The Chip-putt Has Some Fringe Benefits

It is easy to stop thinking about a golf swing, to decide more or less that certain fundamentals must be followed and that innovations should not be considered. But you should never stop thinking about this complex game. For example, here is a shot that I discovered for myself only a few weeks ago, though I am sure many good players have used it in the past. It is a chip shot from the fringe of the green. Ordinarily you would try a five-or six-iron, take an open stance as you would with any other chip or pitch and use the same type of swing that you would from 20 yards off the green. Why not, I wondered, use the same club but stroke the ball like a putt and try to make the fringe an extension of the green? So I experimented with the chip-putt, and the shot is a good one. Take your normal grip and use your putting stance and your putting stroke—short backswing and a firm, precise stroke coming into the ball. The result will be the additional control that you can get with a putter, combined with enough loft for the ball to be in the air until it reaches the putting surface where the roll will be true. It is certainly a better shot than the one so many amateur golfers turn to because they are uneasy about their chipping—namely, using the putter from off the green and hoping the ball will hold its line until it gets through the heavier grass.