Common Chipping Mistakes

Why chipping mistakes repeat themselves

Chipping looks like the simplest shot in golf — short swing, short distance — which is exactly why a bad habit here can go unexamined for years. A full swing gets picked apart in lessons and range sessions; a chip that chunks or thins gets shrugged off as a bad day. Most of the time it isn't. Here are the five mistakes that show up most often, with a way to check each one.

Mistake 1: Weight on the back foot

This is the root cause behind most chunks and thins at once. Weight favoring the back foot at impact makes it easy for the low point of your swing to land behind the ball (a chunk) and creates room for your wrists to try to "help" the ball into the air with a flip, which just as easily produces a thin instead.

How to check: Notice where your weight feels centered at the moment of impact, not at address — it's common for weight to start centered and drift backward during the swing without you noticing.

The fix: The Weight Forward drill on the Chipping Drills for Golfers Who Struggle Around the Green page is built specifically around keeping weight forward through impact.

Mistake 2: Catching the ground before the ball

A chunk isn't random — it's the club making contact with the turf before it reaches the ball, and it's worth checking for directly rather than assuming it's the same issue as Mistake 1, since ball position and setup can cause this even with good weight distribution.

How to check: Place a coin or tee a couple of inches behind the ball and try to hit a chip without touching it. If you clip it consistently, that confirms the ground contact is happening early.

The fix: The Coin Drill on the same chipping drills page isolates this specifically.

Mistake 3: No consistent landing spot

Chipping at the hole and hoping is a common habit even among golfers with otherwise solid contact — the shot might come out clean but still finish well short or well past the target, because trajectory and landing spot were never actually controlled, just contact.

How to check: Pick a specific spot a few feet onto the green before you hit a chip, then check afterward whether the ball actually landed there — not where it finished after rolling out.

The fix: The Landing Spot drill on the chipping drills page trains exactly this, separate from contact.

Mistake 4: Ball position too far forward

Playing the ball too far forward in your stance for a chip effectively adds loft and encourages the exact scooping motion that causes thins — the setup is fighting the shot before you've even started the swing.

How to check: For a standard chip, the ball should generally sit back in your stance, closer to your trail foot than your lead foot — noticeably further back than where you'd position it for a full iron shot. If your chip setup looks similar to your full-swing ball position, that's worth adjusting first before troubleshooting anything else.

The fix: There's no dedicated drill for this on the site — it's a setup check more than a swing to practice. Confirm your ball position before every few reps of the drills above rather than assuming it's staying consistent on its own.

Mistake 5: Using one club for every chip

Many golfers default to a single favorite wedge for every chip regardless of the situation — lie, distance to the hole, and how much green there is to work with all change what club actually makes sense, and a one-club approach means compensating with technique for a club choice that isn't suited to the shot.

How to check: Notice whether your club selection changes based on the shot in front of you, or whether you reach for the same wedge out of habit regardless of lie or distance.

The fix: No single drill fixes this — it's a decision-making habit. Once contact and landing-spot control feel solid (Mistakes 1-3), deliberately practice the same shot with two different clubs to build a feel for how each one releases and rolls differently.

FAQ

Which mistake should I check first? Weight on the back foot (Mistake 1) — it's the most common root cause and the one most likely to be silently causing the others. Confirm that one before spending time on ball position or club selection.

Can chipping mistakes and putting mistakes have the same root cause? Not directly — they're different motions with different failure points. If both your chipping and putting feel off at the same time, it's more likely to be two separate issues than one shared cause; see our common putting mistakes guide to check the putting side separately.

How much practice time should chipping actually get? More than it usually gets — short-game work is the block most golfers skip when time is tight, even though it's often responsible for as many strokes as the full swing. The Short Game Practice Routine is built around giving it dedicated time instead of leftover minutes at the end of a session.

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