Golf Teaching Aid - When To Chip Or Putt

One of the best golf teaching tips you can have is knowing when to chip the ball, or when to putt from just off the green. For many golfers this can be an exercise in fear and futility. Every different thought goes through their mind. What if I chunk the shot? What if my putter gets stuck in the grass? And the list could go on. The fact is, this shot confuses many golfers.

Admittedly, confidence plays a key role in this shot, but so do the course conditions. How do you really know when to putt or when to chip? Let's take a look at some different situations and your options.

Your ball is sitting 6 feet off the green in the fringe with the pin in the middle of the green.

In this case, you would want to chip the ball. Chip it over the grass and run it up close to the hole. If the pin is closer to you and you don't have much green to work with, I would suggest you putt the ball, otherwise you could run it by 20-30 feet easily.

The greens are wet or very slow.

I would suggest you chip the ball in these type of conditions. It will take the slowness out of play. Instead of trying to judge how hard to swing your putter, you can simply chip the ball. This will always put you in a better position to get it close to the hole.

Your ball is sitting in thick, wet grass.

Once again, I would suggest chipping the ball in this situation. Judging how hard to putt the ball in wet grass is difficult at best. You don't know how much the thick grass will grab your golf ball, or your putter. By chipping the ball it takes all of this potential trouble out of the equation. I've seen golfers try and use their putter in these types of situations, only to get the ball barely on the green because they couldn't judge the conditions correctly. Why take that chance when you have a much better option?

Your ball is in tall grass around the green.

This is a chipping situation for you. Your putter blade will always get hung up in the tall grass and do any number of things, from grabbing it and leaving your ball basically sitting where it was before, to causing the blade to twist and your ball going off wildly to the left or right.

Your ball is sitting behind a sprinkler head.

Putting the ball over the sprinkler head could easily send it offline. Chipping it instead eliminates this potential problem and gives you the best chance of holing it out.

You have a lot of slope and different undulation of the green between your ball and the hole.

Take out most of the green by chipping instead. It makes it so much easier because you don't have to try and read the green.

You have less than 20 feet of green between your ball and the hole.

You'll definitely want to putt the ball to get it close to the hole. Now, if it's more than 20 feet, you'll want to chip it.

The bottom line is that the choice is up to you, but I hope these golf tips can give you something to think about the next time you're in this situation. By making the right decision, it can mean having a good score on the card, or a poor one.