Advice from Golf Monthly's Top 50 Coach - Trey Niven
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00:00 So the spinning chip shot from 20 yards, this is a shot that a lot of people
00:04 crave to hit. We're going to talk about how to do it, a couple of things that
00:08 we're going to talk about in the motion and also give you a drill to help you
00:12 play the shot a bit better. So firstly let's talk about how we create spin. Now
00:16 we've got a shot here with 20 yards with a bit of a flat part up near the green.
00:20 It can be a good idea for us to land it on that flat part and get the ball stopping
00:24 with a bit of spin. So firstly how do we create spin? Spin loft is a term that we
00:29 use when we reference the difference between the dynamic loft, so the loft that
00:34 we produce at impact and also the angle of attack or the angle of descent or
00:39 ascend into the ball. If we separate these two that's when we create and we
00:44 can increase the spin loft and that number there is going to really benefit
00:49 us when we're trying to produce some spin. Now a couple of things that I
00:53 typically see when people are around the greens and they're trying to create spin
00:56 they really think that they have to hit down so the ball position goes back in
01:00 the stance, they lean forwards and they get this stabby motion here and that's
01:05 when the lead and edge can really dig into the ground and the ball will then
01:09 launch higher up the face. This probably isn't a good idea when we want to
01:12 produce spin, we want to try and get that strike right down the bottom of the
01:17 golf club and also what I see is that people really de-loft that golf club so
01:21 they get their hands leading forwards and that really takes all the loft off
01:25 the golf club. Remember we want to separate the angle of attack from the
01:29 dynamic loft so we want to try and produce some speed and some loft at this
01:34 golf ball. So the setup is a really key part to that so when we're taking our
01:38 setup here, really good idea, let's get the ball position right in the middle of
01:42 the stance, we're going to keep a very neutral shaft position here, we're not
01:46 going to try and lean it too far forwards and then if we talk a little
01:50 bit about the motion now, the motion we want to produce is almost like your
01:55 lighting a match on the way through. If I drag the club slowly we don't create
02:00 much friction, we want to speed the club up and really keep our pivot going
02:05 through the ball, that's going to really help us produce some speed which is
02:09 going to help us produce some spin. So let's talk a little bit more about
02:13 playing it now. So I'm set up, ball's right in the middle, I've got some loft on the
02:17 club, the handles back and I'm really going to try and see if I can control
02:22 where the golf club is striking that ground. Let's see if we can get this one.
02:27 Back, pivot, stop. You see that launched a little bit far there but we saw a little
02:35 bit of grab at the end and we can see when we look at the ground there, there's
02:38 no divot so I'm really controlling where the bottom of my arc is in this golf
02:44 swing. We've got one really good drill to help you do this, if you take one tee
02:48 peg and you can pop a ball on the tee peg here and now what we're trying to do
02:55 with this drill now, we're trying to clip the ball off the tee peg without actually
03:00 moving the tee peg. If we get players with a ball back hitting down you can
03:05 see the tee peg's moved and the golf ball hasn't moved very far. What we're trying
03:10 to produce is a golf ball that comes off that tee peg but the tee peg's still in
03:16 the ground. Let's see if we can control this one now. Same set up, feet close
03:20 together, a little bit of weight left, very neutral shaft and we're going to
03:24 try and see if we can clip that ball.
03:27 There, so tee peg kind of flitted around the ground there but what I really did
03:33 there to strike that ball well and get a decent result was control the lowest
03:38 point, so where that golf club was at the bottom of the arc. Keep that body turning,
03:43 make sure you've got the strike, make sure you've got the speed and you'll hit
03:47 great golf shots just like that.
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