There is a common idea amongst golfers that the chipper is a newbie club. You only put a chipper in your bag if you’re new to golf, cannot play golf properly or need the extra assistance. Has hearing this stereotype prevented you from putting a chipper in your golf bag? I’ll hold up my hand and say yes. Yes, it has. Very recently, I thought to myself “Maybe I should put a chipper in my bag”. Don’t laugh. It’s not entirely because I can’t chip very well. Let me explain why.
There are many instances around the greens where having a chipper may be very appropriate or the best option available to you. We have all been there. Awkward lie just off the edge of the green. Where the grass is just too long to judge a good distance putt, scared you might hit it too hard and overshoot. Perhaps just awkward enough to where the grass is just too short to use one of your wedges to play a chip either. Some of us might choose to putt (probably my father), whereas some of us, usually the over confident (probably myself), might choose to chip it…and make a complete balls up doing so and hitting it in the teeth, shooting it off to the otherside of the green.
You’re probably still not taking me very seriously but really, chippers are designed to execute the perfect bump and run chip-putts we can ever dream of. And they do them very well. Having been weighted to have a heavy club head requiring little effort and a short swing, as well as being lofted for low elevation and short airtime, the chipper produces great short distance chips, creating perfect bump and run shots for those tricky shots we all find ourselves in now and then.
If you are a mid to high handicapper, replacing your short distance chips with playing a chipper is almost guarenteed to reduce your shots around the green, improve your handicap and help you hone in your golf skills to refine and work on that what needs work. Try it for a few months and come back and let me know how it goes.
Chippers are often times great looking clubs. You may even find that when you put a new chipper into your bag, it becomes the best looking club in there. Maybe even worthy of its own unique headcover.
Very recently, I bought a bag of clubs from an old chap, retiring his clubs as he had decided to give up his beloved game of golf due to arthritis. After telling me all about the clubs in his bag, when I asked him about his chipper he had this to say: “It’s really a good chipper, you just chip it and your golf ball lands close to the hole”. I then asked “Oh, not in the hole?”, to which he replied “No, it’s not that good!”. I don’t know about you but I think I will listen to that advice from a fellow golfer in their 70s having played golf for most of his life!
Tune in next where we discuss if putting with the end of your putter grip is viable.
