Tom Watson Shows How To Handle Your Chip Shots | Golf Tips | Golf Digest

PGA Tour golfer Tom Watson shows Golf Digest two ways to play any type of short-game chip shot.

Transcript
In this tip, I'm going to show you an easy way
to control the trajectory of your ball,
and it has to do with the left hand grip.
Well I'm gonna chip this two different ways
with two different left hand positions on the club.
The first position is going to be what I call
a weak position where the left hand instead of being
in this position right here, I'm gonna take the left hand
and move it to the left and put the left thumb down
the middle, put the right hand over a little bit.
This is gonna create extra loft and impact
making the ball go higher.
Put the ball a little bit farther forward,
weaken your left hand grip, make sure that, again,
you still have that little hip slide right here.
And this is what happens.
Left hand right down the top.
Ball goes up in the air.
Now, what happens if you wanted to hit the ball
with the ball rolling more, especially, this is a good shot
for into the wind.
What I do, instead of weakening the left hand grip on here,
what I'll do, I'll strengthen it even more.
I'll look down here and I'll see, maybe, almost three
knuckles like this.
And then, instead of playing the ball slightly forward
in my stance, I will play it a little bit farther back
to my stance, again, making sure that I have a little slide
here with my hips, like this.
This takes the loft off the golf club,
but watch it roll now.
The trajectory was much lower,
the ball rolled, that's a great running shot for,
especially into the wind, but anytime you want the ball
to get on the green and run.


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Tom Watson Shows How To Handle Your Chip Shots | Golf Tips | Golf Digest

[andrewscolaro]

Tom is giving us his knowledge. Listen closely, he is a legend.

[method]

this is great. Especially strengthening the grip to bump & run. I will use this with my 56 tomorrow as I've been struggling with low shots with it

[christinapankey]

First time I've ever heard or seen that and I've watched a ton that makes it simple

[rigoflores]

Followed him during his round @ a First Tee event in Carmel. His short game special. Golf Legend!

[jamesklapetzky]

Thanks for the tip Tom! I have been trying to get yhe ball close to the hole/ pin when chipping but end up either topping or leaving the ball way short.

[AlonsoRules]

the hand positions also apply to the full swing

[windellmcspindell]

I listen to anything Tom Watson has to say about the golf swing.

[TheNYgolfer]

Stupid question. Wouldn't it be easier, and more repeatable, if you kept the same grip and ball position for all normal chips and/or pitch shots and varied the trajectory using different lofted clubs?

[iamtherealjin]

So is it the grip or the ball position change the trajectory? or the ix of the two ?

[RobertJohanssonRBImGuy]

If he had done this himself he would have won British Open.
Now he pitched to far and then lost it.
so, yea not so easy