I can't chip, will a Square Strike save me?

[m d g]

On 3/6/2022 at 6:55 PM, SEP1006 said:

Two words for you, cross handed !!!!!!!!

I started doing this about a year ago full-time. My miss was mostly fat as my right shoulder would drop and I'd hit 2 inches behind the ball. Moving my left hand low brought my right shoulder up and it's now like what 'normal' people feel : )

 

With a bit of practice, I've gone from a 7.x index to a current 5.8. I almost never got up and down from off the green unless I was putting. And at my worst, I was just trying to get on the green anywhere. Now it's not so unusual, and when I shot a 78 a few months ago, I got up and down 4 times.

 

I don't use it in the bunker (although I don't see why not if the sand is firm) or much past 40 yards.

 

Definitely worth a try...

[m d g]

On 3/6/2022 at 6:55 PM, SEP1006 said:

Two words for you, cross handed !!!!!!!!

Double post...sorry : (

Edited March 16, 2022 by m d g
Double post...

[dlow206]

fixed my chipping, and believe it or not, it was equipment related. 

 

cut my 58* wedge down from 35ish to 34". 

 

what i realized was that at 35", i could not get into a very good chipping posture. for reference, i am 5'5" with short legs and a wrist to floor of 31" (i have the same wrist to floor as my wife who is 5'3"). with my proportions, i couldn't really get into a good chipping posture even with choking down because the butt of the club would hit me on some part of my body.

 

once i cut it down, it was like an instant cheat code. no negative impact on full swing either, actually feels easier to make a good full swing with it shorter. 

[North Butte]

Maybe a chipper will help if you have some fundamental misunderstanding of what you're trying to do with your chipping motion. I guess. That's not the yips, it's just a not-very-good choice of technique and intention.

 

The below comments apply to those of us suffering from the actual yips. Involuntary, nervous, jabby stabs or flicks instead of a coordinated, smooth movement...

 

As someone in about my eighth or ninth year of the chipping yips, I have not specifically tried that specialty chipper but I've tried several others including one that's pretty similar to Square Strike.

 

I'd say about one out of every 5 or 10 chips that I yip, a specialty chipper club will bail me out and at least let me advance the ball in the general vicinity of the hole. But if I really stab into the ground, pull up and short-arm it into the equator of the ball or (when the yip is particularly violent) miss the ball completely...no club is going to do anything about those true yips.

 

I've have also tried an untold number of times to do some variation on "just putt with your 8-iron" and I'm here to tell you, the same yippy movement that slams a wedge into the ground 6" behind the ball will slam an 8-iron into the ground 6" behind the ball just like it will slam a Square Strike into the ground 6" behind the ball. 

 

I honestly think chippers mostly help people are fairly close to having a decent chipping game. If you more or less can sort of get a wedge on the ball most times around the green, then the right specialty chipper makes those "more or less, sort of" strokes hit the ball online. But if you're truly hopeless chipping with a SW or PW you're going to be just as hopeless chipping with a Square Strike or Smart Sole or whatever. 

[dlow206]

45 minutes ago, North Butte said:

Maybe a chipper will help if you have some fundamental misunderstanding of what you're trying to do with your chipping motion. I guess. That's not the yips, it's just a not-very-good choice of technique and intention.

 

The below comments apply to those of us suffering from the actual yips. Involuntary, nervous, jabby stabs or flicks instead of a coordinated, smooth movement...

 

As someone in about my eighth or ninth year of the chipping yips, I have not specifically tried that specialty chipper but I've tried several others including one that's pretty similar to Square Strike.

 

I'd say about one out of every 5 or 10 chips that I yip, a specialty chipper club will bail me out and at least let me advance the ball in the general vicinity of the hole. But if I really stab into the ground, pull up and short-arm it into the equator of the ball or (when the yip is particularly violent) miss the ball completely...no club is going to do anything about those true yips.

 

I've have also tried an untold number of times to do some variation on "just putt with your 8-iron" and I'm here to tell you, the same yippy movement that slams a wedge into the ground 6" behind the ball will slam an 8-iron into the ground 6" behind the ball just like it will slam a Square Strike into the ground 6" behind the ball. 

 

I honestly think chippers mostly help people are fairly close to having a decent chipping game. If you more or less can sort of get a wedge on the ball most times around the green, then the right specialty chipper makes those "more or less, sort of" strokes hit the ball online. But if you're truly hopeless chipping with a SW or PW you're going to be just as hopeless chipping with a Square Strike or Smart Sole or whatever. 

 

I posted above that i solved my issue with a shorter length wedge. 

[North Butte]

23 minutes ago, dlow206 said:

 

I posted above that i solved my issue with a shorter length wedge. 

Yikes, my bad. Somehow I failed to notice there were three pages to the thread. I only read the initial question and earliest followups. 
 

Sorry for the off point mega-babble!

[Billfitz]

6 hours ago, dlow206 said:

 

I posted above that i solved my issue with a shorter length wedge. 

You might have had the same result by choking down. When I'm chipping from close range it's usually with my seven iron, using my putting stroke. In order to get that putting stroke I choke down to end up with the same effective shaft length as my putter.

[dlow206]

20 minutes ago, Billfitz said:

You might have had the same result by choking down. When I'm chipping from close range it's usually with my seven iron, using my putting stroke. In order to get that putting stroke I choke down to end up with the same effective shaft length as my putter.

 

Couldn't make choking down work the same way. If i choke down, the butt of the club hits my body. cutting it down to 34" gives me enough clearance and then i can choke down more from there. im really that low to the ground with my height and proportions. 

[Billfitz]

Seems to me that your clubs were too long to begin with.

[GoGoErky]

8 hours ago, dlow206 said:

 

Couldn't make choking down work the same way. If i choke down, the butt of the club hits my body. cutting it down to 34" gives me enough clearance and then i can choke down more from there. im really that low to the ground with my height and proportions. 

Curious when you are chipping are you using the same stance as your swing or do you have the club more vertical and closer to the club?

[dlow206]

2 hours ago, GoGoErky said:

Curious when you are chipping are you using the same stance as your swing or do you have the club more vertical and closer to the club?

 

closer to the club optimally for me

[North Butte]

I play with a few older guys who have great hands and can chip the ball wonderfully. It always amazes me how much accuracy and touch they have even though they chip from pretty much their normal full swing setup except the ball is back and their hands forward.

 

If I tried to make a precise chipping stroke while standing that far from the ball and gripping the club all the way at full length I'd really struggle to make consistent contact. I just can't imagine chipping without gripping well down and standing closer to the ball than for a full swing.

[Wham49]

I have used it some, I found one at the goodwill and played around with it for a while, my issue is that it is pretty much just a 9 iron with a little easier to look at face, your not going toget much out of it you wont get out of just clubbing down and using P or 9 iron

 

I get the yips sometimes when messing around in my back yard, It comes out of nowhere, but I can fix it by using a wedge off of short grass and making sure I keep hands in front of the ball and not aiming at anything just advancing the ball until I get the confidence back to not shank it. 

 

You can try it, but I dont think it will be much better than just clubbing down

[Billfitz]

41 minutes ago, North Butte said:

I play with a few older guys who have great hands and can chip the ball wonderfully. It always amazes me how much accuracy and touch they have even though they chip from pretty much their normal full swing setup except the ball is back and their hands forward.

I bet they can't play a putter swing bump and run, though. For that matter most US pros can't, or at least don't, while most UK pros do, because links courses demand having that shot. It's all a matter of which style you decide on early on for whatever reason and then you practice until you're so at ease with it that it's your go to shot. I very seldom take any wedge shot that isn't a full shot, and usually bump and run my chip shots, because that's what I'm comfortable with.

[me05501]

On 3/7/2022 at 1:54 PM, azgreg said:

I borrowed one from a buddy for a while and my results and thought was about the same as Rick Shiels in his video.

 

 

 

 

When he put it in the hands of the old dudes it was really surprising to watch them all try to flip the club into impact and add loft. I've always heard that a lot of handicap golfers try to help the ball into the air but seeing them to it was making me so uncomfortable. 

I have a friend who is a good player, solid 9-10 HC, who suffers from the chipping yips. It is painful to watch. He know the technique. He can do it when it doesn't matter. But when he's playing for a score you can really see this flinch that he has at contact, like he's scared of what's about to happen. 

 

The idea that has worked the best for me over the years is to keep my eyes focused on where the ball was. At the end of my stroke I want my eyes to be focused on the spot where the ball was sitting, which generally means that I've let the club get upright at impact and let the club head pass my hands through the stroke.

[Stinger83]

Anyone can chip. And everyone will struggle with it at some point. The reason people struggle is because they don't figure out what they're doing wrong. You have to know why and then you can fix it

[North Butte]

14 minutes ago, me05501 said:

When he put it in the hands of the old dudes it was really surprising to watch them all try to flip the club into impact and add loft. I've always heard that a lot of handicap golfers try to help the ball into the air but seeing them to it was making me so uncomfortable. 

I see that in a lot of infomercials, YouTube videos, ads, etc. for these gimmick clubs. Maybe it's just the type of golfers I play with (hardly ever beginners) but it is very rare when I see someone doing that kind of flippy thing. Maybe that's the kind of motion a Square Strike or similar is designed to bail you out from but it's not the kind of yips I see in Real Life.

 

The yippy chippers I encounter are all trying to do some semblance of an actual, workable stroke. Either a "mini golf swing" or a "putt with an iron". Not keeping the arms stiff and just flicking the wrists. 

[dlow206]

i will say, i didn't change anything about my technique and my only change was cutting my wedge shorter, which allowed me to stand closer to the ball and in a better posture. that completely changed my chipping. 

 

the above is probably not the answer for 99% of people (cutting the wedge shorter), but i am also far outside of the bell curve for height and wrist to floor for a male, so my situation is somewhat unique.

 

i saw that the average women's lob wedge for OEMs that make women's specific wedges was roughly around 34", and my height is roughly around the female average height in the US (though my wrist to floor measurement is a little funky for my height), so to me it makes sense why a 34" wedge works better for my chipping. 

[underwater]

On 3/6/2022 at 10:28 PM, nsxguy said:

 

Yippie isn't a physical issue nor is it club related.

 

What makes you think an equipment change will fix what ails you ?

 

Some people think they yip when they are simply chunking it due to mechanics.  YIP is a word thrown around too often.

[nsxguy]

26 minutes ago, underwater said:

 

Some people think they yip when they are simply chunking it due to mechanics. 

 

I'm sure that's true.

[North Butte]

In my case it’s a yip when I can stand there at the practice green tossing 20-yard pitch shots up toward the hole all day long. Put me out on the course keeping score and I will duff it at least half the time. 
 

That’s why I say something like a Square Strike or any of these other gimmick clubs is a Band-Aid for poor technique, it will do nothing at all for the yips. A true yip sufferer will stab the ground or whack the ball across the green no matter what type of club he tries to use. 

[Jgiori]

helped me 

[martybauer31]

I know I'm super late to the party here....  I had one in my bag (the 60 degree) when I got really desperate, and honestly, it was quite helpful with my short game.  Great on thin lies, excellent at getting over a bunker to the green without a ton of room, decent in sand. The only issue is it's kind of a one-trick pony, being that you can't take a full swing with it (at least I couldn't) so it did the job from 30-40 yards and in for me with a putting stroke. I typically play with 12 or 13 clubs in the bag so it was never taking away something else that I could have used.

 

I've since replaced it with a Cleveland Smart Sole 4 Sand Wedge (58 degrees), which does all the same things for me, with the addition that I can take full swings (100 yards or so).  I admittedly didn't read every post in here, but hope you found a solution, be it the square strike or something else!

[kevinmdowney]

On 3/6/2022 at 5:46 PM, dlow206 said:

I only want to hear from people who have actually tried one, but i know i will get a lot of comments from the peanut gallery anyway lol.

 

i have become super yippie with chipping, so much so that i chip like someone who has never held a club in their life. maybe i can turn around my chipping, but need something that will be playable on the course until i figure it out, because my chipping won't improve over night. anyone had success with a Square Strike?

This is historically the worst part of my game, but I started practicing with just two clubs - 8 iron and 21 degree utility iron. Putting grip and stroke. (PS. When I putt, I look at the hole… and never have yips. Started doing this with chips, and this has made a huge difference!)

 

Then I pitch with SW and LW.

Edited July 25, 2022 by kevinmdowney

[Golf64]

Matt Fitzpatrick went left hand low. Works for him?! Might be worth a try?!

[underwater]

I would give up the game of golf before putting a SquareStrike in my bag.  

 

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by underwater