Chipping Drills for Golfers Who Struggle Around the Green

What it fixes

Chunks (hitting the ground before the ball) and thins (hitting the ball's equator, sending it screaming across the green) are the two misses that make chipping feel like a coin flip instead of a skill. Both usually come from the same root cause: too much weight on the back foot combined with wrists that try to "help" the ball into the air instead of trusting the club's loft to do that job. These three drills target that root cause directly, plus the distance control that's easy to ignore once contact starts improving.

Drill 1: Coin Drill

Place a coin (or a tee laid flat) a couple of inches behind the ball, then set up to hit the ball without touching the coin. This forces ball-first contact — if you're catching the ground early, you'll clip the coin before the ball, giving you instant feedback that a scorecard total never will.

Hit 8-10 shots this way. The goal isn't distance or where the ball ends up; it's a clean strike that misses the coin every time. Don't move on to the next drill until you can do this consistently.

Drill 2: Weight Forward

Set up with noticeably more weight on your lead foot than usual — aim for something like 60-70% lead foot, and keep it there through the entire stroke rather than letting it drift back. A simple check: your lead shoulder should stay lower than your trail shoulder from setup through impact, not level out or reverse.

Hit 8-10 shots keeping that weight forward throughout. This one feels unnatural at first because it removes the ability to "flip" your wrists at the ball to try to lift it — that's the point. Weight staying forward is what lets the club's loft do the lifting instead of your hands.

Drill 3: Landing Spot

Pick one specific landing spot a few feet onto the green — not the hole, a spot short of it — and mark it with a towel or headcover. Hit 8-10 chips trying to land the ball on that exact spot, regardless of where it rolls out afterward.

This drill isolates trajectory control specifically. A lot of golfers who've fixed their contact still chip inconsistently because they're aiming at the hole and hoping, rather than controlling where the ball actually lands. Once you can land on a spot on command, adjusting for different shots on the course becomes a matter of picking a different spot, not guessing at a different swing.

Common mistakes

Trying to scoop or help the ball into the air with your wrists — this is almost always what's happening on a thin, and the Weight Forward drill is the direct fix. The other common mistake: doing these drills only with your most comfortable wedge. If you carry more than one wedge, split your reps between them once contact feels solid — the Coin and Weight Forward drills transfer across clubs, but the feel for how far each one flies and rolls doesn't, and that's worth building deliberately rather than discovering mid-round.

Progression

Once you're consistently clean on the Coin Drill, move the coin closer to the ball — within an inch — which demands tighter low-point control. For the Landing Spot drill, start with a landing zone as big as a dinner plate and shrink it over sessions as your accuracy improves; a tennis-ball-sized target is a reasonable long-term goal, not a starting point. Chain all three together in a single session once each feels solid on its own: coin drill to confirm contact, weight forward to confirm the movement pattern, then landing spot shots to put it all together with a real target in mind.

Part of your practice structure

This drill isn't tied to a specific plan yet — it works well slotted into the short-game block of any practice session. The Complete Guide to Structuring Your Golf Practice covers where a chipping block like this one fits into a full session.