Practicing short game without chipping green

[EDT501]

I know that the area of my game with the greatest room for improvement is my chipping and pitching (fringe - 50 yards). Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a chipping green or a good range with grass and real balls. For what it’s worth, I’m familiar with the proper technique and consistently make good, crisp contact, I just don’t have the fine distance control needed to excel around the greens.

 

What can I do to practice these shots?

[SNIPERBBB]

got a yard?

[ScottF]

Your local golf courses don’t have any practice greens you can chip to?  All the courses in my area have practice greens you can use for free. Not all allow chipping but most have at least one.

[EDT501]

I don’t have a yard and the courses near me (<40 minutes) have putting greens that explicitly say no chipping and I don’t want to be the guy who flouts the rules... 

[DShepley]

Do you have a park nearby?  Lay a towel down and hit to it.  It won't be the same as watching a ball check and roll out on the green, but you will be able to work on trajectory carry distance at least.

[DaveLeeNC]

Learning to hit to a target at specific distances can be an extremely useful skill. At one time (when I was doing this regularly) I was the point that, for distances of 20 to 75 yards, I would rather know the distance and not be able to see the target, vs. the other way around. Of course you have to find some space somewhere. And you also need to have a handle on your runout distances for the clubs you use and courses you play. 

 

dave

[Barfolomew]

Practice on the course.....

 

Play late in the day (super twilight) save some money and when there is no one behind you drop a few extra and practice real shots on the course from different spots.  My playing buddy and I do it all the time.  In fact we always say we don't care if the course is slow if there is no one up on us cause we get the practice in,  even let someone play thru so you can practice.

 

Sometimes we do stuff like I'll be on one side of green and buddy on other and we will chip back and forth with things like trying to get as close to fringe as possible without touching it and we'll compete and keep score sometimes to give it the edge

[TIM929]

Play 9 and drop a ball at 100. 

[DShepley]

6 hours ago, TIM929 said:

Play 9 and drop a ball at 100. 

But fix your damn ball marks....

[TIM929]

34 minutes ago, DShepley said:

But fix your damn ball marks....

Always do sir ??

[bluedot]

Tough, but manageable.

 

Everybody in the world who has a really good short game makes a decision about where they need to land the ball to get it to the hole on a chip or pitch, and then focuses on that spot, rather than on the hole alone; the practice swings that they make have that spot in mind, not the hole.  So if you can get to a park or anywhere else where you have even just 20 or 30 yards of space, you can work on hitting a spot with various clubs from different distances that you'd see during an actual round.

 

If you can't do that, then your only other real choice is to do what has already been mentioned; get to the golf course late in the day and play by yourself, with short game practice and experimentation being the goal.  Hit your drive and approach shots, but as you approach the green, hit several pitch shots to a particular spot on the green, and then several chips from spots around the green, again to specific spots on the green.

 

Two other thoughts:

1. The best way to have a good short game for ANY player is to miss in good places; that's even more important for you.  Put a huge emphasis on course management; understand that you are probably going to miss half the greens (+/-) even in a good round, and look more at where you can't afford to miss than at the pin as you plan your approach shot.  Don't short side yourself.  Don't get above the hole.  And so on.  When you watch a Tour event, you'll see holes and pin positions where the best players in the world would rather miss the green in a particular spot (usually short in the fringe) than go for the pin and end up in an impossible situation.  Course management...

2. You might be better off using more than one club for chipping, rather than trying to become a wizard with a sand wedge.  It's typically easier to judge roll than carry, so pick a club that gets the ball rolling on the green as soon as possible.  We putt when we're on the green instead of chipping because of this, so use that idea when you are not on the green.  Brian Manzella has a good video on the old Paul Runyan "Rule of 12" that might be helpful as a starting point for this.

[glk]

Master this and you’ll be good to go

 

[cdm9518]

One of my favorite drills whenever I could not get to a course was to simply place head covers or a golf towel through out my back yard and simply try to get the ball to land as close as possibly to it. This drill allowed me to develop a good idea of how much of a back swing and speed I needed to get the ball to fly a certain distance. If you buy a little chipping pad you don't have to worry about tearing up your yard.