Published by: Flagstick Publishing P.O. Box 6054 Visalia, California 93290 Orders at: www.darrellsgolf.com Copyright 2009 by Darrell Klassen Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. Cover photograph by Arthur Beck Interior photographs by Darrell Klassen Drawings and illustrations by Darrell Klassen ISBN: 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction... 4 Chipping Will Save Your Game... 7 The Importance of Backspin... 10 It s Just Like Chopping Wood... 16 How to Make Backspin... 30 Let s Get It Close... 34 Darrell Klassen 3
INTRODUCTION For over twenty years my students have been begging me to take the time to put my golf lessons on paper in book form. They finally talked me into it. I ve been teaching the game and the golf swing for over forty years, and my students have come from over forty states in the US and from sixteen foreign countries. A large percentage of them have taken the time and spent the money to take instruction from the top name teachers regularly seen on the Golf Channel. I like to ask them what they are doing coming to see me after seeing one, or all, of those famous instructors. I always have to tell them, If you had found the answers and the information you were looking for there, you wouldn t be here right now. Every one of them shakes their head in an affirmative way and said, You are correct. I didn t get what I paid for there, and I m still searching for the correct information. Without fail, after they see the simple down-to-earth method I use in my instruction, they say there is no other place in golf to have their swing and game checked out and put back on track. None of them has ever left without telling me they now have their answers and are satisfied. The reason they, or anyone, come to me is because they are serious about understanding what goes on in a Darrell Klassen 4
proper golf swing. Because most of them are successful business men and women, they feel they have the right, and the intelligence, to be able to understand the golf swing for themselves. They feel they should be able to receive an explanation of the golf swing or an explanation of their particular problem in such a manner that they would be able to understand it well enough to teach it to someone else. After all, when they purchase any other product, whether it s an information based or physical product, they feel they should be able to understand it well enough to be able to share it with their friends and associates. In golf, this just doesn t seem to be the case at all. Golf professionals either aren t willing to pass out the real truth about a swing problem, or else maybe they don t really know the true and final answer to the problem. I am quite different. If I could accomplish what I would like to accomplish, I would be able to give you the information about ANY golf swing problem known to mankind in such a manner that you could go out and start teaching it to your friends tomorrow. There is old saying that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. However, if you teach him HOW to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. I have no desire whatsoever to SHOW you something about golf. I have no desire whatsoever to GIVE you a quick-fix bandage. I want to do my best to TEACH you HOW to fully understand the root cause of your problem and how to fix it instantly if it ever dares come back into your golf game Darrell Klassen 5
I consider myself a TEACHER of golf. Golfers email me from the four corners of the globe, and I fix their golf swing problems without ever seeing them swing the club. That s why I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the information you are about to discover will keep you in good shape from this day forward. I have never had a failure in teaching golf, and I have given over sixty-thousand lessons. You are not going to be my first failure. I know that, because you can email me when ever you feel the information in this booklet leaves you confused, and I will personally take the time to answer your question. Take your time. Read the information in the booklet, and then and this is a biggie take the time to sit in a quiet place, like your easy chair, and just think about every aspect of what I am taking the time to share with you. You have finally come to the right place for your golf instruction, and I am excited about your successes. Please take the time to email and share your successes with me. Go to: www.darrellsgolftraining.com for more products and information to help you with your golf game. Darrell Klassen 6
CHIPPING WILL SAVE YOUR GAME Every golfer in the world would love to knock every one of their chip shots right up next to the flagstick, if not into the bottom of the cup. This quality of chipping would save a number of strokes in a round of golf. You wouldn t even care whether or you even hit any greens in regulation, if you could chip everything right up next to the pin. That s the reason for this instructional information. There s no reason for you not to be able to do just that. And I do mean EVERY time you chip. Darrell Klassen 7
I personally would just as soon miss a green as to hit it on my approach shot, because I am going to either chip it into the cup, or I m going to leave my ball within a foot and a half of the hole, nearly EVERY time. By the way, I can flat play the game for an old man. I m not really that old. I am sixty-three at the writing of this book, and I already have surgeries scheduled to replace both knees and both hips this year. Why am I telling you this? Because I shot six under par on our back nine earlier this year. I very seldom play more than nine holes any more because of the knees and hips. Yet I was one under for the only eighteen-hole round I played last year, and I had numerous nine-hole rounds under par. I can still do this because I can flat get the ball into or close to the hole from around the green. I m going to teach you to do it. Chipping it close is to golf what gasoline is to your automobile. Without it, you ain t gettin very far. Excuse my English, but it s the absolute truth. The other thing I have to cover right here and now is that you are going to do some practicing. Acquiring soft touch and feel in golf doesn t fall on us like ripe apples out of a tree. We have to apply some labor, and most golfers don t want to hear that. However, anything in life worth having is worth the work and the effort. The very first aspect to good chipping is to learn how to apply backspin to your shots. Most amateur players don t have a clue how to do that, and all yes, I said ALL of the touring professionals put backspin on their chips and Darrell Klassen 8
pitch shots. That s why they re so much better at it that you. Well, you ve come to the right place this time. You just stumbled up on a big ole boy who s going to teach you exactly how to do it. And, it s so simple. You ll wonder why you didn t think of it yourself. When you can chip like a professional, your score will be on its way down. You will totally humiliate your buddies. I haven t even seen them play, but the mere fact that you purchased the book tells me you friends probably can t chip worth beans either. As you get better and better, you can either keep your secret or you can become their instructor. That s up to you. The thing I want is for you to understand the chip shot so well you could come take my place teaching it. Then you will see some GREAT numbers on your score card. Let s go to work. We ve got a lot of information to cover. Darrell Klassen 9
THE IMPORTANCE OF BACKSPIN Now we are ready to talk about BACKSPIN. Backspin seems to be such a mystery to the amateur golfer, and it is as simple as riding a bicycle. Most golfers think backspin is only good for making the ball spin back on the green. The fact of the matter is a golf ball cannot, and will not, even fly without backspin. When anyone hits a good golf ball the ones the touring players use, that are really expensive and therefore spin more one hundred yards with a pitching wedge, the golf ball is spinning backwards at a rate of 10,000 revolutions per minute. Darrell Klassen 10
When we hit that same good golf ball two hundred and fifty yards with a driver, the ball reaches a point where it is rotating at a rate of somewhere between 3,500 to 4,000 revolutions per minute. The number one law of physics that applies to ball flight is that a golf ball will not fly in the air unless it is spinning backwards. Have you ever played ping pong or tennis? In either of those two sports, we stroke upward and over the ball in order to create overspin or forward spin. The overspin naturally causes the ball in either of those two sports to dive downward as it clears the net. This gives us the ability to smash a driving, or hard, shot over the net and still have it land on the table or in the court. No one is unfamiliar with this phenomenon. We can all do it. Well, what would happen in either of those sports if we were to strike the ball in a manner that would impart backward spin, rather than overspin? Duh!! The ball would shoot through the air, and instead of dropping or diving over the net, it would rise right on into the air. Now, I m not trying to talk down to anyone when I say, Duh. I m only trying to get you to think in a new and different manner. Remember, I m here to help you learn something to change your golf game for the better. I want to change your thinking quickly and I want that change to become permanent. I want you to understand this for a very important reason: everything we ever do that is a motor skill, starts in, or comes out, of the subconscious mind. Darrell Klassen 11
Therefore, the very first thing I must do in order to get you to chip better, and to play better golf, is to change your thinking. An old friend of mine, Zig Ziglar the inspirational and motivational speaker, calls it STINKIN THINKIN, and I have to agree with him. Every bad golf shot I have ever hit in my long and wonderful career has been as a result of lousy thinking. I wasn t quite focused or I wasn t totally and absolutely convinced I could pull the shot off in the first place. Just a short while back, when I played the eighteenhole round I spoke of earlier, I hit a shot into the trees on the second hole. I needed to advance my golf ball on a five par hole at least a 170 yards on my second shot in order to have any chance of reaching the green safely in regulation. I was in the trees and there was an opening about the size of a bedroom window in a very average size house about 20 yards in front of me. The bottom of the opening was about eight or nine feet off the ground, and I had to draw the shot at least 10-15 yards in order to get to the position in the fairway where I wanted to be to hit my next shot to the green. I looked for a couple of minutes at the opening and at the type of shot I had to hit in order to be successful. Remember, my knees and hips are not just in bad shape, they re shot!! They ve had it, so I, quite frankly, struggle quite a bit just trying walk, let alone to hit the golf ball the way I used to hit it. Nonetheless, after a few moments I was able to see and feel the shot well enough in my mind that I was willing to give it a go. Darrell Klassen 12
Whack!!! That ball shot off the face of my five-wood like it had eyes. It climbed right up through the opening and then it started turning left down the fairway. I ended up almost exactly where I had planned for it to stop. I was in perfect position to be able to go to the green with an easy club after hitting into the trees with my tee shot. The three guys I was with are all very good friends of mine and they still talk about that shot. They could hardly believe their eyes when the ball went right through that little opening. They thought I was going to hook my five-wood under the trees and basically just punch out into the fairway. Why all of this in a book about chipping? I started a few paragraphs ago talking about confidence. We should NEVER attempt to hit ANY golf shot in which we are not 100 percent confident we can do it. That is a biggie I just gave you there, and it was free of charge. You had better make a note about that one. You ll need it some day. All golfers struggle with their chipping because they have no clue how the shot is to be properly struck. Because you have no clue how the shot is to be properly struck, you have NO CONFIDENCE in your ability to pull it off successfully. Wow!! There s another huge one for your mind to try to absorb. In order to apply backspin to any type of ball, we must strike the back side of it with a descending blow. Darrell Klassen 13
Just relax, close your eyes, and see yourself applying backspin to any kind of ball you desire. Think of doing it with several different types of balls. How about a tennis ball? What about a beach ball? A basketball? What about a ping pong ball? How would you apply backspin to a ping pong ball with a ping pong paddle? How would you then apply backspin to a ping pong ball lying out on the lawn still using a ping pong paddle? What if your ping pong paddle had a very long handle? How would you apply backspin to a ping pong ball sitting on the lawn using a golf club? You would simply make the clubface slice downward along the back side and slightly below the equator of the ball, and then the club head would either enter the grass or it would at least brush the grass. Now, notice I said the clubface and clubhead would contact the ball slightly prior to striking the grass. This would definitely make backspin. Now you are on your way to becoming a better chipper because you would do the same thing with a golf ball as you would with a ping pong ball. Take a look at the drawing and spend some time thinking how I just discussed the chip swing would cause you to possibly take a divot from the very bottom of the golf ball FORWARD. Darrell Klassen 14
Swing Arc Divot Drawing 1 The proper way to take a divot Divot Starts Under Golf Ball & Continues Past It Drawing 2 Top view of a proper divot You have always wondered how us professionals do that. Haven t you? Now you know. It s too simple!! A child can do it. Anyone can do it, but there are a couple of things that must be in place for it to happen. I m going to cover them starting in the next chapter. Darrell Klassen 15
IT S LIKE CHOPPING WOOD Have you ever chopped a log or a piece of wood lying on the ground? Have you ever chopped a tree down, like George Washington did? Don t lie about it. What in the world does this have to do with playing golf? Why are you asking if we have ever chopped a log or a tree? What does golf have to do with all of this? Everything! It is physically impossible to chop a log on the ground or to chop a tree down with and axe without using your wrists. The chopping motion is an upward and a downward motion of the wrists. Think about it for a moment or two. It Darrell Klassen 16
is. I ve done a bunch of it!! My dad made me chop fire wood when I was a youngster. I didn t know it then, but that was a great exercise for my chipping and for my full golf swing. The wrists move up and down in the golf swing. They also move up and down in the chip shot. Grab a wedge. Now, holding it any way you wish, simply chop the ground or floor right in front of your body. Photo 1 Starting hand position Darrell Klassen 17
Photo 2 Wrists moving up Photo 3 Wrists chopping down Darrell Klassen 18
Now, try doing that from the side like you see in the following photos and keep your weight on your front side throughout the motion. In the chipping motion there isn t enough time to transfer weight, so we place it on the front side before we ever start the stroke and keep it there. Photo 4 Starting hand position Darrell Klassen 19
Photo 5 Wrists moving up to the side Photo 6 Wrists chop down from the side Darrell Klassen 20
When I have students standing right in front of me I like to have them or I do it for them move their wrists up and down, just like you have seen in the photos above. Then I take a hold of the shaft of their club and cause their wrists make a chopping motion from the side. Photo 7 Starting hand position Darrell Klassen 21
Photo 8 Wrists moving up to the side Photo 9 Wrists chop down from the side Darrell Klassen 22
Then, I like to ask them if their wrists are still moving up and down. Without fail they will tell me, No. Before you could hardly blink your eyes, though, they get this puzzled look on their face and say, Well, I m still moving them up and down, but it s from the side. That makes it seem like I m not chopping, but I actually am. Aren t I? YES!!! You just got it! As we rotate the forearms, we still have the ability to chop from the side. Now, get this one: THAT S WHERE WE GET OUR LEVERAGE TO SWING A GOLF CLUB STRONGLY. At Thanksgiving dinner several years ago, my niece asked her mother if she could have a second piece of a layered Jello salad, which was laced with whipped cream. When her mother said she could, my niece exclaimed, Oh, Baby!!! You should have shouted, Oh, Baby, too, when you read that little sentence I just got through capitalizing. It is one of the major keys to everything we do in the golf swing. If you want to learn how to chip it close, learn how to use your wrists from the side. If you want to hit killer drives and fairway shots, learn how to use your wrists from the side. Allow me a cute side note. Just recently, my wife gave our granddaughter a piece of German chocolate cake. When she did that, our granddaughter s eyes got as big as saucers, and she said gleefully, Yeah! Come to Mama! We nearly rolled on the floor laughing, because the expression was so much like that of our niece s several years earlier. Darrell Klassen 23
Are you starting to see how you can use your wrists from the side? You can actually do this at any angle you so desire. The steeper you chop into the ground, the lower your chip shot or any shot, for that matter will fly. The more level to the ground I like to call it shallower you chop, the higher the ball will fly. Make another mental note right here: The human body is not capable of chopping level to the ground to a golf ball that is more back in our stance. Likewise, the human body is not capable of chopping very steeply into a ball that is forward in our stance. Here we find one of the many areas where I take great exception to the normal golf instruction you read, hear, and see out there in the magazines and on television. If the human body is not even capable of performing a certain task, then why is the task still being taught? There are a great number of things being taught by all of the instructors, which the human body isn t even capable of performing. Every one of these physically impossible tasks and positions are a great part of what is being promoted in our PGA Teaching Manuel. Shame on our own profession and on the teaching industry for not taking the time to research their information a whole lot better! Here we go! Now that you ve got your hands working up and down from different angles, I want you to begin to tap the earth, or ground, from a variety of angles. I know this all sounds nuts, but just do it. You remember the old saying, Because I m the mother. Well, that s why I want you to do this, just because I said so. You will see the benefits from it all as we go along. Darrell Klassen 24
As you are tapping the earth with your clubhead at a variety of angles, I would like for you to see if you can begin to feel how to do that with your left hand, rather than your right hand. Now, watch this: When you hammer, your wrist goes up and down. If you turn your arm a bit, your hand naturally turns a bit also, and you are able to hammer from the side. Photo 10 Strong grip position Look at the photo here, and you see that I have rotated my left hand on the grip of the club to what is called a stronger position. This allows me to use my wrist in a hammering or chopping motion from the side, yet the back of the wrist is in line with the chopping or hammering motion. Darrell Klassen 25
What I m really trying to say to you is that if you rotate your left hand a bit clockwise on the club, it is much easier to chop or hammer from the side. It puts your hand into a position that is perfectly natural for the side hammer or chop. You ll notice that when you first started to chop from the side only, one of two things could have taken place: 1) either you turn your left hand clockwise on the club in order to chop with a relatively square clubface, or 2) the clubface had to turn open when you turned your hands to make the motion. In order to keep the clubface somewhat square to the target, we need to strengthen our left hand position, as shown in the above photo. Remember, the wrist is only made to hinge up and down. Therefore, in order to hinge them up and down from the side, one or both of them must be turned to that side. I prefer to only turn the left wrist, while keeping my right palm relatively square to the clubface. In order to understand this better, take a look at the next photo. In this photo I have taken the normal good grip I would take in order to make any normal golf swing or chip shot. Darrell Klassen 26
Photo 11 Normal grip on the club Once again, I want you to see how my left hand is in the stronger position, while my right hand is fairly neutral on the club. By neutral, I mean the palm of my right hand is relatively square to the clubface. Most of you have your hands in a position that is almost the opposite of mine. Your right hand is probably in the strong position, and your left hand is in the neutral position. This promotes the stronger use of the right hand in the swing, the chopping motion, rather than allowing the left hand to dominate. In fact, that s the number one reason the average golfer doesn t like it when a professional fixed his hands into the proper, or more popular, position. Darrell Klassen 27
Here is a photo of the grip taken by most amateurs. You see how the right hand is under the club a bit. This is called a strong right hand. Photo 12 Strong right hand grip Although the strong right hand position makes you feel more comfortable, it is not good and it causes you to pull the ball to the left in a lot of your shots. This is a chipping book, though, so I won t go into that at this point. You merely need to know that the strong right hand position definitely makes the average player feel much more secure on the golf club, but that particular feeling of security is deceiving. You think you can rip the golf ball with this grip, and you feel you can more easily control your shots with it. WRONG in both cases. Darrell Klassen 28
That s why I want you to become familiar with a good grip for your chipping. If you can get used to a proper grip for your shorter shots, you will not tend to fight the feeling of a good grip with your longer shots. Darrell Klassen 29
HOW TO MAKE BACKSPIN Now it s time to take the things we ve covered and put them to use. Let s use the choppingfrom-the-side motion to create backspin on the golf ball. Keep that in mind. We are creating backspin with this chopping motion. It has nothing whatsoever to do with lifting the ball into the air. In order to create the backward spin on the golf ball, place your hands slightly ahead of the golf ball and focus your mind on tapping the ground with the clubhead. Darrell Klassen 30
Go back and look at the drawing of the proper divot. You are not going to make a big divot, but you are going to get the sole of the club to bounce off the turf RIGHT AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THE GOLF BALL. Read that again. I want you to bounce the sole of the club off the ground right at the golf ball. If you have the DVD on this, take a look at the motion. The hands are ahead of the clubhead and they are ahead of the golf ball at the address position. They are still ahead of the golf ball at impact, and because you use your wrist motion to chop, the clubhead finishes the swing without getting any higher than your ankles. If you sweep your shot, you can not get the club to stop at ankle height. However, if you chop or hammer, or even if you feel as though you are merely tapping the ground, you use only your wrists and the club almost automatically stops VERY LOW TO THE GROUND. This stumps everyone because you have been taught in the past to follow through. The term follow through has been so misunderstood and wrongly taught that it s not even funny. What s worse, it s being done by almost every single one of the big famous name guys you see on the Golf Channel. That s another story in its own. However, I always wonder if the Golf Channel is really trying to help you golfers or if its main goal is to completely confuse you in order to keep you hooked on their network. I do know one thing for certain: If you can teach golfers how something works and you explain it in a manner where everyone gets it, then you have fed them for a lifetime. Darrell Klassen 31
My golfers come back to see me, and they seek information from me on a regular basis, but it s rarely for the same problem they ve had in the past. They understand how to take care of that one if it ever shows back up in their game. You have to understand something: If I can really do the job I am attempting to do with this information, you will know how to chip the way I do and the way the touring professionals do, and you will never again need to spend money trying to learn about chipping. I know it sounds crazy, but my goal is to help every golfer in the world learn enough about every aspect of the golf swing, so they will never have to take another lesson the rest of their life. I am self-taught. I have never taken a golf lesson in my life, and I will never have to take one either. Well, I did have a couple of lessons when I was ten years old, but that doesn t really count in the scheme of things. I can fix myself, and I want to teach you to be able to fix yourself too. That s what I want, with all my heart, to help you achieve. After all, did you ever stop to think why in the world would one golf professional need to go to another golf professional to fix his swing? I can t for the life of me understand why a touring professional needs to go to a professional golf instructor. If he s any kind of pro, why can t he fix himself? I ve been a golf professional for over forty years, and I have been fortunate enough to play at tour level. I didn t play the tour. I don t care to travel. Darrell Klassen 32
However, I used to consistently beat the pants off of a couple of PGA tour buddies of mine, and they always said I could have made a lot of money out there. Who knows and who cares? I can still play scratch golf, and I m pretty crippled up with arthritis in the knees and hips. As I was saying earlier, if you can learn to focus on striking the turf right at the bottom of the golf ball, you automatically create backward spin on the ball. Just as soon as you can do that consistently, you are ready to learn how to knock it close EVERY time you make a chip shot. Take some fingernail polish and paint a stripe around a golf ball. Then, when you practice in your yard, or even in the house keep the swing and the shot VERY tiny you can actually see the ball spin backward. Remember, just because you spin the ball backward doesn t mean you are able to make it back up on the green. That doesn t happen with anyone s chip shots. Keep in mind, when you create this kind of backspin the ball will not fly as high as you usually think it should. That is not a problem because the extra spin you have learned to put on the ball slows it down and makes it roll a lot softer. Darrell Klassen 33
LET S GET IT CLOSE How are you coming with the wrist motion by now? Hopefully, you are starting to acquire a feel for the hands in the chip stroke. You will never become a great chipper until you can learn how to use the hands for the shot. Now that you are starting to produce more backspin it s time to show you how to begin to chip it close to the hole. At this point, the subconscious mind once again plays a great part in the process. The conscious mind fully understands that your intention is to chip the golf ball onto the green and have it roll to the flagstick and stop. Darrell Klassen 34
When you are in this natural thought process, your conscious mind is on the cup. What golfers don t realize is that their subconscious mind is also on the cup. The problem is that the subconscious mind thinks it s supposed to fly the ball all the way to the cup. That is why many of your best contact shots end up going way too far. Then, in an effort to not hit the ball so far on the next shot, your subconscious mind decelerates the club and you scuff the shot. It goes nowhere. One shot is too long and the next is too short. Here comes the confusion we definitely don t want or need. In order to eliminate this dilemma and to become a great chipper, you must learn to focus your mind on your LANDING SPOT rather than on the cup. You see, the conscious mind understands you want to land it somewhere and then let it roll. The subconscious mind doesn t think or process in that manner. Therefore, it thinks you just want to hit it all the way to the hole on the fly. Here s the point. All of our motor skill motion comes out of the subconscious mind. In other words, the subconscious mind is the one hitting the shot. The conscious mind plans the shot, and the subconscious mind actually makes the stroke. Well, no wonder you ve had this battle all of these years! It really wasn t your fault in the first place. You just haven t understood how the mind works when it comes to this type of motion. Darrell Klassen 35
Here s how we do this. A pitching wedge travels approximately one-half of the total distance in the air and rolls the other half. I m talking about level ground here, so adjust for uphill and downhill chip shots. These are not laws. Therefore, they are an approximation and a general rule of thumb. However, with just a bit of practice, you will see this work quite consistently for you. An eight iron flies approximately one-third of the distance in the air and rolls the other two-thirds, and a sand wedge flies approximately two-thirds of the total distance in the air and rolls the other one-third. As I said, this is all a general rule of thumb because greens vary in their firmness and the height of their cut. However, it will help you start to chip the golf ball much closer than you have in the past. Learn how to focus your mind and practice on landing your golf ball on a selected spot rather than trying to learn how to stop it at a certain spot. This allows you to apply a good firm stroke to the golf ball each and every time. A good firm stroke also applies the optimum amount of backspin each and every time you chip, so you begin to get a consistent amount of roll from each shot. This is called ball control. When you can spin it the amount you want and you can land it where you want, you can easily make it roll up to the cup time after time with great confidence. Here s a little tip to practice building your touch around the greens. Darrell Klassen 36
I like to pick out a place about two to three feet from where my ball is lying, and then I try to see if I can make the ball land exactly on that spot. If I am using a pitching wedge for my practice, the golf ball might roll, after it hits my spot, another foot or so. Then, I take the next ball and try to hit the first ball on the fly with my chip. With the next ball, I try to land it on the second ball, and so on for the next several balls. You can get pretty good at this. Golfers have written from around the globe to tell me how much this little drill has improved their chipping. Do this with your pitching wedge, then try it with your sand wedge, and then your eight-iron. Have fun with it. Don t make your practice WORK!! Keep it light and FUN!! You will do more practicing when it is fun for you than you will if it becomes work. Plus, if you are working at it, your success rate may make the whole process discouraging to you. Now, go to the golf course and when you practice at the chipping green, see how many of the balls you can knock into the cup. That s what I said, IN THE CUP. Why not? You re only having fun. It s not your livelihood. When I used to practice chipping, I would fill the cup and then try to finish with the rest of my golf balls touching at least one of the others. I would have as many as fifty golf balls on the green, all touching one another, and the cup filled. Those were FUN times. You are now well on your way to becoming a great chipper. Darrell Klassen 37
CHIPPING AND PUTTING ARE WITHOUT A DOUBT THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENTS TO PLAYING PAR GOLF. I have tried to present this information in a manner that helps you understand exactly what you see the PGA Tour professionals doing on your television. If you follow what you have read, along with studying and following the information I have put in the Chipping It Close video, you will become a marvelous chipper, and your scores will come down. Thank you for taking the time to read and study this information. I have spent over forty years perfecting it and the way I attempt to communicate it all to you. Be sure to go to the web site and take a look at the other information that is available for your benefit. And remember, Golf s An Easy Game when you know what you re doing. Darrell Klassen 38