Phil Mickelson - The Art of Chipping

[tthomasgolfer605]

Can’t believe they edited this part out. 

[straightshot7]

On 7/4/2025 at 6:41 AM, TheDeanAbides said:

Does anyone buy this idea Phil talks about regarding never having the ball in the middle of the stance? It seems poorly thought out to me. I like the ball in the middle sometimes - depends what I'm trying to do, the lie, club choice etc. I've never felt like it shows a lack of commitment. 

 

He says in these newer videos that he didn't actually mean "never". . . he says there are times when it's advantageous to play it in the middle.

 

But in that case he should have just said "rarely" and not "never". 

 

Funny enough, in the video on the first page, if you look at the shots he's hitting, the ball looks like it is sometimes in or near the middle of his stance, lol.

 

If the stance is narrow and you're playing it off the inside of your back foot, for example, that is approaching middle.

 

I don't think he hits all of his shots directly off his back foot or directly off his front foot.

 

I'm not sure why he made that statement at all (never middle).

 

He often does have the ball somewhere between his two feet, even if it's favoring one side. 

 

Maybe he meant never in the "exact" middle of the stance.

 

30 minute mark, looks pretty middle:

 

This photo is favoring the front foot but if we were looking directly at him, we'd see it is not directly off the front foot. 
 

 

Here's a flop shot that looks like front-middle:

 

Edited July 5 by straightshot7

[Johnny Biarritz]

6 hours ago, Hawkeye77 said:

So . . . . .

 

Some folks love Phil and no doubt enjoy listening to him and watching him hit shots.  I don't, and I don't think I'd watch a Jack Nicklaus video about chipping (lighting about to strike me) but I'd watch him talk about just about anything else and have seen what little is out there.  

 

Forget about the grind bit - if this video "speaks" to you for some reason, what is it about his techniques/explanations that resonates with you? Is it more about the Phil experience regardless of what he says because he makes it look so easy?  Do you subscribe to his method and does it work for you? 

 

 

I need to watch the video again when I'm not running on 2 hours sleep and dozing off, but I definitely have some nit-picky things. Right from the start, I'd say it's more a Pitching video and not Chipping but that's pretty deep in the weeds. It also ends up being primarily about his way of playing the short game with a single club, his lob wedge. I'd say a player needs extreme confidence in his or her swing to execute the shots in the video, especially the longer swing shots. I think everyone could find something useful in the video but I think the totality of it would be really difficult for a player who's not a generational talent to do well.

[stryper]

1 hour ago, Johnny Biarritz said:

I need to watch the video again when I'm not running on 2 hours sleep and dozing off, but I definitely have some nit-picky things. Right from the start, I'd say it's more a Pitching video and not Chipping but that's pretty deep in the weeds. It also ends up being primarily about his way of playing the short game with a single club, his lob wedge. I'd say a player needs extreme confidence in his or her swing to execute the shots in the video, especially the longer swing shots. I think everyone could find something useful in the video but I think the totality of it would be really difficult for a player who's not a generational talent to do well.

to be fair, he actually mentioned using an eight iron for toe down chopping at one point, suggesting there’s probably more to come.  😎

[TheDeanAbides]

14 hours ago, straightshot7 said:

 

He says in these newer videos that he didn't actually mean "never". . . he says there are times when it's advantageous to play it in the middle.

 

But in that case he should have just said "rarely" and not "never". 

 

Funny enough, in the video on the first page, if you look at the shots he's hitting, the ball looks like it is sometimes in or near the middle of his stance, lol.

 

If the stance is narrow and you're playing it off the inside of your back foot, for example, that is approaching middle.

 

I don't think he hits all of his shots directly off his back foot or directly off his front foot.

 

I'm not sure why he made that statement at all (never middle).

 

He often does have the ball somewhere between his two feet, even if it's favoring one side. 

 

Maybe he meant never in the "exact" middle of the stance.

 

30 minute mark, looks pretty middle:

 

This photo is favoring the front foot but if we were looking directly at him, we'd see it is not directly off the front foot. 
 

 

Here's a flop shot that looks like front-middle:

 

Back to that old feel vs real thang. 

[dekez]

It's a good video for us crappy players. I wish he spent a few minutes on the mechanics of his hinge. Does he hinge up and down or left to right? (PS. The comment about hinge and HOLD. The HOLD had me confused for years).

[Nels55]

At around 58:30 he says to never play the ball in the middle of your stance unless you want to hit a hook and then he demos the hook shot.

 

 

[Ri_Redneck]

On 7/4/2025 at 11:08 PM, rsballer10 said:

I'm on the fence on the bounce/grind thing. Its not the primary topic of the video, and like everything phil says it's mostly true up until it's not (Phil's book of rules has a lot of loopholes) 🙃

 

I can't see how being fit for grinds would harm someone's game - at any skill level. Assuming they were properly fit. Its nice to have options, and its hard to deny that having relief in heel/toe/trailing edge doesn't make a wedge more versatile. 

 

However, I've seen just as many posts in the equipment section saying what you can/can't do with certain grinds and i would also call BS. Technique is still the overriding factor IMO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Totally agree with @rsballer here. His description of different techniques is invaluable to ANY golfer. The body positioning is seldom mentioned in other YT vids. I have personally used the "flop off hard turf" technique for most of my golfing life. Stupid easy to do and hit many of them off Texas hardpan over the years before moving to soggy New England. I have my own opinions about bounce and grinds which may or may not fall in line with others, but that okay cause I'm really only concerned with my game when playing. 

 

BT

[MidwestHacker]

Phil is not the guy I would want to take chipping lessons from; he has god given talents the rest of us dont have, Im never going to be able to hit chips like Phil, because he has insane hand-eye coordination and I do not. I think the best way to start to learn chipping for someone who is not good at chipping is the Short Game Chef stock chip way: use the bounce ie setup with the handle neutral (at your belt buckle), use your body turn to move the club, and dont hinge the club/manipulate the face at all (I believe this corresponds to Dan Grieve's "release one" pretty well?).  Once you master that, then you move on to adding hinge/release patterns (DG's release 2/3). Trying to go straight to hinging and releasing is not going to work for the majority of people, because they dont understand the chipping mechanics at all, and you have to be a pretty skilled chipper to do the amount of hinging/releasing Phil talks about in this video. 

[stryper]

6 hours ago, MidwestHacker said:

Phil is not the guy I would want to take chipping lessons from; he has god given talents the rest of us dont have, Im never going to be able to hit chips like Phil, because he has insane hand-eye coordination and I do not. I think the best way to start to learn chipping for someone who is not good at chipping is the Short Game Chef stock chip way: use the bounce ie setup with the handle neutral (at your belt buckle), use your body turn to move the club, and dont hinge the club/manipulate the face at all (I believe this corresponds to Dan Grieve's "release one" pretty well?).  Once you master that, then you move on to adding hinge/release patterns (DG's release 2/3). Trying to go straight to hinging and releasing is not going to work for the majority of people, because they dont understand the chipping mechanics at all, and you have to be a pretty skilled chipper to do the amount of hinging/releasing Phil talks about in this video. 

Distilling these things to the basics, I’m not sure the method you describe is any simpler than the method Phil is describing.  Sounds to me that the teachers you reference just resonate better for you.  That doesn’t mean Phil’s way is necessarily more difficult.  
 

A lot of the things Sieckmann and Utley say don’t really resonate with me, and I have a really hard time trying to make them work.  But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.  And that’s not to say I’m on board with (or able to do) everything Phil says.  
 

It’s frustrating..the short game should so simple, but it isn’t: everyone just

has to figure out what works for them. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[MidwestHacker]

7 minutes ago, stryper said:

Distilling these things to the basics, I’m not sure the method you describe is any simpler than the method Phil is describing.  Sounds to me that the teachers you reference just resonate better for you.  That doesn’t mean Phil’s way is necessarily more difficult.  
 

A lot of the things Sieckmann and Utley say don’t really resonate with me, and I have a really hard time trying to make them work.  But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.  And that’s not to say I’m on board with (or able to do) everything Phil says.  
 

It’s frustrating..the short game should so simple, but it isn’t: everyone just

has to figure out what works for them. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Adding wrist hinge to your chipping makes it physically more difficult to return the club at the proper angle and strike the ball well. It’s just a fact. Phils original chipping instruction on “hinge and hold” bred an entire generation of golfers burying the leading edge 4 inches behind the ball and wondering why they couldn’t do what Phil said he was doing. It’s not that the instruction was easier to understand, it’s physically easier to perform because there are less manipulations to account for. 

[sundaypins]

10 hours ago, MidwestHacker said:

Adding wrist hinge to your chipping makes it physically more difficult to return the club at the proper angle and strike the ball well. It’s just a fact.

 

It might be more factual attentive practice can dispel that idea to the circular file.

 

10 hours ago, MidwestHacker said:

Phils original chipping instruction on “hinge and hold” bred an entire generation of golfers burying the leading edge 4 inches behind the ball and wondering why they couldn’t do what Phil said he was doing. 

 

It's not difficult and it's easy arguing it has never been easier.   Earlier wedges presented very sharp leading edges and face progression and would exact a severe price if fatted so players learned getting into and out of their work quickly.    Many of today's leading edges seem like fat lips on a pig, little rounded off bouncy things.   I'll leave the generational comment alone.

[MidwestHacker]

3 minutes ago, sundaypins said:

It might be more factual attentive practice can dispel that idea to the circular file.

I wasnt saying you shouldnt learn how to chip in that manner, you have to be able to hinge and release to hit specific chip shots, you should learn and practice it at some point. Trying to teach a golfer how to hit a hinge and release chip as their first chip shot is a lot harder than teaching them how to properly move their body while keeping the hands/wrists as they were at setup and hit a "no release" chip shot that they can use to get the ball on the green reliably. Several of the top short game coaches of the moment are saying the same thing I am, but we'll call it a difference of opinion and move it along. And the generational comment wasnt meant in a hostile way, I grew up trying to chip like phil and spent years chunking chips before I gave it up and learned something else. 

 

[sundaypins]

13 minutes ago, MidwestHacker said:

Trying to teach a golfer how to hit a hinge and release chip as their first chip shot is a lot harder than teaching them how to properly move their body while keeping the hands/wrists as they were at setup and hit a "no release" chip shot that they can use to get the ball on the green reliably.

 

Under proper learning guidance it's the easiest way to play 3-cushion billiards around the green instead of bumper pool.    Just last week took a young man clueless about chipping and it took maybe 1/2 hour and maybe 20 balls until he got the hang of how to move inertia about.   Done here, yes. 

Edited July 10 by sundaypins

[swh0507]

14 minutes ago, sundaypins said:

 

Under proper learning guidance it's the easiest way to play 3-cushion billiards around the green instead of bumper pool.    Just last week took a young man clueless about chipping and it took maybe 1/2 hour and maybe 20 balls until he got the hang of how to move inertia about.   Done here, yes. 

Would love to hear more. Do you find certain wedges work better for this technique?

[Nels55]

56 minutes ago, sundaypins said:

 

Under proper learning guidance it's the easiest way to play 3-cushion billiards around the green instead of bumper pool.    Just last week took a young man clueless about chipping and it took maybe 1/2 hour and maybe 20 balls until he got the hang of how to move inertia about.   Done here, yes. 

Agreed.  I got a friend of mine who could not hit a pitch shot to save his life, a total jab at it type of player to hinge and hold and he is able hit reasonable shots now.  Playing the ball off the back foot and hinging and holding through the ball is a really easy way to hit clean short game shots in my experience.

[Ri_Redneck]

Having beat balls around for 50+ yrs, I've tried just about every technique out there. I use a lot of what Phil talked about in the video but didn't get any of it from him except the toe-pitch technique. As far as "Hinge and Hold" I set the hinge at address when I use that technique. The hands are more or less dead like a putt, except angled so that the clubhead is in the proper position. I then swing back and through with no wrist movement to increase my chance of clean contact. I've seen some pros and elite ams do the same thing, so I figured it was good enough for me. It's ust the way I found I could do it more reliably. Most of what I do is from 100s of hours of practice and trying different things. Understanding how the cluhead works is absolutely a necessity for those wanting to learn the short game though.

 

Another thing that should be discussed more is different lies and grasses and how they are handled by better players. The "into the grain Bermuda" is covered quite often, but there are so many others that could be discussed.

 

BT

[sundaypins]

2 hours ago, Ri_Redneck said:

I use a lot of what Phil talked about in the video but didn't get any of it from him except the toe-pitch technique. 

 

Returned from short practice using Phil's idea about hitting down harder to bounce the ball higher.  I'll be damn, it works, never crossed my mind before as I recall.  Normally, using acceleration touch while sensing speed to height/carry when cutting off the legs from under the ball was the go to, but this was interesting and a good one from a short game show stopper.  Good one Phil, enjoyed the lesson. 

[sundaypins]

9 hours ago, swh0507 said:

Would love to hear more. Do you find certain wedges work better for this technique?

 

My preference is not discussing technology and gear, gets too involved.  Technology is a personal overload, and gear gets the only test I need, eyes and a test run.  

 

8 hours ago, Nels55 said:

Agreed.  I got a friend of mine who could not hit a pitch shot to save his life, a total jab at it type of player to hinge and hold and he is able hit reasonable shots now.  Playing the ball off the back foot and hinging and holding through the ball is a really easy way to hit clean short game shots in my experience.

 

And off the back foot like Phil says is a great starting point for shot assessment.  Hell, back in the day if a person was having trouble hitting down on a ball they would be confronted by a ball placed so far behind their trail foot hitting down was the only way for solid smash, they learned quickly.

[Ri_Redneck]

Since there was a bit of discussion on grinds (even though Phil didn't seem to think much about them, LOL), I'm curious if I'm the only one here who has multiple sets of wedges for different course conditions. Such as, I have a high bounce-full flange set that I use in the Spring here in NE when the turf is soggy as heck and I have a low bounce-heel/toe relief set for when I'm playing courses that are cut tight and very firm. They are not a necessity, just what I prefer.

 

BT

[RayPlan]

I don't even know what a grind is

 

 

Other than my day job! Haw haw haw

Edited July 11 by RayPlan

[ThinkingPlus]

2 hours ago, Ri_Redneck said:

Since there was a bit of discussion on grinds (even though Phil didn't seem to think much about them, LOL), I'm curious if I'm the only one here who has multiple sets of wedges for different course conditions. Such as, I have a high bounce-full flange set that I use in the Spring here in NE when the turf is soggy as heck and I have a low bounce-heel/toe relief set for when I'm playing courses that are cut tight and very firm. They are not a necessity, just what I prefer.

 

BT

I used to carry extra wedges with more bounce when I was playing tournaments. My gamer sand and lob wedges were typically low bounce (4° - 8°), but playing at different places around the state did bring bunkers with more sand into play and weather could cause sloppier conditions precipitating the need for more bounce.

[Pepperturbo]

On 7/4/2025 at 5:41 AM, TheDeanAbides said:

Does anyone buy this idea Phil talks about regarding never having the ball in the middle of the stance? It seems poorly thought out to me. I like the ball in the middle sometimes - depends what I'm trying to do, the lie, club choice etc. I've never felt like it shows a lack of commitment. 

Yes, I do, but we're all different.

With any wedge, I seldom, if ever, have the ball in the middle of my stance. Sure, there may be an occasion, but not regularly. My ball is behind the middle nearly all the time, except if I want more elevation, then it's slightly forward of the middle. That's what comes from practicing since the 90s, in my office, daily with PW, 52 & 58, using real ProV1 balls down the hall into a net in a nearby office.

[Pepperturbo]

5 hours ago, Ri_Redneck said:

Since there was a bit of discussion on grinds (even though Phil didn't seem to think much about them, LOL), I'm curious if I'm the only one here who has multiple sets of wedges for different course conditions. Such as, I have a high bounce-full flange set that I use in the Spring here in NE when the turf is soggy as heck and I have a low bounce-heel/toe relief set for when I'm playing courses that are cut tight and very firm. They are not a necessity, just what I prefer.

 

BT

I used to have four sets of 3 wedges that rotated in the bag, depending on where I was playing.  But then I got lazy, ∾so made sure the wedges in the bag work where ever I go. 💪

[stryper]

4 hours ago, Pepperturbo said:

I used to have four sets of 3 wedges that rotated in the bag, depending on where I was playing.  But then I got lazy, ∾so made sure the wedges in the bag work where ever I go. 💪

Simple and smart.  Sometimes I think we overthink things, making golf much harder than it needs to be. 😎

[ShowMe]

On 7/5/2025 at 8:35 AM, tthomasgolfer605 said:

Arnold Palmer gave Jack a chipping lesson from off the green. Stop chipping and putt it. From how far back, I don't know. Secondly, I personally would watch the Phil video without sound and observe what he is doing rather than what he's saying. I get more out of what the best player did by watching than listening to their feels. 

My Texas wedge is my best shot around the green.  I never blade it or chunk it.  

[vegasandre]

Just wanted to say thank you to Phil for posting this video. 

It literally is a freaking gold mine.
Watched it multiple times and took things to heart. 
Over the past year I have had online lessons with Dan Grieves -who helped me a ton. 
But just by watching this video (and practicing it) has me almost feeling like - "I can't wait to hit from off the green now"
a weird feeling for me.