When it come to choosing the right club to chip their way around the green, the choices from professional golfers vary, typically from two schools of thought:
1) Some prefer to use just one club as much as possible when making chip shots. The reason? Because when you practice as many chip shots as you can with just one club, you can become an expert in handling that club. They believe in the old saying that goes: “Jack of all trades, master of none”.
2) On the flip side of the opinion from various pro golfers about what club to pull out for your chip shots, the advice is to use as many different clubs as you can. The reason? So that you can become skilled at adapting to the different conditions on the course for the shot. So while the first expert opinion is to master one club, this advice requires that you use several clubs for different chip shots.
Tough Choice, Two Opposing Opinions
This is what I love about golf – you will get 10 different answers from 10 different golfers. And guess what? They are all right! You have to try different approaches to the entire game until you develop your own personal system.
Chip shots, pitch shots, putting, drives… take all the advice you can and practice until the right feel comes to you.
For the beginner golfer, the best approach is more likely to try different clubs, as advised in #2 above. This will help the new player to get a feel for each club’s natural movements and advantages instead of forcing the chip shot through one club that may not be the right one for you. It takes a while to get the the intermediate level of the game to make more experienced club decisions so take your time, have fun, and go with the flow of getting to know your clubs.
Then, as you learn the game and start to get a solid grasp on what your clubs can do, you can make the switch to mastering one club for all of your chip shots. In time, you will probably find that there is one club in particular that just feels perfect when you grip it for these type of shots.
For example, my 8 iron is my absolute favorite for knocking balls around the green. I cannot explain why in scientific detail, but after playing the sport for over ten years it just grew on me as the one that brings me the most success.