from myself and Piers, look, the season is under
way, we wanna help you play the best golf you can this year, then head over to meandmygolf.com, we created this website just for you, where we got loads of
specific coaching plans that will help you reach your goals. We got a putting one that's
coming out very soon, which is gonna blow you away. So, make sure you head
over there, click the link down in the description,
and we'll see you soon.
