Often times when your ball lies just off the green you are faced
with a choice of putting the ball or chipping it.
Often times when your ball lies just off the green you are faced with a choice of putting the ball or chipping it. To make your choice easier the following criteria can be used to ensure you are making the correct high percentage decision.
First and foremost, most players can putt more accuarately than they can chip. Chip shots are much higher risk shots and can often put you in worse shape than where you started.
Distance from the green is one of the first things to look at when you are trying to choose which shot to hit. If you have to putt through too much fringe it often makes it difficult to judge how hard to hit it because your ball will be travelling through two differnt heights of grass. If you chip it over the fringe it only has to travel on one heighth of grass which is that of the putting green.
However, make sure you see what type of fringe you have to putt over. I have putted from 15 feet off a green because its nice and smooth and chipped from 2 feet off a green because whats’ in front of my ball is not smooth. Putting on a severe down hill is not advised because when you putt the ball it has overspin and will tend to keep rolling. Putting on an uphill slope you don’t have this problem so it’s much easier to be accurate with your distance.
When the green you are hitting to has humps and tiers it’s a good idea to putt. If you fly the ball into one of these humps it will stop the balls momentum and throw off your distance. By rolling the ball up the hills it stays on the ground and therefore can steadily climb the hill with your anticipated distance.
Practice different shots by both putting and chipping and you will see which one you can put consistently next to the hole.
Remember, when all else fails take a lesson. You’ll be surprised how much we can help.