Lessons, Practice Really Can Correct Your Golfing Woes

I have been having a slight problem with my golf game recently. I’m blacking out over my chip shots.

Really, this is serious stuff.

I was born with the yips, so I’ve learned to live with the involuntary and unsightly hitch in my putting stroke. But I’ve always been able to pitch the ball relatively close to the hole from around the green until this summer.

Now it seems as if every greenside chip shot I stand over looks more difficult than the one Tom Watson holed out from beside the 17th green at Pebble Beach to win the 1982 United States Open. And that’s a frightening realization when you’re as far removed from Watson’s talent level as I am.

As a result, I now approach any ball lying in the fringe just off the green as if it were a nest of snakes. With pitching wedge in shaky hand, I brush the grass with a couple of practice strokes, reluctantly take my stance, draw back my club, start my downswing and black out.

Unfortunately, this loss of consciousness is all too brief - usually lasting just through impact - which means I come to in time to witness my ball bulleting across the putting surface, quite often into a trap on the other side of the green.

I wondered, at times, if these momentary blackouts might be the result of some kind of a medical condition, perhaps treatable with a prescribed pill. Then, recently, I had a golf partner analyze my chipping stroke.

His advice: “Get a lesson - tomorrow!”

So I did.

Earlier this week, I went to Meadow Wood Golf Course head professional Bob Scott, considered one of the best short-game teachers in the area, and recited my litany of chipping disasters.

Like a compassionate doctor trying to comfort a terminally ill patient, Scott nodded with the passing of each horror story and said, “O.O., good. No problem.”

Wrong. Big problem.

But as we walked out to the practice green, I starting wondering if, indeed, there might really be no problem. What if this entire episode unfolds like so many of my appointments with my mechanic, where I call up about a specific clunk or rattle under the hood of my car, only to have it fall silent on my drive to the garage?

What if I knock every chip shot within a couple feet of the cup?

What if there is suddenly nothing to fix?

Not to worry.

Scott dumped a cluster of golf balls at my feet and told me to chip one toward the nearest hole, about 15 feet onto the practice green.

I went through my pre-shot routine and blacked out at the moment of impact. I never saw the club make contact with the ball, but I must have caught it dead in the belly, because it rifled past the hole by some 40 feet.

“O.K., good. No problem,” Scott said.

Wrong. Big problem.

Because Scott then proceeded to alter nearly every aspect of my setup and swing.

It seems I was keeping too much weight on my back foot, playing the ball too far up in my stance and trying to lift it with the club at impact.

At Scott’s suggestion, I shifted 80 percent of my weight to my front foot - a setup change that immediately induced a burning sensation in my lower back, placed the ball well back in my stance and moved my hands well in front of the clubhead.

Then, while trying to keep my hands quiet - and my eyes open - through impact, I dropped the club on the ball, popping it onto the putting surface and rolling it within a couple feet of my intended target.

I continued hitting chip shots, and with the exception of a couple of attempts that got a bit “handsy,” managed to keep the ball within 3 feet of the hole.

And this, mind you, from a guy who has been afraid to even practice chips since blading a ball off a stranger’s ankle on a crowded putting green some time back.

The next step in the lesson involved chipping the ball to the most distant hole, some 45 feet away. I made the same setup, but before I could draw back my pitching wedge, Scott took it out of my hands and replaced it with my 6-iron.

“Most golfers try to hit every chip with the same club, which doesn’t make any sense,” Scott said. “You have 13 or 14 clubs in your bag, so you can hit the ball different distances using the same swing. Why not do the same thing around the green, instead of using just a pitching wedge and trying to develop 50 different ways to hit it.”

With the 6-iron, I was able to make the same type of putting type stroke I had made with the pitching wedge - yet the ball got down quickly and started rolling much like a putt. It ended up well right of the hole, thanks to a big break I had failed to factor in, but then I hadn’t had to worry about how a chip shot breaks in a long time.

This was something new. I actually started thinking about making one. And I kept a decent shot pattern with balls I chipped to various holes while using every club between my wedge and 6-iron.

Did the lesson help?

All I had to do to answer that question was glance across the green at that lonely first ball I had bladed so far past the hole.

Yes, the lesson helped.

I stayed conscious and made clean contact on nearly every chip, one of which dropped in the hole and several of which finished within kick-in range.

Are all my chipping ills cured?

I was hoping they might be. But then, as I put my clubs back in my bag and headed toward the parking lot, Scott hit me with that one crucial piece of advice that - if not followed - can render any golf lesson worthless.

“Practice,” he said.

“OK, good,” I thought. “No problem.”