chipping & pitching

chipping and pitching.....I have made the commitment to myself to develop a routine and learn to play these shots around the green with more confidence and skill by next memorial day. there's an event called the Jess Sweetser at the Biltmore Forest Club in Asheville where you really need these shots to be able to play and compete. I thought it would be helpful to review my journey and include some of the journal entries I have recorded over the years. 

the fundamentals for playing this shot are fairly simple and if you watch someone who plays these shots well it looks so easy...but if you have flaws in your chipping stroke which makes it hard to contact the ball solidly with a sameness of trajectory then these simple shots become a problem

if your fundamentals are good then all you are doing is feeling the shot in terms of how far the ball will fly and how far it will run out determined by the trajectory.....but if you are worried about contact then you are thinking how to move and swing and most of your touch and feel goes out the window.

there are also two fundamental aspects of these shorts shots which are counterintuitive

1. the club must be descending or swinging down when it contacts the ball for the ball to fly up and reach it's proper height

2. this downward swing can not include a "hitting" motion with your hands. well it can but as you lose the feel and touch in your hands this can be problematic