How to Put Backspin on Your Chip Shots

To many golfers, putting spin on the ball seems like a magic trick that is reserved for the pros.  Sending the ball up toward the target with enough spin to have it stop quickly is not a shot that the average golfer has in his or her repertoire.

That doesn’t have to be the case however.

While it is true that this can be a tricky shot to execute perfectly, imparting backspin on your chip shots is not so difficult as to be outside of the reach of the typical weekend player.  If you are willing to work on some specific techniques in your upcoming practice sessions, you should be able to learn how to spin your chip shots effectively.

Equipment Issues

Before getting into the technical details of how you are going to produce this shot, the first thing to understand is that you need to have the right equipment if you are going to spin the ball.  Specifically, there are two pieces of equipment relevant to this equation – the club, and the ball.

#1 The Club

If you are going to put backspin on a chip shot, you need to use a lofted club.  Most likely, you will want to use a 60 degree wedge for spinning chip shots, although you might be able to make it work with a 56 degree or 58 degree.  If you use any less loft than this, there probably will not be enough loft on your shots to allow the spin to really take effect.  Also, the wedge you use needs to be clean and in relatively good condition to ensure the grooves can grab onto the ball properly.

#2 The Ball

Not all golf balls are going to offer spin from around the greens.  For instance, inexpensive golf balls that are marketed toward beginners have hard covers and will not spin much at all.  If the ability to spin your chip shots is important to you, be sure to look for a ball with a soft cover.  The cover is the part of the ball that will influence chip shot spin, as you aren’t hitting the shot hard enough to bring the core into play.  As long as you use a ball with a soft enough cover to allow for a reasonable spin rate, you should be able to pull this shot off successfully.

Once you are confident that you have the right gear in your bag you can move on to actually working on your technique.

The Setup

Like all golf shots, a spinning chip is going to start with a quality stance.  You need to set up to the ball in away that is going to promote the creation of spin, rather than using a stance that is going to get in your way.  There are three key points that you need to hit on in your address position if you are going to spin your chip shot.

#1 Middle Ball Position

Many of your chip shots are going to be played out of the back of your stance in order to promote a downward hit at impact. That is the right option much of the time, but not when you want to hit a chip shot that is going to stop quickly as a result of spin. To spin the ball with a lofted wedge, play the ball near the middle of your stance at address. At impact, you are going to move the club under the ball to allow spin to be developed on the face, and that is only going to happen with the ball around the midpoint in your stance.

#2 Vertical Shaft Position

This is another point that promotes loft at impact.  If you were to lean the shaft forward prior to starting your swing – which is common on a chip-and-run shot – you would lose loft and the ball would come out low and running.

Avoid the temptation to push your hands forward and instead keep them directly over the ball to create a vertical shaft position that you can mimic at impact.

#3 Slight Lean Toward the Target

Even though you do want to play the ball near the middle of your stance, you also want to hit down just slightly – which is why you should be leaning toward the target at address.  Keeping slightly more than half of your weight on your left foot (for a right handed golfer) at address will promote a downward hit, making it easier for you to achieve clean contact.

When you head to the practice chipping area to work on the spinning chip, make sure you hit on each of the points above in your address position.

The Swing

To actually spin the golf ball, you are going to need to use speed through impact in your swing.  This is the point that trips up most people, as it doesn’t always feel comfortable to make a relatively aggressive swing from so close to the target.  However, you need to remember that the idea is to fly the ball up close to the hole before spin brings it to a stop.  You will need more speed than you will need on a pitch and run, for instance, because there won’t be much run out when the ball hits the ground.

Keeping the speed up in your swing is likely to be the biggest challenge of all when learning this shot.  As you work on spinning the ball in practice, think about brushing the club under the ball along the top of the grass while giving it plenty of speed and a slight acceleration.

Practice…Practice…Practice

Practice is going to be important to both learn how to execute the shot and also to build confidence.  Only when you have successfully executed the spinning chip time and time again in practice should you try putting it to use on the course.

Further Reference

Learning how to put backspin on your chip shots can be a difficult concept to master, so for those of you who are visual learners we strongly encourage checking out this video by Me and My Golf.

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